KIRSTIE SIMSON WORKSHOP
Dance Improvisation that offers Resilience and Support in Difficult Times
Kirstie draws from her extensive experience of Contact Improvisation, dance techniques, the Alexander technique, Aikido, meditation, and her broad knowledge of improvisation in performance. She shares her work through facilitated exercises, open time for play and exploration, movement scores, observations, discussion, and humour.
Much of the work is experienced through partnering, respectful touch, and connection with others, balanced with solo time for processing and reflection. Weather-permitting we will also explore scores that take us outside.
There is deep inspiration and rigor in a practice of improvisation that posits vulnerability at its heart. Developing the skills to be able to care for, engage, respect, and respond to that state of openness in oneself, others and our environment generates creative work that is powerful and transformative. Learning from a place of interconnectedness can give us the resilience and
insight to face into life’s challenges and complexities.
In this workshop Kirstie shares the movement practices and underlying philosophies she has developed over forty-five years of committed involvement with dance improvisation as a ‘life-practice’ that has helped her negotiate life’s ups and downs.
Kirstie Simson (UK) has been a continuous explosion in the contemporary dance scene, bringing audiences into contact with the vitality of pure creation in moment after moment of virtuoso improvisation. Called "a force of nature" by the New York Times, she is an award-winning dancer and teacher who has "immeasurably enriched and expanded the boundaries of New Dance" according to Time Out Magazine, London. Kirstie is renowned internationally as an excellent teacher, a captivating performer and a leading light in the field of Dance Improvisation. For thirteen years she was a tenured professor in the Department of Dance at the University of Illinois, USA. In August 2020 Kirstie returned to her home base in Wales UK from where she continues to explore and share her work as an Independent Artist. Kirstie is currently developing work around the topic of Movement, Health, & ‘Being’ Well, as a result of going through a health crisis that has challenged all her previous notions about what it means to be sick or healthy. She also sees her own illness as intrinsically connected to the ill health of the planet.