Asher is a Contact Improvisation teacher based in England. He’s practised, performed and researched Contact Improvisation, Dance Improvisation, Contemporary Dance & Physical Theatre for over 25 years. Aside from dancing and creating with other Humans, he loves being and interacting with the land and elements.
“I’ll be leading explorations in Contact Improvisation.
Whether a dance is dynamic or gentle, I focus on ‘listening’ with our bodies, as a priority over doing. I focus on tuning-in to our relationship with the earth, and the gravity that gently pulls us to its middle. I focus on sharing body-weight, gently at first – allowing a quality of falling and being off balance, yet often balanced with others- giving up some control as we shift our centre of gravity to a shared place between us, sensing the earth through each other’s structures.
I follow curiosity, taking nothing for granted. For example: What do these clothes I’m wearing feel like? What do I sense at this point of touching bodies? What may I discover about me and this other being right now? What stories am I making up about this moment? Am I including all this in the co-created emergent dance?
The dances and moving together that unfolds may feel exquisite, exciting, calming, coregulating. The co-creations may be art; a kind of sport; an expression of our inner-beings; community building; relationship-nourishing; becoming animal…
We being-fully and playfully experience ourselves as the animals that we are, with potential to be four-legged or rolling creatures, climbers, balancers, ‘listeners’ beyond words, as our animal ancestors – encoded in us still – once knew. With the potential to ‘fly’ or support, to fall and land safely; to curl up tight; to unfold wide; to be intimate, and yet open to all the wonderful space around us.
If we were lucky, we knew all this as babies, toddlers, children… and we may know or reclaim this as adults. It’s our birthright.”