Am I falling up or down?
Am I standing still or flying?
How and when can I change the direction, shape, tone, duration and speed of a fall?
How can I fall with my partner and continue moving together into a fall and from it?
Can I let myself fall into unknown?

In this workshop we will come to complex things from the simple place. We will observe the complexity of simplicity and other way around. Starting with our own movement, connecting with the floor, we will move on meeting others in the dance. We will work with some tools, and the “invisible” technique, that will bring more precision, consciousness and presence in our movement and dance.

We will discover:
- different ways of safe, but exciting fall;
- moments, when body becomes light when giving weight;
- ongoing movement flow;
- ways to maintain continuous physical contact with partner;
- possibility to let ourselves into not knowing what is going to happen next;
- weird, unknown, unusual body positions;
- something, what is not mentioned in this description…

Our main keys will be: witnessing, listening and following. We will be finding and loosing the balance, leaning and falling into each other, following the gravity and momentum. There will be technical material, as well as space for our personal curiosity, exploration, watching, and pleasure of dance.

We will balance, roll, fall and fly, melt, listen, share and enjoy!

Material developed in the workshop will be presented to the public in an informal showing on the 30th of March.


Julija Melnik

“I love to create a space for awareness, openness, spontaneity, love and joy to happen.
I am happy to share my curiosity and engagement with dance and life and I am glad to encourage people on their way to meet and discover themselves and people around them. When I teach I try to create a safe container for individual exploration of this dance form (CI) and allow the freedom of searching, questioning and enjoying.”

Julija Melnik is leading regular contact improvisation classes, jams and workshops in Lithuania (Vilnius, Kaunas). She has also taught outside of Lithuania (Ukraine, Latvia, Russia, France and USA). Julija is actively participating in International CI festivals, teachers’ conferences and is also organizing CI events in Lithuania: annual CI and Performance Mini-festival since 2007, regional CI teachers’ conference in March ’08, Vilnius CI and Performance Festival ‘09. At the moment Julija is working together with Latvian CI community on the Baltic CI and Performance festival 2010.

Julija has studied contact improvisation with CI pioneers -Steve Paxton and Nancy Stark Smith, and also with Nina Martin, Andrew Harwood, Angela Donii, Joerg Hassman, Charlie Morrissey, Adrian Russi and many others. She is also exploring other improvisational forms and performance, and has studied with Julyen Hamilton, Daniel Lepkoff, Alexander Girshon, Keith Hennessy and others.
Julija often performs in improvisational dance structures or performances at international CI festivals and conferences. The recent dance projects she took part in: Bodies in Urban Spaces with W. Dorner, Stokholm ‘08, Barcelona International Dance Exchange ‘09.

Besides CI, Julija has been teaching street dance for five years. She is also practicing Argentinean tango, house dance, salsa, contemporary dance. At the moment Julija continues her studies in a master’s programme in Dance education at Vilnius pedagogical university.