What is Improvisation exchange leeds?
Improvisation Exchange Leeds offers movement based workshops that welcome all levels – professional dancers as well as people new to improvisation. The main focus is on individual movement exploration and most of our workshops take their starting point in practices that allow each participant to explore their own movement potential and interest.
The artists and practitioners leading the workshops have a specific interest in movement improvisation often focusing on different movement qualities, relationship with the surroundings or other participants. They may come from backgrounds of somatic practices (such as Feldenkrais, Body-Mind-Centring and Skinner Releasing Technique), theatre, music and voice or other dance practices (Tango, contemporary dance, Butoh) but all sessions are based on improvisation. See news page for which teacher will be leading the sessions to come. For teachers past and present see teacher page.
Following each 2-hour class is a jam which encourages participants to take the individual explorations from the workshop into a free movement jam. In this jam it’s possible to make contact with others and often these jam are Contact Improvisation jams. The teacher will lead the group into the jam with prompts or tasks that follow their workshop.
Who we are
Rachel Dean
Rachel is a contemporary dance artist who performs, teaches and choreographs. She has danced Contact Improvisation for 14 years, is passionate about sharing her love of the form and regularly teaches dance undergraduates, open adult groups, adults with learning disabilities and professional dancers. Her choreography (e.g. Nativity, Wolf, Love in Idleness) is strongly influenced by her improvisation practice and she performs regularly with improvisation collective Mathilde. She recently completed her MA thesis 'Entwining Solo Pathways through a Duet Form: A Practice-based Investigation of Contact Improvisation.' http://racheljanedean.wordpress.com
Rachel is a contemporary dance artist who performs, teaches and choreographs. She has danced Contact Improvisation for 14 years, is passionate about sharing her love of the form and regularly teaches dance undergraduates, open adult groups, adults with learning disabilities and professional dancers. Her choreography (e.g. Nativity, Wolf, Love in Idleness) is strongly influenced by her improvisation practice and she performs regularly with improvisation collective Mathilde. She recently completed her MA thesis 'Entwining Solo Pathways through a Duet Form: A Practice-based Investigation of Contact Improvisation.' http://racheljanedean.wordpress.com
Marie Hallager Andersen
Marie is one of the co-founders of the Improvisation Exchange and has been teaching sessions since 2012. She is a Leeds-based dance artists originally from Denmark. She works freelance as a dance improviser, yoga teacher and Life Coach and as a facilitator of Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process. A graduate from NSCD from 2005 and an MA Creative Practice from Trinity Laban in London 2016, her interest in dance is rooted in improvisation and somatic practices. She uses methodologies and principles from across her practices in improvisation, yoga and coaching to inspire and inform her teaching. Her current research lies in embodied knowledge and how we can understand and value what it means ‘to know’ in the body.
Marie is one of the co-founders of the Improvisation Exchange and has been teaching sessions since 2012. She is a Leeds-based dance artists originally from Denmark. She works freelance as a dance improviser, yoga teacher and Life Coach and as a facilitator of Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process. A graduate from NSCD from 2005 and an MA Creative Practice from Trinity Laban in London 2016, her interest in dance is rooted in improvisation and somatic practices. She uses methodologies and principles from across her practices in improvisation, yoga and coaching to inspire and inform her teaching. Her current research lies in embodied knowledge and how we can understand and value what it means ‘to know’ in the body.
Daliah Touré
Ian Howie