Hana Rakhshani and Aaron Birk are two dancers passionate about contact improvisation.

Hana trained in traditional Indian dance for seven years and has had a life centered around yoga, acquiring her Yoga Teacher Training at age 18. She has spent the past few years exploring movement modalities, such as acro yoga, and informing her dance practice.

In the past year, she has completed five months of tri-weekly training in the fundamentals of contact improvisation at UNC Asheville and up to two month of dance intensives across the continent.

Hana has background in partner dance, yoga, Bharatnatyam, axis syllabus, somatic movement, Caribbean dance, and most prominently, contact improv.

Aaron Birk is an artist and novelist who has spent the last nine years exploring the world of dance. He began his journey with yoga and contemporary movement training.

Over the years, contact improv entered his life and has played a central role for the past five years. Aaron has also received intensive training for axis syllabus, a movement modality that focuses on safe movement pathways through space using spirals and anatomical research. A

aron has experience in partner dance, somatic movement, release technique, yoga, contemporary dance, axis syllabus, and contact improvisation.

Hana and Aaron have been working and dancing intensively together since April 2017. They have travelled the continent in the past 5 months, attending more than six intensives together and dancing on weekly bases.

Hana Rahkshani & Aaron Birk

Performance, Workshops, Playshop: Contact Improv (dance)

Bio & Workshops Description:

Contact Improvisation is a somatic modality centered around touch and connection.

The connection is not only physical between bodies, it is also personal. Fundamentally, the primary focus of this workshop is to allow for participants to experience a deeper understanding of themselves, which will support the capacity for inter personal physical communication.

The workshop will begin with exercises to increase body awareness and to introduce the idea that the earth and air around us are dance partners. After this internal elemental focus, we will move onto easy exploratory work between partners. These elements are meant to ease the anxiety of letting individuals into our personal space.

There will be aspect of play and curiosity that will help maintain a safe space for touch. Partners will be constantly rotating, creating an active social environment. We are planning to incorporate some group work after the partnering, called ensemble.

Here is where we throw in ideas to the group and they would have to improvise while being aware of every other group member in order to follow the themes provided.

At the very end of the workshop, depending on time, we will open the floor to dance together, possibly with music (traditionally contact improvisation is not done with music). The format will have the journey from internal, to partnered, to group awareness.