Dancing About Architecture – Jan Cieślak

“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” It’s not entirely clear who authored this sentence, but we know what it originally meant: that it was a crazy idea. So let’s try it. These words will serve as a triple inspiration for the workshop:

We will search for abstraction in dance and various ways of constructing space: points, lines, planes, solids, symmetry, etc.

We will dance in-between, in a trance-like manner, leap into metaphors, and explore other fields of art and science.

We will explore the various ways in which dance can be about something.

More specifically, what will be happening?

There will be some exercise for the body and attention. We will walk, fall, crawl, stand up, breathe, twist, undulate, swing with gravity, hang by our bones, and we will do nothing, or at least as little as possible. All of this is about pushing beyond the boundaries of established movement patterns and letting go of control where it gets in the way.

There will be plenty of butoh – with its characteristic astonishment of the body and a dreamily dissolved and fragmented imagination. But there will also be non-butoh: more conceptual exercises and jams, sometimes moving from dance to reading, writing, drawing – and back again.

It sounds complicated, and butoh adds an even darker aura, but sometimes it will also be simpler and clearer – we will let go of all forms and, without trying too hard to dance, we will dance.

The classes are open to everyone, regardless of age or experience level.

❗️Organizational information:

We meet at Kontakt [Szpitalna 40, 1p] every ⏰️ Sunday from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM. And then a short break and then some dancing.❗️ From November 15th to December 20th, this will be happening six times in total.

Admission to a single class: PLN 50. Pass for three classes: PLN 130. Pass for all six classes: PLN 230.
If you’re in a financial bind but would like to participate in a class, please contact me.
I encourage you to attend all the classes, as they will be related to each other. But you can also just attend some of them, or, for example, check out the first few to see if they’re interesting for you, and then decide what to do next.

❗️Registration: https://forms.gle/7F4yXN15nGSusYUh9
You can direct all inquiries to: jan.h.cieslak@gmail.com

Instructor: Jan Cieślak
About me: For the past five years, I’ve been moving a lot and in a variety of ways: contemporary dance, contact impro, Gaga, BMC, physical theater, movement, and soft-acro. But above all, butoh has always been closest to me: whenever and wherever possible, I danced with Krzysztof Jerzak, and later in Italy and France with Atsushi Takenouchi and Imre Thormann. Last year, I co-led a closed performance group, with which we performed at the Kontakt na Nocy Teatrów festival.

PS: During the same autumn/winter period, I will also be teaching something similar to PE for adults: movement, animal flow, movement and mindfulness games, strength, and mobility. Every Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Thematically and notationally, they will be separate from the architecture dance, but I’m convinced they will complement each other well. More information here:

https://facebook.com/events/s/movement-czyli-w-poszukiwaniu-/1552300043366911/