The Elephant in the Jam: Eros

It’s there.  It’s always been there.  It’s always going to be there.  The Elephant in the Jam is Eros.  Just because we say ‘physics, not chemistry’, doesn’t mean that erotic energy isn’t fueling our dance.  Of course it is.  Dance and Eros are inextricably linked.  That’s why dance is so life-affirming. But what would it look like to own our erotic energy more consciously so that it doesn’t come out as shadow?  What would it take to allow ourselves to expand more fully into the erotic?  How might we allow our joy, passion and pleasure to deeply nourish our dances in ways that feel safe, honoring and dignified?  Please join me in this upcoming intensive where we’ll engage these questions as we welcome the Elephant into the Jam as an honored and celebrated guest.  We will experiment, play, reflect, and engage with the erotic in new and powerful ways that just might change your life – certainly it will change your dance.

Kristen Chamberlin, MS, LMT, SEP, is a Massage & Somatic Therapist, parent and dancer, with 25 years experience in private practice, retreat facilitation and training.  She directs the Somatic Center (somatic-center.com) in Northampton, MA with a focus on embodied approaches to healing; stress related medical conditions, trauma and Intimacy and Body-Awareness issues, drawing on Somatic Experiencing, Massage, Mindfulness, Himalayan Tantra, Dance and Yoga.  She is core teaching faculty at Institute for Sexuality Education and Enlightenment, and is founder of Tantric Ground (http://www.meetup.com/Tantric-Ground-Northampton/), a local Tantra learning community based on a direct lineage from Northern India.

Guiding and Surrendering:
Explore conscious powerplay through dance

Explore conscious power play through dance. Power dynamics are present all the time, kink is about making power dynamics clear, creative, and consensual. Want to build trust, and adventure into desires that are at the edge of your comfort? Curious about embodying your masculine energy, your feminine energy, or both at the same time? Discover how gender impacts your impulse to guide or surrender (gender free words for two complementary energies!) Expand your experience of turn on and learn how to “heart fuck,” and make love with body parts that aren’t genitals! Bring this new awareness into your dances. Play with rhythm on the body: spanking, face slapping, and womb drumming… Your wild instincts are welcome and celebrated here: hair pulling, biting, scratching, growling, and more! You are free to discover and ask for what you really desire in a safe compassionate space that does not shame your wants. This is also an empowering space to say, “no,” strengthen your boundaries and voice them with confidence. You will learn about “safe words,” scene negotiations, tracking body consent, and after care. You are welcome to come with a beloved with whom you desire to go deep or to come ready to make some new connections. Are you ready to play?!

Zahava Griss is a kinky, gender transcendent, dancer, bodyworker, and embodied leadership trainer.  They have been dancing for 30 years and entered a kinky lifestyle 7 years ago.  They have certifications in Urban Tantra, Yoga for Birth, Pilates, and Health Coaching.  They studied the sexual and spiritual arts of Sufi whirling, Sexual Shamanism, BDSM, bioenergetics, and transformational group dynamics.  They perform and teach at national conferences on healing racism, Dark Odyssey, Black Entertainment Television, New York University, Hunter College, the International Inspiring Women’s Summit, the Kennedy Center, the NY Midwifery conference, prenatal yoga teacher training, and the Deepak Chopra Center.  They have had the honor of serving and performing with Orpheus Black for many sweet years.  Learn more at www.EmbodyMoreLove.com

Queering the Jam: Unfolding the story of gender in our dancing

In the story of CI, Steve Paxton created a dance about physics and connection.  Gender played no role.  Any one could dance in any way.  And yet we bring our whole selves to our dancing. We bring who we want to be, and who we were taught to be.  We encounter what others expect us to be.  Gender creeps in…   And that’s not necessarily bad.  We can play with gender in CI, stretching and subverting its norms, delighting in its many qualities, stepping outside our daily identities.   But we also can dance out ideas that we don’t necessarily believe in, deeply buried ideas that come out in ways that limit our dancing or that of those around us.

• How is gender embedded in your dancing?
• Where do you encounter gendered behavior or ideas in your movement and your relationship to others?
• Where do your embodied ideas about gender expand or limit your possibilities (both on and off the dance floor)?
• How can contact improvisation allow a safe space for exploration beyond the confines of the gender you were raised to inhabit?
• Does your gender expression change depending on who you are dancing with?
• Do you place different expectations on other dancers based on your perception of their gender (or sex, or sexuality)?

Let’s explore together and may this unearthing of stories create more freedom in our dancing!

Kristin Horrigan has been questioning gender for 20 years and dancing contact improvisation for nearly as long.  The two explorations have been deeply bound together.  For the past several years, Kristin has been creating spaces to help CI dancers unpack what conscious and unconscious ideas about gender live in their bodies and come out to play in their dancing.  These workshops drawing on her work as a professor of Dance and Gender studies at Marlboro College in Vermont and as a long time teacher of contact improvisation.  Kristin will be teaching a version of this same workshop at Tanzfabrik in Berlin later in July.