Category Archives: CLOUD

CLOUD

Residency Léa Canu Ginoux

TOTEM – a research on Laughing
by choreographer Léa Canu Ginoux in collaboration with composer-sound adviser Sharon Renee Stewart

Wednesday February 25th – Friday March 6th


OPEN TRAINING from Thursday February 26th till Wednesday March 4th
see below for more information
Lunar Dance ritual in Den Haag in Transitie on Thursday March 5th, 19:30 Read more
Open rehearsal on Friday March 6th, 11:00-13:00

“TOTEM”, is thought as a double bill evening with Lea Canu Ginoux and Marjorie D’Amora, who are both co-directors of MEAARI with Geneviève Sorin. They have decided to work on a common thematic “freedom through constraint”, each of them making a solo of around 30min. The project is produced by their company MEAARI, co-produced by theatre de la Joliette Minoterie (Marseille) where they will have the première on 10th December 2015.

How the constraint of an unusual duration of laughter can lead towards freedom? Or how to open up laughter through a body research? How to commit to the main subject of this research: explore the states & qualities variations of laughing? (Sound states, body states, spiritual states). Lea wants to consider its construction like a composition sounds piece through a choreographical Open Form Composition.

 

OPEN TRAINING

Breath deeply, dance healthily, move & laugh gorgeously

Thursday 27 February, 10:30 – 12:00
Monday 2 March, 9:30 – 11:00
Tuesday 3 March, 9:30 – 11:00
Wednesday 4 March, 9:30 – 11:00

Costs: €7,- per training class
See FB event

We will navigate between “Body Motion Awareness-Listening”, rhythm & laughing practice. Through formal and experiential body training, we will focus on:
– a structural and organic connection of forms
– the dialectic between the body’s inside and outside input
– experiencing energy in its multiple layers

Furthermore, by exploring the breath as the source that leads the body’s motion, we will gradually reach an engaged physicality in a complete awareness. We’ll travel and investigate a freeing dance through centering movement, energetic flow, economic effort, succession, direction, clarity and creativity. The floor, as our partner, will be a tool to enter, awaken and develop the body’s intelligence : its organization, strength, flexibility, accuracy and honesty.

Sharing some paths of my research on laughing, we will give attention to our inner connection to its physicality, gently exploring ways for releasing our deepest laughter.

Body Motion Awareness-Listening practice is a playground for each person to stimulate his/her own movement and creativity while deepening the understanding of the body/spirit construction and its ‘natural’ technique or organicity.

 

 

BIOGRAPHY LEA CANU GINOUX
Born in Marseille, Lea’s intentions and acts have been guided by that cosmopolitan port’s particular qualities : its infinite horizon and it’s appeal for traveling, the unknown, the other. She multiplies her experiences of artistic and cultural exchange, from her performer’s voice and her choreographer’s song. Performer/dancer, she has worked with diverse companies : Subito Presto (dance-visual art, France), Melk prod Marco Berrettini (dance-theatre, Switzerland), PØST Emilie Gallier (dance-installation, France/Netherlands), the Danshuis Station Zuid ( Tilburg, Netherlands) for the chadian humanitarian choreographer Taigue Hamed.

Léa is sharing her artistic work across Europe in Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Prague, Iceland (Nordic House) and Africa (International Choreographical Encounters). She recently was nominated with her piece “Echoing Perception” at “1/4 de la jeune création” by Théâtre Nono (Marseille).

Today, she is associated choreographer at MEAARI and collaborate with Cahin-Caha (Marseille). Creation and interdisciplinarity are the major axes of her artistic path, which she essentially situates at the crossroads of various artistic fields, privileging notions of collaboration at the heart of her approach. She willingly convokes composers, visual artists, actors, dramaturgs, singers, inviting them to share creative projects and to confront their different practices and points of view. A strong artistic personality appears, with a certain sense of audacity, engagement, mixing delicate sensitivity and powerful concentration.

CLOUD

Residency ‘Space in between’ by Cassidy Carbine

January 13th – February 4th

Keep yourself updated on our website or Facebook about their workshops in which they share their research.

Improvisation #2
Sunday February 1st, 16:00 – 18:00  See FB event

Improvisation #1
Sunday January 25th, 15:00 – 18:00 See FB event

Costs: donations for the studio rent or feedback at the end of the session (preferred!)

With an interdisciplinary collective  Cassidy Carbine examines the question “how can we communicate (our perception of) space and time through the human body?” They are interested in the latent, complex and alternant aspects of reality. Motivated to reach beyond the obvious. “With the prism that is our research, we uncover the colors hidden within white light.”

Cassidy is a freelance dance artist based in Rotterdam motivated by the question: why do we move and how do we share this experience with others, our collective selves, and the spectator?
Some statements of Cassidy on her research process:

“The perception of space and time is a uniting factor for our realities. While we inhabit the same space, our perceptions create our individual experiences.”

“I choose to work with a variety of artist to further understand difference in individual realities. By working with different artistic approaches we can explore the topic from many directions, utilizing each artist’s background and potential in the creative process.”

“A previous creative research I conducted explored how artistic minds explored movement: dancers and non-dancers. The next step is to create together, in an aim to communicate perception and experience.”

 

http://ccarbine.hotglue.me
http://cassidycarbine.blogspot.com

 

 

CLOUD

Residency Bridget Fiske & Stephanie Pan

February 9th – 13th

Morning movement warm-up: Thursday February 12, 10:30 -12:00
Presentation: Friday 13 February, 14:00 (registration required)
see for more information below

Bridget Fiske will be working intensively in CLOUD with multi-disciplinary artist and musician Stephanie Pan, investigating the potentials between voice, body and other sound/ music in choreographic process. Bridget will be testing new devising processes that will contribute to later stages of her Moving Dance Forward project.

This research project is less about working from an idea for a new work, but about having several points of departure that demand the development of diversity in process and approaches. This approach consequently supports Bridget to question her creative methodologies and philosophies as well as creating ‘signature’ outcomes. This project is ultimately about Bridget experimenting across a breadth of thought to become clearer in: her artistic interests, her communicative interests, and the processes that lead her to the creation of strong artistic content.

Photographer Matt Kowalczuk

BRIDGET FISKE is a British/ Australian dance artist (performer, choreographer, facilitator), currently based in Manchester, England. Bridget has recently been selected as one of the four inaugural Moving Dance Forward Associate artists. Commissioned by the Moving Dance Forward Associates scheme: a consortium supporting dance artists resident in the North West of England led by Dance Manchester and MDI in partnership with the Unity Theatre, Contact, The Lowry and University of Salford.

As part of this scheme Bridget’s personalised development and research project involves developing her processes for ensemble choreography. The multi-disciplinary nature of Bridget’s practice means that she is interested in her choreographic work asking questions relevant to practice in theatre, film, interactive media and music contexts. Therefore the ensemble work she investigates will involve artists with an interdisciplinary history/ skill base.

photographer Takis Papazoglou

STEPHANIE PAN is a singer and multi-instrumentalist, performance artist, and maker based in The Hague, specializing in experimental music, new music, and experimental theater. Her work is rooted in the search for pure communication; finding contact with the audience stripped of expectations and distractions, which speaks beyond the conventional limitations and constructs of language. Her work is visceral, passionate and intense, often exploring the limits of the voice and body. Stephanie has performed extensively throughout the US and Europe. She holds a Masters in Theatre from DasArts (AHK), BA from UC Berkeley in Music and Applied Mathematics, and First Phase Diploma, with distinction, in Classical Singing from The Royal Conservatory, The Hague.


CLASS INFORMATION
Thursday February 12, 10:30 to 12:00
Bridget will deliver a morning movement warm-up and training session appropriate for professional performers of several disciplines (dancers, physical theatre and performance artists). The session will be about preparing the body for creative work whilst involving training that offers development in alignment, openness and strength.

PRESENTATION INFORMATION (registration required)
Friday February 13, 14:00
At the end of their week long residency at CLOUD Bridget and Stephanie will share very early stage processes and outcomes developed during this time. This very early stage research is a part of meta – new choreographic research projects by Bridget Fiske. Commissioned by the Moving Dance Forward Associates scheme: a consortium supporting dance artists resident in the North West of England led by Dance Manchester and MDI in partnership with the Unity Theatre, Contact, The Lowry and University of Salford.
Registration by mail: fazle_s@hotmail.com

Commissioned by the Moving Dance Forward Associates scheme: a
consortium supporting dance artists resident in the North West of
England led by Dance Manchester and MDI in partnership with the Unity Theatre, Contact, The Lowry and University of Salford.

CLOUD

Catch me, I’m falling! Study lab by Ilse van Haastrecht

finding ways of ramping down and away from the floor

In December Ilse started with her first sessions of Axis Syllabus hosted by CLOUD. This class is about different ways of distributing masses toward the ground and back up again. How do I deal with the kinetic or potential energy stored in my raised body when ‘falling’ down?

You are welcome to join me in another Axis Syllabus Study Lab. All kinds of movers are welcome : ). This time Ilse will be looking into different ways of distributing masses toward the ground and back up again. How do I deal with the kinetic or potential energy stored in my raised body when ‘falling’ down? We’ll be looking at sequential movement and how it can help for effective locomotion. We’ll also be studying the different landing and launching pads of the body, in order to find a safe stations on our way to the floor.

What is Axis Syllabus? 

The Axis Syllabus is an open resource pool for information about the human body in motion. The AS research community aims to compile knowledge and reference points to understand more of what it means to move in healthy and structurally supported ways. This information is constantly tested and updated throughout research and classroom experience.

Situations, contexts and challenges for the moving body keep changing and different bodies and their individual needs are various. Looking at anatomy, physics and bio-mechanics might help us to find ways into graceful movement.

Date: Wednesday 21st of January 
Time: 16:30 – 18:30
Contribution: donation for the studiorent
Contact: ilsevanhaastrecht@gmail.com

See FB event

CLOUD

Presentation The Invisible Dancer by Eline van Ark

The Invisible Dancer started last year as a residency at CLOUD. After two weeks of researching sound-dance with Mojra Vogelnik Skerlj, together with a group of visually impaired people, choreographer Eline van Ark presented the research in the studio of CLOUD and during the CLOUD Winterfestival.

Now Eline is continuing her Invisible project in the studio Tugela85 in Amsterdam, where she creates a dance solo for Aida Guirro Salinas, that can’t be seen, but has to be listened to. The whole audience is blind / blindfolded. Eline researches the possibilities of this set-up, watching dance with closed eyes, together with visually impaired people, and this time also with people from the neighborhood and (dance) artists. By opening up the working process to perspectives and knowledge of others, she’ll get a glimpse into how people experience this audio-dance, what the possibilities are, and what is needed to hear the dancing body.

The first results of this second phase of the project will be shared the 22nd of February. Aida will show a sketch of the sound-dance, which we will exchange our experiences about. And Eline will talk about the process and discoveries until now. Why listen to dance? How can you hear the physicality of dance, the moving body? And how can you transmit the musicality of dance through sound, without it becoming a bodily concert? And what is the added value of listening to dance? All these questions were discussed during the research, and will now be shared with you.

And of course we’ll close off with a drink and a bite!

When: 22 February, 15:00
Entrance: €5,-
Location:  Lokaal85, Tugelaweg 85, Amsterdam Oost

Visit the website and like the facebook page for more info and to stay updated about the project.

CLOUD, Residents

Tensegrity: Structures & Movement | Residency of Florencia Reznik

Florencia Reznik from Buenos Aires, Argentina will have a residency in CLOUD from 18 till 23 december 2014 and from 5 till 11 january 2015 and she is looking for people to participate.

The idea is open to anyone. There is no need to commit to the whole time, you can drop by the days that are convenient for you. Please an email her some days in advance so she knows how many people are coming.

The residency includes yoga practice every morning from 10 to 11:30 – a warm up and mind-set for the rest of the day’s research. Feel free to take a class and “pay” by staying afterwards for a few hours as a participant in the research group, or pay 5€ from 10 am – 11:30 am (afternoon varies in time)

Contact: florenciareznik@gmail.com

Florencia will work on Tensegrity, proved to be a precise instantiation of the failure of the doctrine of functionalism and the triumph, instead, of a non-instrumentalized mode of invention.

What started as a marginal idea in the art field, was many years later used in architecture, medicine and biology. We are now putting this structural principle in movement through dance experimentation.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Snelson_XModule_Design_1948.png

From *biotensegrity*, we pay attention to what connects all the parts of the body. We see the body as a whole. This approach considers the *fascia* essential to understand the body structure and its capacity to move.

Imagine that fascia is something similar to a fabric that covers our whole body. The tensegrity model posits that a single force in one part of the body will have an effect throughout the body. What would happen if that fabric covers not one but two bodies? Or more?

My interest is in how we (dancers, people) can enhance our experience of our body in connection to other bodies. In order to connect with others, we need to reach out, to move.

Trust is our relation with the unknown. Our body is physiologically prepared to be alert when it has to deal with something new, and this is translated into tension in the body. But there is something about letting go that allows us to move, to adapt, to be creative, and to connect with others. I think that *contact improvisation technique* can be a very useful tool to explore this.

I like to think of this residency as a research space-time. My background is in yoga, more precisely *Iyengar yoga*. Every morning we will start with a yoga practice that will bring consciousness to our body. With this starting point, the challenge will be to connect with other people through movement and contact. I am not a dance teacher. I will not teach how to do this. This is a challenge for me too. I hope that together we come up with creative strategies to do so.

After the yoga class, it comes lunch time (remember it is not advisable to eat two hours before yoga practice!). I suggest that during this time, we study *what is tensegrity, what is fascia, how is the body built*. I have reading material to share, and we can talk and discuss it.

Finally, during the afternoons, we will develop a series of exercises to put all this into practice. We will move with elastics, harnesses, fabrics and each others bodies. How does this movement feel? What can I do from here?* Let’s forget about the thoughts and the shapes, and focus on the joints, the mechanisms, the fluids that make strange noises inside us.

Last but not least, these topics are my main concern. But I am open to other things to come up as well. If someone has an interest that is somehow related to this, is more than welcome to share it!

— Flor Reznik

See Facebook event 

Classes, CLOUD

UZAZU: New class with Ilse Haastrecht

Morning practice.
Your body, a source of energy
A new body-mind methodology has been developed by Dylan Newcomb, who is also one of the founders of Danslab, the predecessor of CLOUD.

This class is an introduction to UZAZU and intended to be an energizing start of the day. You are welcome for an hour of easy to follow movement play, combined with breathing and sound. The archetypal movements of UZAZU offer a way into the variety of qualities we are capable of feeling and using in our life. Listening to how your body-mind moves with these ways of being can help to feel more secure, calm, vitalized and happy.

Friday mornings: 9.30-10.30
Contribution: € 9

Ilse_Haastrecht

Ilse van Haastrecht is a dancer and movement teacher based in Den Haag. Specialized in conscious movement and dance improvisation, she is always looking for ways to invite people to listen into the present moment. Ilse has worked together with Dylan Newcomb, founder of UZAZU and founding member of Danslab. Since their research in 2008, she keeps exploring the ways in which UZAZU can help to unlock more of her potential. Ilse is a certified group facilitator and coach for UZAZU and is passionate about helping others to listen more deeply to what wants to emerge.
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CLOUD

CLOUD: officially a non-profit association

On 14th October 2014, in Amsterdam, we signed our status of Verenigingen. We officially became a non-profit association.

For almost three years now, CLOUD has been facilitating artistic research, classes, workshops and much, much more in the Danslab studio in Den Haag. Under the wings of Stichting Danslab, CLOUD was able to grow to a stable and independent platform for dance and performance, self-organized and self-supported. Next to developing and exchanging on movement, dance and performance practices, CLOUD is also researching alternative ways of organizing; CLOUD’s aim is to empower artists by working together and creating an open and flexible structure that gives space for individual needs and encourages entrepreneurship.

In the next newsletters we’ll inform you more about the people behind CLOUD, what a CLOUD-association means concretely, and how you can become a member.
As an answer to changing times, in 2011 danslab decided to change course and to invest in a new organisational surrounding. It was the aim of the danslab artists to open up to fellow artists and to build an open, flexibel and sustainable selforganisation led by artists. In this way Danslab generously provided the base and freedom needed for CLOUD to start their ideas and experiment different ways of organizing themselves. Now, after almost three years of experience, CLOUD has enough know-how and a stable base of enthusiastic people who run the initiative to leave the Danslab-nest and become fully independent. For the past months CLOUD has been working to become an association, since this provides the flexibility and bottom-up support we need. Last month the board members signed the contract, and now it is official: CLOUD is an association!! CLOUD will stay in the (ex)Danslab studio, and is from now on even more self-supportive, independent and community-driven.

CLOUD, Workshop

Contemporary Cuban Dance Workshop by Faizah Grootens

Contemporary Cuban dance is big, rhythmical, powerful, flexible and full of passion. Undulating movements from Cuban folklore are combined with flow, grounding and conscious use of breath. This creates a Modern style in which Afro-Cuban hip and back movements are fused with flowing turns and powerful jumps.

The workshop by Faizah Grootens was on Sunday, 30th November, from 14:00-16:00.

Faizah studied at the Amsterdam School of the Arts, and went to Havana’s University of Arts to specialize in Cuban Contemporary dance. She also trained with the internationally renowned dance company “Havana Rakatan.” Faizah has worked as a dance teacher at the Amsterdam School of the Arts, the Arts and Entertainment College Amsterdam, University of the Arts in Havana, Cuba and various schools in the Netherlands and abroad. Faizah has performed as an actor and dancer in a variety of projects and companies including Laleget Danza (Mexico), ISADANZA (Cuba), Harlekijn Danstheater with Herman van Veen for “Man Go,” “Cremat,” and “Blackout.”

 

In the Contemporary Cuban dance workshop you will learn how to use your full range of motion while still remaining strong and in control of your body. You’ll feel the energy and dance with your whole body: Hips, butt, arms, back, head…. EVERYTHING MOVES!!

Level: Intermediate/advanced

Workshop: Contemporary Cuban Dance
Location: CLOUD, De Constant Rebecqueplein 20b, The Hague
Date and time: Sunday 30 November from 14:00 – 16:00
Price: €15

Please register by sending an e-mail to Damani Leidsman (dleidsman@gmail.com)
See event on Facebook

CLOUD, Residents

Residency Kenneth Flak and Külli Roosna

In November we will host Kenneth Flak and Külli Roosna among others from Korzo Productions. They will be developing: The Wild Places, a trilogy performance on humanity’s relationship to an environment in a deep crisis. They will be working with a Lithuanian dancer Petras Lisauskas, the Swedish light designer Thomas Dotzler and English composer Joseph Hyde. Embodying chaos, complexity and interdependent systems, using cutting-edge performance technologies. The first part ‘Mountain’ will be premiered in the CaDance festival 6-7 February 2015.

The works are inspired by Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss’ deep ecology as well as James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, a theoretical framework that is investigated, questioned and translated into artistic praxis in three different performances: Mountain, City and Body. The pieces will premiere in the period 2015-2017,

According to Næss and Lovelock we can no longer consider the world a bottomless resource we can freely tap without consequences. The survival of all parts of an ecosystem depends on the overall health of the whole. Humanity has, due to its intelligence and capacity for planning and reflections, a special responsibility to take care of nature. Næss believed that this responsibility is not necessarily limiting, but will lead to individuals identifying themselves with the environment and all living beings. From a small, limited ego grows a large, inclusive self. According to Næss this leads to a richer life: If I identify with others and the nature surrounding me, I partake directly in the greatness of nature.
It seems, unfortunately, very difficult for humanity to take this responsibility, or even to agree that there is a problem. This suggests that the issue is very complex, with few clear-cut and simple answers. These complexities are taken into account when creating performance spaces that function as ecosystems in their own right, where light, sound, video, movement and audience interact and influence each other, giving the audience direct experiences of collaboration, competition, parasitism and all the other elements that make up our weird and wonderful world.

 

Wild Places : : MOUNTAIN
The first performance of the trilogy is Wild Places : : MOUNTAIN. During an extended rehearsal period in the Norwegian mountains, the three performers and the light designer immerse themselves in the highlands, using the experiences of a wild, often brutal nature to inform the work. The piece brings an echo of the mountain to the stage: an extreme no-mans land, a place of harsh beauty and desolation where a human being is completely at the mercy of the forces of nature. This is realized through a complex system of interdependent choreography, music, visuals and light. The interactive technology to make this possible is designed by composer Joseph Hyde in close collaboration with the choreographers and light designer Thomas Dotzler.
Supported by The Norwegian Arts Council, Fund for Sound and Image (Norway), Dutch Ministry of Culture and Education.
Produced by Korzo productions, co-produced by Sõltumatu Tantsu Ühendus.

CLOUD, Dansateliers, Korzo, movement classes, Random Collision

‘Body Language’ Workshop

Based on the physical system developed and created by choreographer Edan Gorlicki and the dancer Mayke van Kruchten, the ‘Body Language’ workshop leads up to the creation of performance-installation ‘Body Language’.

Location: CLOUD Studio, Den Haag
When: 15/11/2014 from 12:00 to 16:30 (with a 30 minute lunch break)
Costs: € 35

Registration before 12th of November:

The ‘Body Language’ physical system is the second part of an ongoing study on power and control. The goal while creating the system was to try to give the body full control of what the body does and then to discover the bodies choices. To find this out, Edan, together with Mayke, searched for a way to minimize or even eliminate mental judgement, choices and creativity from the movement vocabulary; giving power to the body. This way everything the body does would come from the body itself and not from a mental command; An impossible task perhaps, none the less, an interesting one.

This workshop will take you through the steps of this physical system and lead you through a path of letting go mentally, discovering your body’s physicality.

How do we do that:
First we will limit our physical possibilities to a very minimal range, challenging your mind to the maximum. Once we have practiced that and become more comfortable with the limitations, we will start to delayer the rules; opening up the possibilities within the structure. Eventually, giving the body full freedom of moving possibilities but maintaining the concentration level of listening and discovering as things happen.

Finally, you will experience a very active physical experience of movement fully choreographed by your own body, taking you on a fascinating journey and leading you to places and situations you would otherwise not bring yourself to.

About Edan Gorlicki
Born in Haifa, Israel, Edan Gorlicki is a choreographer, teacher and movement research artist based between Heidelberg, Germany and Groningen, the Netherlands. Edan has performed the works of may choreographers such as: Ohad Naharin,  Itzik Galili, Guy Weizman & Roni Haver (Club Guy and Roni) and many more.

Edan is familiar to many of us because as the creator of LAMA movement research.He will share more of this during the morning classes and movement class at our friends in Dansateliers (Rotterdam) from 10th till 15th of November.

In 2007 Edan co-founded Random Collision, Groningen – a platform developing and bridging between young makers and their audiences. There he also initiated the first movement classes in the Netherlands, which inspired Dansateliers (Rotterdam) and Korzo (the Hague) to follow this formula that develops a bridge between makers and their audience.
CLOUD

Visit from Dr. Raftis, President of the International Dance Council (CID)

Visit-of-DrRaftis

Dr. Alkis Raftis, President of the International Dance Council at UNESCO, visited CLOUD on October 10th. This was part of a major visit to The Netherlands, he performed, between 09-13 October, to obtain a picture of the dance scenario in the country and to propose international cooperation.

Everyone was invited and many people took the opportunity to represent dance in Holland.

The visit of Dr. Alkis Raftis was organized by Laura Maria De Gaspari, Member of the International Dance Council (CID), the official umbrella organization for all forms of dance in all countries of the world. CID is recognized by UNESCO, national and local governments, international organizations and institutions. It brings together the most important international, national and local organizations, as well as select individuals active in dance. It is a non-governmental organization founded in 1973 within the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, where it is based.