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Dance With Me

Contact Improv is a collaborative dance form, harnessing gravity, momentum, weight, and levity to create movement that is spontaneous, responsive and joyful.

  • Month long class series

  • Weekend workshops

  • One-on-one coaching

  • Functional fitness in a studio environment

  • Tailored curriculum for all levels

  • Hire me to visit your city and teach

© Kristina Clark 2019

  • Biomechanics

  • Kinetic architecture

  • Joint centration

  • Lead and lag - elastic rebound

  • Jumping: propulsion and reception

  • Spinal mechanics

  • Safe transitions

  • Falling softly

  • Spirals

  • Inversions

  • Duet and trio forms

  • Connection to your own structure, to the earth, to another dancer

PREVIOUS WORKSHOPS

Experience choreography that emerges rather than imposes.

Contact Improv emerged 51 years ago at the colleges of Oberlin and Bennington.  It tends to elude definition.  It was initiated by a small group of dancers and martial artists who wanted to uncover a quality of movement using shared weight.  They were looking for impulses and
pathways that emerged from the senses, at the intersection of physics and anatomy.  

It is a rigorous, research based dance form that thrives on curiosity and play. By sharpening our capacity to listen, we learn to fly with ease, and to fall with softness. We train ourselves to care for the safety of those around us, and create permission to follow what Mary Oliver called "the soft animal of your body."   

I respect the vulnerability of the teacher/student relationship - you are already the fluent master of your own body.  

Let's unlock that knowledge.

  • “Aaron Birk has been a dedicated and disciplined student of mine since 2017. He is a careful, thoughtful, and intelligent presence and has made steady, rapid progress in the integration of the alignment principles outlined in the Axis Syllabus ©. He is a talented visual artist, an excellent CI partner, and a creative, sensitive, impassioned and empathic teacher.”

    - Frey Faust (Dance Teacher, Author of The Axis Syllabus)

  • "I met Aaron in 2017 and since then I have had the chance to get to know him better and better during the many Axis Syllabus workshops he has attended, but above all since 2020 I have been offering Aaron regular private mentoring sessions. I appreciate his dedication and enthusiasm for the study of the body in movement and its transmission. His continuous progress is remarkable. But above all, what I appreciate and respect in Aaron is his tireless passion and curiosity for life, for his work, for the creative act and his desire to share it."

    - Francesca Pedullà (Dance Teacher)

  • "Aaron is a generous and welcoming teacher. He has a great commitment to details and safe techniques in contact dance. A professional artist and art teacher, he is committed to understanding each person's needs and finding ways to help them understand the material. His energy is incredible and makes you appreciate Contact Improv in its essence "

    - Zornitsa Stoyanova (Dance Collaborator)

  • "In just three days, Aaron took our group from being mostly strangers to a deeply physically and emotionally intertwined community. I learned new ways of moving, feeling, and relating to another. And in a very surprising way, I learned new things about myself. I would absolutely do another Aaron Birk facilitated workshop."

    - Matthew, Workshop Participant

  • "Energetically satisfying. Sensitively restorative. Highly recommended workshop!"

    - Catie, Workshop Participant

Ensemble Research

© Aaron Birk 2024

I am always looking for experienced and professional dancers with whom to train, and engage in research and performance. Reach out if you are interested in connecting with me.