In-person dance jams, workshops, labs, and a performance
plus two film screening programs (both in person and virtual)
Go to: https://contactdancefilmfest.eventive.org/ to purchase tickets or passes
"Contact Dance Film Festival"
The Contact Dance Film Fest" which runs once every two years celebrates films featuring momentum-based dance by creators and dancers in the fields of Contact Improvisation and related dance forms that are momentum, touch, and relationally based.
"Falling Into Autumn"
The Falling into Autumn Jam is an annual weekend jam that aims to be a dance-focused exploration of Contact Improvisation featuring classes, workshops, and jams.
ORGANISING/SUPPORT TEAM:
Samantha Johnston, Sarah Jones, Gibum Dante Lim, Kathleen Rea and Jayeden Walker.
VISION:
- Support the development of Contact Improvisation in Toronto and surrounding areas
- Support conversation and networking to vitalize and strengthen the Contact Improvisation community
- Continue to support the COVID recovery process
- Climate considerations
- Focus on accessibility and creative leadership roles for those with disabilities.
- Focus on accessibility and creative leadership roles for those who face marginalization or who are underrepresented in our community (both visible and invisible).
- Provide access accommodations within the scope of what we can offer and competing access needs that may arise.
- Support dance spaces that build a consent culture.
HOW WE REACH FOR THIS VISION:
- We work to welcome as many types of bodies, identities, and levels of experience in this wheelchair-friendly, access-focused space.
- We work to provide accommodation as needed within our capacity.
- We also acknowledge and work to understand that the space we offer can never be 100% inclusive due to competing access needs.
- Each year teachers will be local from Toronto and surrounding areas
- If we do every fly a teacher in we buy a carbon offset.
- We also ask that attendees from afar carpool or take the train.
- The festival includes a BIPOC affinity dance jam and a disability lead access-focused dance jam.
- 2.5% of all fees collected will be donated to the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto.
- We are offering sliding scale rates to increase access.
- We have jam guidelines that support consent cultures
Jam Guidelines
All participants must read at the point of purchase.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VvM85pJ_2gE58dANWztFLy5N4KoAZ49U/view?usp=drive_link
Location
National Ballet Shcool of Canada/ Celia Franca Centre
400 Javis Street, Toronto, Ontario.
Festival Pass
Everything Pass: $275 (can purchase easily)
Everything Pass: $250 (can purchase easily with some planning)
Everything Pass: $225 (need to consult my budget)
Everything Pass: $200 (need to carefully consult my budget)
Everything Pass: $175 (need to carefully consult budget and save)
Everything Pass: $150 (otherwise be unable to attend)
Everything on Saturday Pass: $140
Everything on Sunday Pass: $140
Tutorial for registering:
https://youtu.be/Ac-50qaPwbs
Individual Events
See prices for individual events:
https://contactdancefilmfest.eventive.org/schedule
Trailers
Check back soon to see our new trailer.
Schedule
Download PDF Version
Teachers' Biographies
See List of teachers' biographies
Watching Films Online?
Our platform for virtual screenings:
https://watch.eventive.org/contactdancefilmfest
and click the "pre-order now" button for a screening of your choice.
You will be sent an email once you "pre-order now" for a screening with the screening link.
How it works
All our virtual screenings can be purchased ahead of time and open at the same time as the live version of the screening programs.
Opening Screening - Friday, October 11 2024 @ 7:00 pm (EDT)
Gala Screening- Sunday, October 13 @ 7:00 pm (EDT)
Cost for a virtual screening: $1 to $20 (sliding scale for each film screening)
All screenings are a one-time with forensic watermarks to protect the filmmaker's work.
To accommodate different time zones and work schedules we have this watch policy:
- Once this start time occurs you will have 1 month to open your screening.
- Once you start watching, you have 1 month to finish watching the program.
If it helps you to remember say: "ONE month to open and ONE month to watch for a ONE-time view"
See our tutorial for accessing our live streams
https://youtu.be/9yN1yobiGtw
Access
All text in the films is open-captioned.
The EVERY BODY Dance Jam on Sunday, October 13, 2024, will have ASL Interpretation.
Please email us at info@contactdancefilmfest.com if you have an accommodation that can create enhanced access for you.
National Ballet School of Canada /Celia Franca Centre - 400 Jarvis Street, Toronto
- Barrier-free entrance
- There is an elevator to get to the fourth floor
- Gender neutral wheelchair accessible washrooms
Carlton Cinema
20 Carlton St. at Yonge Toronto,
- We are still collecting specific access data for this location but they are wheelchair accessible
Festival Feedback
Leave both anonymous and non-anonymous feedback for us throughout and after the festival at this Incognea link:
https://ansr.me/Z0iLK
What is Contact Improvisation?
Contact Improvisation is a style of dance that is not codified or owned, so any one definition is simply that person’s definition. This is the founder of REAson d’etre dance Kathleen Rea’s definition of Contact Improvisation:
- Contact Improvisation is a social dance involving touch, in which momentum between two or more people is used to create and inspire dance movements.
- Contact Improvisation evolved from explorations of a group of dancers many centred around Oberlin College in the early 1970s, which included Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Danny Lepkoff, Lisa Nelson, Karen Nelson, Nita Little, Andrew Harwood, and Ray Chung.
- One of the founders of Contact Improvisation Steve Paxton, was strongly influenced by his training in Aikido a Japanese Martial arts practice. Looking at the principles of CI its commonality with Aikido is clear.
- Techniques include rolling point of contact, balancing over a partner's centre of gravity, "listening" with one's skin surface, and “surfing” momentum. While there is technique involved, the aesthetic I reach for is the quality of the relationship and communication within a dance.
- It is typically practiced in a jam situation in which people gather to improvise together.
- Dancers move with a constantly changing physical reality. In Contact Improvisation there are no set leaders and followers as in other social dance forms. Instead, there is a back-and-forth with dancers sometimes leading, sometimes following, and all variations between these two roles.
- The form is potentially accessible to all people, including those with no previous dance training and people with physical disabilities. I say potentially because "-isms" such as racism and ableism as well as misogyny historically have reduced or inhibited access. The -isms and issues that are embedded in the broader cultures in which CI is practiced show up on the dance floor. There has been a growing movement to address these “ism” in CI but also resistance to this as well.
- Another limitation to access has been the lack of consent culture in Contact Improvisation communities, both on the dance floor and off. Since the "me-too" movement there has been a growing understanding of the value of building and supporting consent culture in Contact Improvisation, along with some backlash against this movement.
- I believe much of the resistance to addressing “isms" and consent culture comes from the idea that CI is an egalitarian form that transcends “isms”. The reality however for people who are marginalized by society is that “isms” show up on the dance floor.
- This definition of Contact Improvisation is my personal feeling of what Contact Improvisation is to me. Others will describe it differently, and this variance and diversity of opinions are for me one of the strengths of Contact Improvisation. One of the founders, Nancy Stark Smith, wrote: “Throughout CI’s development, a gentle anarchy has prevailed over its organization.” I feel that this gentle anarchy is a fundamental aspect of the form.
REAson d'etre dance productions (producer)
REAson d'etre dance produces CDIFF. REAson detre dance strives to provide artistic expression through movement, inclusive of age, ability, and level background. We stage and program works based on Contact Improvisation enabling us to utilize the inclusiveness that can be a part of this dance form. Our vision is for both professional dancers and everyday people to be inspired and invigorated by Contact Improvisation. This mandate involves initiatives that work to dismantle racism and ablism and other "isms" as their existence hinders us in achieving our mandate. We are committed to examining the art form of contact improvisation and acknowledging its history of inequity, ablism, and racism. We strive to engage in a continuing process of educating ourselves and acting for change.
https://reasondetre.com/
Land Acknowledgement
Land Acknowledgement is part of the process of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples who have been acknowledging the land before gatherings, ceremonies, and events for time immemorial. Being based in Toronto, Canada, we acknowledge the land this festival takes place on is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples, and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. In support of the process of reconciliation REAson d'etre dance donates 2.5 of all box office and jam and workshop fee to the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto.
Supported by
