Born 1975, has a varied background from traditional theater, mime, contemporary dance and martial arts. In 2007 he was awarded a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) for his work with Canadian choreographer André Gingras. He has worked for several choreographers in many different styles through the years. Currently, he is working for American choreographer Richard Siegal, one of Forsythe’s main dancers for many years, as well as making his own work as a choreographer. He is currently based in Stockholm and Tallinn.
Class Description
Kenneth Flak teaches a class based on his experiences working as a contemporary dancer for various choreographers around the world and his own choreographic practice. The class aims to develop a highly responsive body with a wide dynamic range that can move in any spatial direction and orientation with a precise sense of rhythm and phrasing.
The class is based on an anatomically functional way of thinking about movement, and developed from a concrete need to collect the forms of training professional dancers dealing with a wide range of movement vocabularies need. The forms incorporated in the class are, amongst others, various martial arts, acrobatics and release technique, placed in a coherent framework.
Even though the class is physically demanding, its gentle buildup and clear step-by-step approach makes it possible for dancers without previous acrobatics or martial arts experience to follow it
Jozef Frucek / Slovakia
Jozef Frucek graduated from the Music and Drama Arts Academy of Bratislava, where he also completed his PhD in 2001.
As a dancer teacher and choreographer, he collaborates with the Dance Centrum Jette in Belgium, RITS Art School Brussels, DOT 504 Prague, Archa Theatre Prague, KVS-Royal Flemish Theater Brussels, SEAD- Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, Budapest State Dance School, Dies De Dansa, Dansa Deltebre, Helsinki City Theater. Since 2006 he is staff teacher at the Greek State School of Dance.Jozef has been a member of Ultima Vez / Wim Vandekeybus (creations: Blush, Sonic Boom, movies: Blush). Currently, he works on the research program “Fighting monkey” (implementation of martial arts’ methodology on performance training and program for injury prevention). He has participated in major theatre and dance projects, experimental and research groups and has won awards for upcoming choreographers.He is a founding member of RootlessRoot, a company with which he created performance works, such as: “Sudden Showers of Silence”, “Holdin Fast”, the installation “Burned tree is visiting Athens before next summer”, “100 Wounded Tears”, “UNA” (Unknown Negative Activity), “Drawing a Tiger Like a Dog”. Their choreographic work has been nominated for Total Theater Award 2008, and they have received the Herald Angel Award 2009.
Class Description
Fighting Monkey
Monkey is totally fascinated by the realm of the senses;
It swings from one desire to the next, one conflict to the next.
If you threaten it, it actually fears for its life.
Let this monkey go
Let the senses go
Let desires go
Let conflicts go
Let idea go
Let the fiction of life and death go
Just remain in the center, watching.
And forget you are there.
Hua Hu Ching
Partnering is for us The Way of Emptying and Listening and has been developed to cultivate and stimulate the body in a “dragon’s pool”.Dragon’s pool symbolises the importance of development and cultivation of our self in the midst of the world. Using difficulty and danger to develop strength, adaptability and test again what is possible in partnering.We will crash ourselves into joy oriented fighting and dancing to rediscover our forgotten mental and physical potentials. We will use one or several partners to create surprising, complex and unusual movement situations where we will activate a firing process that wakes up our pr
imitive/intuitive body, our form without a form. Through applying elements of the martial arts we will try to enrich our movement material and create a deeper understanding of:How to meet more effectively and adaptively the forces, which are acting on us and how we can avoid or absorb them, while being functionally open. How we receive, carry and manipulate others in high-speed as well as in slow motion.
How we go along danger and difficulty still being able to cultivate our inner strength and stability. And ultimately, how to foresee events before they happen.
Linda Kapetanea / Greece
Linda Kapetanea graduated from the Greek State School of Dance in 1994. With a scholarship from the Greek National Scholarship Foundation, she later studied at the Merce Cunningham Studio, Movement Research and Dance Space in New York, where she also worked with choreographer Irene Hultman.In Greece, she danced with several companies, such as: Sine Qua Non, Horeftes and others, touring extensively around Europe, while in 2002 she was awarded as “Best Performer”; Linda has been a member of Ultima Vez / Wim Vandekeybus (creations: Blush, Sonic Boom, Pure, movies: Blush, Here After). During the last three years she has been frequently invited to teach and work at SEAD-Salzburg, Budapest State Dance School, Dance perfect studios (Prague) and DOT 504 (Prague) Dies De Dansa, Dansa Deltebre, Helsinki City Theater.Since 2006 Linda is staff teacher at the Greek State School of Dance. She is a founding member of RootlessRoot, a company with which she created performances “Sudden Showers of Silence”, “Holdin Fast”, the installation “Burned tree is visiting Athens before next summer”, “100 Wounded Tears”, “UNA” (Unknown Negative Activity), “Drawing a Tiger Like a Dog”. Their choreographic work has been nominated for Total Theater Award 2008, and they have received the Herald Angel Award 2009.
Class Description
Fighting Monkey
Monkey is totally fascinated by the realm of the senses;
It swings from one desire to the next, one conflict to the next.
If you threaten it, it actually fears for its life.
Let this monkey go
Let the senses go
Let desires go
Let conflicts go
Let idea go
Let the fiction of life and death go
Just remain in the center, watching.
And forget you are there.
Hua Hu Ching
Partnering is for us The Way of Emptying and Listening and has been developed to cultivate and stimulate the body in a “dragon’s pool”.Dragon’s pool symbolises the importance of development and cultivation of our self in the midst of the world. Using difficulty and danger to develop strength, adaptability and test again what is possible in partnering.We will crash ourselves into joy oriented fighting and dancing to rediscover our forgotten mental and physical potentials. We will use one or several partners to create surprising, complex and unusual movement situations where we will activate a firing process that wakes up our pr
imitive/intuitive body, our form without a form. Through applying elements of the martial arts we will try to enrich our movement material and create a deeper understanding of:How to meet more effectively and adaptively the forces, which are acting on us and how we can avoid or absorb them, while being functionally open. How we receive, carry and manipulate others in high-speed as well as in slow motion.
How we go along danger and difficulty still being able to cultivate our inner strength and stability. And ultimately, how to foresee events before they happen.
Rita Omar / Portugal
Born in Mozambique but now living in Portugal. Start her training at the age of 15 against the wishes of her family. BA in Dance at the Superior School of Dance in Lisbon (2007).
She obtained an Erasmus scholarship at the Instituut voor Dans – Lier (Belgium) and made part of the project Dance Beyond Borders 2009, where she presented her work at festivals like Dancekiosk, Hamburg and Festival Outlet, Brausweg (Germany). She continued her education by attending workshops with Norman Taylor, Ariella Vidach, João Fiadeiro, Stephanie Schober Davesne Alain, Véronique Vialar, Ferran Claire Van Dick, Susanne Link, Tony Biyang, Retina Dance Company, Thomas Kamp, Jan Zobel, Peter Michael Dietz Jean Paul Bucchieri, Antonio Carallo, Amelia Bentes, Ludger Lamers, Teresa Rannieri, Victor Garcia and Bruno “Sky Fly”. She worked as a dancer / performer with Rui Junior (Toca a Rufar), Carlos Saura (movie Fados), Joao Botelho, Michael Lazic, Patrick Bana, Antonio Tavares, Marco di Camillo, among others.
Class description
The workshop is intended to physical expansion and movement efficiency. This mode of work projects the dancer to a higher state of consciousness, leaving it open to find a broader use of three dimensional space and movement …
The class starts on the ground, where it begins to develop work on the level of alignment, joint mobilization and cardio-vascular stimulation.
Recurrent use of repetition, so that each motion particle install on the body and allow to develop a gradual process of internal expansion and external amplitude.Constant focus on the use of center and breathing as the main place of origin and stabilization of movement. Working to raise awareness of concepts of opposition and transition, enhancing the building of a fluid body, solid, breathed and always changing.
All the concepts presented in outline, among others, are applied on the vertical work, coexisting simultaneously.
Each class will thus enable each student to rediscover the creative possibility of his own body, before the several movement proposals presented over the four days.
Romulus Neagu / Portugal
Born in 1973, having done his studies at the High school of Choreography in Bucharest- Romania.
Develop his studies in contemporary dance with Christine Bastin, Karine Saporta, Dominique Baqouet, Thiery Bae, Jeremy Nelson, Joseph Nadj, Amanda Miller and Felix Rukert.
Between 1991 and 1996 worked at the National Opera of Bucharest, collaborating at the same time with the Orion Ballet Company, also in the same city. In 1998 and 1999 worked with the Ventura Dance Company, Zurich. After that he works regularly with the Company Paulo Ribeiro since 1999.
Choreographic creations highlights: « Fabulations » – creation presented at the International Choreography Festival in Iasi, Romania (1995) and « Manole » – multidisciplinary project in collaboration with Matei Starcea Crãciun and the Center for Anthropological Studies “Fr I. Rainer “- Bucharest (1995); « The Rite of Spring …?» – project presented in the first edition of the Platform of Contemporary Dance in Bucharest (1998 ); « Inside » – presented in the Festival of Youth Choreographers in Hannover – Germany (1998); « Silence » – as a request to an invitation made by the Ballet Theatre of Oleg Danovski in Constantza, Romania (1999); « The essay about a possible Eros … » – carried out in partnership with the Portuguese Association of Cerebral Paralysis – Viseu (2006); « The invisibility of small perceptions » – in co-production with the National Theatre St. John, Porto and Theatre Viriato, Viseu. (2008); « Projecto 3008 » – educational dance-theater project, a co-production Companhia Paulo Ribeiro and Teatro Viriato (2008) and « From the nearsighted adolescent», based on a novel by Mircea Eliade (2009).
He also received as choreographer and performer, several prizes, among which: Prize for « Fabulations » in 1995, the International Choreography Festival in Iasi, Romania; Prize in 1997 for interpretation, in the Choreography International Festival-Iasi Romania. In 1996 he was elected Performer of the Year by the Association of Critics, Choreographers and Performers, Romania. In Portugal, in 2007, receives the Trophy Aquilino Ribeiro, Inclusion category, for his project “The essay about a possible Eros…».
Run since 2000 a regular training activity in the area of dance, creating also several projects for specific groups, communities of immigrants, people with disabilities and scholar communities.
Class description:
I propose to develop a work of research and choreographic creation, walking a path that meanders through various genres of performing arts, blending elements from classical dance, circus, theater, martial arts, among others.
It is intended to discover and analyze, through the process of improvisation, personal experiences, of identity observing the relationship between individual and collective, the physical and emotional adaptation to itself and to the community. Analyze the creation of a community based on individual memory and the vanity of personal memories fragmented and pulverized in the collective memory.
Daniel Raček / Slovakia
Choreographer, dancer and teacher working as a freelancer. His dancing begining is conected with slovak folk-dance group Váh in Púchov. Since 1992 he is focused on contemporary dance and contact improvisation. In the past collaborated with various choreographers and directors at home and abroad: Marta Renzi, Julyen Hamilton, Michael Helmerhorst, Eszter Gal, Zuzana Hajkova, Petra Fornayova, Mathew Hawkins, Ioana Popovici, Peter Groll, Karen Foss, Jozef Fruček. Presently is stable member of Debris Company Slovakia and Karen Foss Quiet Works in Norway, teaching at the conservatory in Banska Bystrica. In 2006 the prime winner of the Philip Morris prize, The Flower of the ballet. Graduated on faculty of Mathematics and Physics of University Comenianus and faculty of music and dance on Academy of Performing arts in Bratislava.
Class Description
Contemporary dance – lesson aimed at supporting the function of upper limbs
The class has “classic” division of floor-work, center-work associated with trevelling and final allegro. Class is aimed at warming up the body and training arm to carry the weight of his own body. Throughout the hours of work with a number of up side down position and upper limbs have partially or completely full body weight (shoulderstand, handstand, on the one hand, cart wheels, shifts of center). Natural movement vocabulary does not require a special disposition of the body and is suitable for beginners and advanced. The body is being redeveloped and learn new movement patterns and stereotypes through dance while strengthening key muscle groups and work effectively with energy.
Important word and quality with which to operate during the class: release, push, pull, reach, effectivity, center of the body.
Mat Voorter / Netherland
Mat Voorter studied at the Rotterdam Dance Academy and works internationally as a dance artist. He has worked on various projects by Anders Christiansen, Mark Tompkins, Gonnie Heggen, Michèle-Anne De Mey and Mal Pelo. But above all he likes to work and perform in dance research and improvisation projects. He has ongoing collaborations with David Zambrano and Thomas Hauert. He took part in most pieces of ZOO since the creation of the company in 1998, notably Cows in Space, Verosimile, modify, Walking Oscar, Parallallemande and Accords. He is also a teacher asked by organizations all over the world and he designs costumes, a.o. for David Zambrano and Les Slovaks Dance Collective.
Class Description
Every joint of our body has its range of movement and there are countless combinations possible. The body possesses a great practical knowledge, that goes way beyond what the mind’s consciousness is able to process. Our mind can concentrate only on a few things at one time while our body is able to combine a great amount of information in an ever changing, fluid sense of orientation, that can serve as a sensor for potential movement: physical intuition, creativity that comes into existence by purely physical circumstances, no thought is necessarily formed between the moment of ‘inspiration’ and the realisation of the movement.