A Contact Improvisation workshop with Niku Dhillon
Why we invited Niku
One of the things that keeps Contact Improvisation alive is meeting teachers from outside our own room. Niku brings a practice built on somatic listening and a real curiosity about what happens when we stop steering the dance. We’re happy to open our floor to that, and to keep the exchange with the wider international CI community going here in Den Haag.
About the workshop
There is a state in Contact Improvisation where thinking melts into listening, decisions release into flow, and we find ourselves delighted by the unfolding dance. This workshop explores the meeting point between CI principles, deep somatic listening, and the poetic expression of the dance. What is it to welcome more of ourselves into the dance? We begin by waking up more fully into the body: awakening the tissues, mobilising the joints, activating the muscles, and attuning to the sensory landscape within. From there we play with the poetics of movement, following impulse, curiosity and play. We then build on this through the biomechanics of Contact Improvisation, exploring pathways of support, weight and movement through the floor and through one another. Tuned attention brought into dynamic connection, listening to ourselves, our partners, and the dance as it emerges.
Open to anyone with some CI experience. The jam afterwards is open to all. On the beach if weather allows it
About Niku
Niku Dhillon has been dancing Contact Improvisation for over thirteen years, with roots in Contemporary Dance at the University of Calgary. His teaching grows out of an ongoing inquiry into the many dimensions of the dance and a wish to weave them into one practice that makes room for more of who we are. He is drawn to warm spaces where people can explore with both intention and play, and is curious about how we can live at the improvisational edge, where movement emerges more from mutual listening than from planning ahead. He taught most recently at ARCS 2026, the Contact Improvisation pre-summer festival in Montreal. Outside of dance he trains facilitators to design and hold transformative spaces. He is based between Salt Spring Island and Vancouver Island, and is currently travelling across Europe.