Week 1 (June 13-18)

Frey Faust

Born in 1960, Frey Faust began performing at the age of 8 with his family as a traveling troubadour. He is a second generation contact improviser and an alumnus of the 80´s New York dance scene. Some of his more important early influences came from: Shekhinah Mountainwater, Nita Little, Pavel Rouba, Rene Bazinet, and Janet Panetta. He has worked with and for a number of artists (order of appearance: Ohad Naharin, Donald Byrd, David Parsons, Gina Buntz, Howard Katz, Merce Cunningham, Meredith Monk, Randy Warshaw, Bob Een, Stephen Petronio, Danny Ezralow... to name a few. He founded or co-founded three dance companies, and has created or co-created over 40 choreographic solo and group works. Following an independent study of anatomy, biomechanics, and physics, he has been able to build a pedagogical approach that has made him a sought after teacher, personal coach and technical counselor. After fifteen years of research, he consolidated his findings in a book, 'The Axis Syllabus - human movement lexicon', which he continues to edit with the help of the Axis Syllabus International Research Community. Founded in 2009, the ASIRC is a rapidly expanding group of experts from many related fields in the human movement and education sciences. Recently, his work on the AS has been focused into the construction of a symbol set with the potential to streamline movement documentation and analysis. He also makes shoes, speaks 4 languages, continues to create and perform dances.

 

Daniel Bear Davis

Daniel has taught Contact Improvisation and Composition internationally since 2007 and has been teaching Axis Syllabus since 2013. He has applied and adapted learning from these physical inquiry practices in activity as diverse as body work and acrobatic stilts. Whether teaching physical skills or compositional practices, his intention is to foster tools for informed choice and increased possibility. He has performed in theaters, on submarines, desert rocks, construction scaffolding, and art galleries. He’s made pieces about dementia, gender, war, heritage, identity. He cares about image, awe, and beauty. In creating a wide and rich acceptance of what it is to be human in a more-than-human world. He has been blessed with opportunities to perform with Guillermo Gomez Peña, Nita Little, Nancy Stark Smith, Live Art Installations, Felix Ruckert, Kira Kirsch, Erika Tsimbrovsky, Scott Wells, Krista DeNio and many other inspiring body/minds.

 

Kevin O'Connor

Kevin O'Connor is a multidisciplinary artist working as a choreographer, dancer, improviser, circus artist and installation artist. Kevin has been learning from the Axis Syllabus community for over a decade. He is also part of a small collective of settler Canadian and Indigenous artists that explores community/site based performance in particular watersheds in Ontario, Canada. Kevin’s attentional practices have recently been made different by working as a biodynamic cranial sacral practitioner, learning alongside Inuit hunting families on Baffin Island, and joining the round dance protests during the Indigenous uprising called Idle No More. Kevin is currently completing a PhD in Performance Studies at UC Davis where he is researching anatomies, body performance capacities and imaginations, environmental activism and unsettling practices, and community-based performances.

 

Lori Halliday

Lori Halliday is a mother, dancer, natural horsewoman, teacher, lover of children, artist and a tender to matters of the heart. lori lives in the santa cruz mountains with her beloved human and animal family on a ranch called horse and heart where she works, serves, and plays out in nature. lori believes in our right to become the masters of our own universe, to love, know and heal our own body temple, our own journey and to create a compassionate life that one can thrive in. learn more about lori's work and her ranch at horseandheart.org.

 

 

Week 2 (June 19-24)

Kira Kirsch

Kira Kirsch is a movement artist born in East-Berlin and after many years of nomadism and living abroad she is now returning with her family to Berlin as new residents of Lake Studios - an artist run dance, production and performance place. She is deeply invested into creating, questioning and improving spaces for people to experience,learn about and sensitize their mind-body-movement continuum. She has pioneered, taught and continuously researched through the lens of the Axis Syllabus (AS) for over a decade. She has taught at TseKH-Moscow Impulstanz-Vienna, TQW-Vienna, Transformation, 303-Montreal , SEAD among many other institutions, festivals and private initiatives. Kira has developed a reputation for being an inspiring and sensitive teacher. As a performer she has danced in the works of David Szlasa (US), Sara Shelton Mann (US), Avy K. Productions (RU), Christine Bonansea (US/FR), Half Machine (DK), ABCdance collective/Frey Faust, Cie. Anna Tenta (AT) and in numerous collaborations with her peers. In 2009 she started collaborating with Montrealer Kelly Keenan and their creations "species - a moving body exposition" and "useless creatures" have been presented in the US, Canada and Austria. 

 

Antoine Ragot

Antoine was born in Poitiers, France and is now based in Berlin. Being an athlete throughout his first 20 years of life, his interest in the body manifested in two years of medical school which led to the university of sport sciences of which he graduated with a Bachelor degree specializing in education and motor skills. He then became involved in dance and different contact improvisation communities throughout France which brought him closer to unify his interests for the body, movement and performance. Today Antoine brings many years of teaching contact improvisation, sports and movement to his fastidious bent for research and sharing of the Axis Syllabus, of which he is a certified teacher. During the last three years he has been traveling the world with his dancing family teaching and assisting numerous workshops in prestigious dance festivals and also in local self-organizing communities.

 

Nuria Bowart

Nuria Bowart is a lover of the body. She is consistently studying about the body, and experiences the wisdom that is embedded within it. She has worked as a Rolfer for 19years and is also a Contramestra of Capoeira. Teaching, Rolfing, Dancing and mothering make up the 4 main ingredients in her life.