Contact improvisation meets Argentine Tango
with Daniel Trenner
A structured workshop to explore a complementary dance form
Sunday, May 17th, 6:30-7:30pm followed by dance jam until 9pm.
One Time Only! A unique, exploratory, co-creational workshop and dance jam
bringing two vibrant dance communities and duet forms together.
About Tango and Contact Improv
Tango is a traditional South American form of duet improvisation, handed down from generation to generation, veiled in an elaborate grammar of ritual and social codes, but an improvisation in every gesture and step.
Contact is a modern North American form of duet improvisation invented in the 1970's. Its rituals and grammar are meager as is befitting of its new territory in dance, and its rejection of traditional dance form and/or code.
But what Tango and Contact share are deep concerns with the quality of human connection between dancers. In each form there is a melding of bodies to form a new anatomy of the duet. In both forms, when danced well, there are efficiencies of effort, resulting in a feeling of "levity" from the duet that could not exist in a solo. These qualities of connection are so familiar to dancers of both forms that, while the forms are superficially so different from each other, we actually believe that, at their cores, they are more the same than different.
About the Workshop
In this class we will look at the roots of connection in improvisational dancing, and use examples of each form to elucidate the thematic material. Dancers with experience from each form will be able to help dancers from the other form in their area of comfort. Dancers in each form will receive a safe and comfortable introduction to the other form. Together we will inform our own dances with new awareness about connection and how it serves us at the source of our creativity in improvisation.
About Daniel Trenner
Daniel Trenner began his career as a contemporary dancer in the class of Bill T. Jones at the American Dance Asylum in Binghamton, New York in 1976. He went on to become and Jazz and Tap Dancer with Brenda Bufalino, and discovered Contact at the first Acappella Motion Workshop in Northampton with Nancy Stark Smith, Charles Campbell, Byron Brown, and Sara Shelton Mann in 1980. Shortly thereafter he met Bonnie Cohen at Naropa Institute in Boulder and became a student of Body Mind Centering. By 1986 he was teaching Contact, Jazz, Tap, and BMC in more than 50 cities, when he was invited to teach in the State School of modern Dance in Buenos Aires and met Tango. He has since become associated with Tango's international revival, creating the Tango tour (Bridge to the Tango 1993), the tango store (The Tango Catalogue 1995), and teaching tango for the first time in more than 50 cities in 13 countries (The "Johnny Appleseed" of Tango). He is still a lover of both forms, although now at 50 is very careful with his body when dancing socially in either form.
When, Where, How Much
Workshop is 6:30-7:30pm. $7 includes entrance to the Santa Monica Contact Improvisation Jam, til 9pm.
Dance Home, 522 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90401. No pre-registration necessary.