Instant Decisions: Movement Improvisation for Everyone 

“Just as no two bodies are alike, no two bodies express themselves in the same way.”

Maurice Béjart, choreographer

This week-long workshop will investigate essential elements of dance composition (time, space and energy) to create dances in, and of, the moment. Movement based improvisation techniques and structures provide a framework for creative physical exploration and self-expression. Participants will cultivate individual and ensemble awareness, and enhance their performance skills.

Workshop Goals

• Enhance the individual’s body awareness as well as cultivate an ensemble sensibility 
• Embrace movement as a form of self-expression and creativity.
• Cultivate a fearless approach to improvising that challenges one’s self to take risks.  
• Accept and learn from failures – not every improvisation will be successful, but how can we learn from this?  
• Build skills in improvising with supporting or collaborative elements such as text, images, music and props.  
• Create improvised performances that illustrate an awareness of space, time, and dynamic, as well as performance presence.  

COST: Just $15 for this 3-day workshop!

Each session with begin with a guided somatic movement session to heighten physical sensation, increase corporeal sensitivity and awaken kinesthetic delight. The workshop will be structured in units, each with a focus on a technique or facet of improvisation. These units will sometimes relate to each other like building blocks and at other times connect like puzzle pieces. At the end of the session time will be set aside for participants to journal about their observations and experiences. Discussion time is integrated throughout the process for to synthesize information and engage in critical dialogue. The course will culminate in an improvised performance open to friends, family and the public.

Participants will need a notebook, clothes they can move in, and a sense of adventure. 

Instructor – Jessica Bonenfant Coogan 

Jessica recently completed a semester as visiting faculty in the dance department at Grand Valley State University and is a frequent guest teaching-artist for the Department of Theatre and Film at University of Toledo. She holds an MFA in choreography from University of Michigan, where she has taught dance technique, composition and improvisation, and earned her BA in dance from Marymount Manhattan College. She is a certified yoga teacher and a member of CDP/NYC, a group that practices performance improvisation grounded in Buddhist philosophy. Jessica has been an artist-in-residence at The Field, The Silo and at Performing Arts Forum in St. Erme, France. 

Jessica ‘s company, Lola Lola Dance Theatre, creates collaborative, interdisciplinary, often multi-media performances for site-specific and traditional venues. Her work, a blend of movement, text and striking imagery, has been seen extensively in New York City and across the United States. Jessica was recently had the pleasure of sitting on the selection committee for the 2015 Midwest Regional Alternative Dance Festival (RAD Fest). In 2014 she created a new work in collaboration with live music for Grand Rapid’s Dance in the Annex and presented excerpts of her forthcoming solo show, Clover in the Desert, at Detroit Contemporary. She also taught a site-specific movement workshop at the ruins of a medieval church for the Abhainn Ri festival in Ireland. In 2012, Lola Lola Dance Theatre’s week-long installation Sacre Bleu! Or, Camembert 8 Euros received support from the National Endowment for the Arts via Chashama’s Windows program. 

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