Ground
Build clear pathways into, across and away from the floor with efficiency and awareness.
Relational & Physical Intelligence for Contact Improvisation
A Contact Improvisation workshop connecting relational intelligence with physicality in meaningful, joy-centric and playful ways.
This workshop has ended. View events →
Dates17 & 18
October 2026
October 2026
Saturday + Sunday
Time14:00–18:00
Both days
VenueDegas International Dance Academy
About the workshop
Relational & Physical Intelligence for Contact Improvisation
A Contact Improvisation workshop connecting relational intelligence with physicality in meaningful, joy-centric and playful ways.
Together, we will investigate tools for stronger clarity in our somatic communications, building attentional skills and physical capacities.
We will explore, admire, and press the edges of our abilities in the dance in our own bodies, as well as in partner and trio form.
Integrating the body of work of Nita Little, this workshop will strive toward generating opportunities and options in our dances, and in life, beyond!
Air
Approach elevation through preparation, support and an understanding of shared forces.
Partnering
Study weight exchange, timing and communication as practical tools for moving together.
Play
Use improvisation to discover options, interrupt habits and let technique serve curiosity.
The weekend
One arc
across two days.
- Day 01
Foundations & shared language
Tune attention, clarify floor pathways and investigate how partners communicate through touch, direction, tone and timing.
- Day 01
Weight & support
Develop practical ways to offer, receive and redirect weight while maintaining agency and responsiveness.
- Day 02
Elevation & changing levels
Let grounded mechanics support safer, more legible transitions toward lifts, inversions and moving through the air.
- Day 02
Improvisation & composition
Bring the weekend's material into longer dancing, using play and compositional choice to make the practice your own.
Programme note
Four hours
each day.
The workshop runs from 14:00 to 18:00 on both Saturday and Sunday.
This workshop has ended. View events →
About the facilitator
Leighann
Kowalsky
Leighann Kowalsky is a dance and circus artist, choreographer, producer and educator based in New York's Hudson Valley. She performs, choreographs and teaches internationally across Contact Improvisation, contemporary dance, partnering, acrobatics and movement research.
Leighann holds a BA in Communications and Psychology and an MFA in Choreography. Her work spans education, performance, curriculum development and somatic research; she currently serves as Research Supervisor and Adjunct Professor for the MFA in Choreography at Reinhardt University and as Global Coordinator at the Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication.
Her teaching brings together the practical physics and safety knowledge of circus with Contact Improvisation's attention to relation, choice and embodied communication.
Practical information
Prepare for two days.
- Wear
- Comfortable, layered clothes for floorwork and partnering. Remove sharp jewellery and accessories.
- Bring
- Water, something light for the break, and any personal supports you need for sustained movement practice.
- Venue
- Degas International Dance Academy
Rotterdamsweg 386 B18, 2629 HG Delft, Netherlands