DANCE ON LAND | partnering
An 8-day training in nature led by
SHINICHI IOVA-KOGA | CHARLES COLTEN | DANA IOVA-KOGA
June 21-28, 2013
Held at inkGround, a dance center located in Petrolia, a hamlet in the remote Mattole valley of California’s Lost Coast, 6-hours drive from San Francisco.
This year, Shinichi and Dana will be joined by Aikido-ka Charles Colten, who will lead the morning sessions, beginning with a taoist shamanic shaking qi qong, a practice that loosens the rigid and habitual structures of the body and mind, opens the flow of chi, and allows new awareness and discoveries to emerge.
This solo practice will be followed by partner practices derived from, and inspired by, Aikido; a peaceful Japanese martial art that finds its roots in the natural world and the ancient practices of sword, spear, judo, daito ryu, and shinto mythology. Modern Aikido, a synthesis of these ancient arts, combines joyful exploration with meaningful non-verbal dialogues; corporal, emotional, and spiritual- allowing practitioners to further explore themselves and all of their relations.
Afternoons will be spent with Shinichi and Dana. Shinichi’s training is focused on kinesthetic listening and response. Through rigorous physical exercises (propulsion and resistance through space, inhabiting stillness, developing sharp transitions from state to state), he attunes the body to become dynamically responsive to the environment and to energies both inside and surrounding the body. This sharpened sensory body is open to images that shape the quality of motion (or stillness). Dana, a former member of Min Tanaka’s Tokason company, brings Body Weather training practices into the mix, including “sensory harvesting,” to cultivate a greater sensitivity to the elements of nature that surround us. The material that is harvested will feed our dancing bodies and imaginations.
In our physical training we will work from the body’s intrinsic tension, releasing the unnecessary to find a balance of strength and softness. We will work from the center (tanden) to move the far-reaching limbs. We will develop listening in relation to time, space, motion, inner rhythms and one another.
inkGround is surrounded by trees, mountains, river, ocean, gardens and orchards. We will be working in all of these microclimates, as well as in the dance studio in the barn. Discovering the body in the environment and our places within it, we’ll work in solo, duet and group improvisations.
Housing is your tent.
Kitchen is outside.
Toilet is rustic.
Here is a video from 2009!