“Falling & Catching, Lightness & Flying”

Contact Improvisation Weekend
with Vega Luukkonen
6 – 8 November 2026

Poland, Krakow

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Falling & catching begins with our breath. We can use our natural breath-cycle to synchronize and tune in with others. We will begin by playing with gravity and momentum, focusing on the ideas of falling & flying – both in solo movement, and in contact with others.

We start from looking at falling in micro-scale, and growing our movement towards more complex actions.
From researching the subtle mechanics of the ‘small dance’ we can discover fluid ways of lifting each other with lightness and ease. How do we catch ourselves ? How do we catch each other ?

Using momentum, suspension, reaching, swinging and bouncing in order to catch each other into easy lifts moving through the space, or offering each other “rides” down, or up.

Working with the frame of the arms, we explore ways to connect to the space, and find counterbalance, providing frames to both lift & be lifted, and offering physical structures to be explored.

We will focus on the details & technique of body tone, alignment, and small points of contact, which all help with finding lightness in being lifted & efficiency in lifting.

We will also find grounding and stability for our pelvis / center to play with different variations of hip-lifts.
How to stay mobile and moving as a under-dancer while lifting ? Paying attention to our foot-work, small steps, positioning of our hips and small details in tilting our pelvis and creating invitations and possibilities to roll-in into lifts, keeping our dance in movement.

Looking as well into landings. How to land softly, and stay connected to our partner after the lift ? How lifts or weight-shifts can be seen part of the dance, rather than separate events.

I will be offering clear technical exercises and principles to practice, but also giving lots of time to research, lab and explore the material, so that we can stay connected to improvisation, listening and presence, and integrating the learnt material to our dancing bodies.

Technique & Poetry
Structure & Freedom
Playful Beings in Motion

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Movement Educator, Dancer, Facilitator
Vega Luukkonen

is a dancer, performance-artist & bodyworker made in Finland. She studied dance & theatre pedagogy in Helsinki at the Theatre Academy of Finland, where she completed her Master´s degree in 2008. Currently she is co-hosting ROOTED IN MOTION, 10 months modular training in Contact Improvisation in Berlin with her long-term colleague,
Hugh Stanier.

Vega is an expert in Contact Improvisation (CI), and teaches at festivals, events & workshops across the world. She has danced Contact Improvisation since she was a teenager, and developed first her practice in the Finnish contact community. After her studies she begun travel & teach internationally, having now more than 30 years of experience with Contact Improvisation.

Her movement is informed & inspired by contemporary dance, somatics, aikido, floor-work, soft acrobatics, partnering & developmental movement patterns. Recently, she is more & more interested in deeper understanding of the underlying principles of Contact Improvisation, leading into fine tuning, attention to detail, deep listening, and presence.

She seeks ways to facilitate understanding of movement fundamentals, while staying connected to our own interest & journey of exploration, where curiosity can stay most alive to discovery.

Her classes are playful, physical, fun and creative. She also works with collective scores & composition; expanding out from duets into trios & group-compositions,
seeing also solo-improvisation as vital part of contact improvisation. She understands dance as a combination of technique & flow; form & freedom; being & doing.

☀️ EVENT DETAILS:

⏰️ DATE:
November 6-8 (exact times coming SOON)

REGISTRATION:
katriluukkonen
@hotmail.com

⛵️ PRICES: COMING SOON

KONTAKT, Space of Movement, Dance, and Music Szpitalna 40, KRAKOWIE