inkTeaching

June 13-22: DANCE ON LAND: Workshop on the Lost Coast of Northern California.

In nature. Woods, ocean, river, land. 6 hours drive from San Francisco.

The workshop is a listening process. We use elements of nature (ocean, hills, trees, river) to inform our senses and physicality. We utilize a process of guided physical manipulations and wave and twist exercises to increase our physical interactivity with the surroundings.

Taught by Shinichi and Dana Iova-Koga

For registration, we require a $50 deposit to hold your place.
The workshop costs $550.
Food for 10 days is $150.
Housing is your tent.

Total cost is $700.

Make check out to: Shinichi Iova-Koga

Send to:

Shinichi Iova-Koga
P.O. Box 19
Petrolia, CA 95558

Full payment of the total amount should be received by June 1.

A work/trade situation is available, based upon working for 10 days (arrive May 31, ending June 10) in the same location as the workshop, constructing the studio and gardening. Construction or gardening skills or interest are necessary for work/trade.

With work/trade, a $50 deposit is still required to hold your place.

Contact Momo Io at: momo(at)inkboat.com for further information.

Disciplines for the Hidden Body
Imagery, Form and Improvisation
taught by Shinichi Iova-Koga

Each motion or action should contain physical or psychological risk. Only a dance on the edge of control reveals the honest life. Fall into everything (or nothing). Our work is to transform (sometimes abruptly, sometimes gently) the space within the body. The mind is a place with a lot of mud. Sometimes the mud shines.

The process of creating performance work should expand and inform the life of the dancer (aka: the human). Excellent technical abilities are not enough to move us. The development of dance needs to support spirit (I take “spirit” to mean both the liveliness and the essence of a dancer).

We investigate the core reason for movement, whether kinesthetic and imagistic. Using imagery to create the movement form, the body is asked to move according to that interior impulse, not according to exterior form. At the same time, some movements and shapes carry a strong kinesthetic “message” in the body.

I Utilize the conditions and environment in front of us. Ultimately, the work must live in the moment, both for the audience and the dancer.

My own vocabulary is based on traditional Japanese performing arts, re-interpreted to meet modern existence. Conventional or unconventional, we confront the question “What is Dance?” Sometimes we break conventions to expand the vision of dance. Sometimes we tread the known territory to discover the depths. Whether theatrical, environmental or kinesthetic, where I am asked to lead, I am also led.

Following imagery and surrendering to the moment, we’ll work in solo, duet and group improvisations. Through intensive reduction, our personal body reality and existence clarifies to reveal beauty, grotesqueness and humor.
Work with necessary tension, releasing the unnecessary to let the dance become permeable and malleable. We work from the center (tanden) to move the far-reaching limbs. Develop listening in relation to time, space and motion.

~Shinichi