Workshops

Independance endeavours to host workshops with a wide variety of different focuses throughout the year. We recommend subscribing to our mailing list to receive the latest updates about workshops we having coming up as spaces often fill fast!

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EMBODIED UNITY
Vangelis Legakis 

Vangelis will be teaching Flying Low and Contact Improvisation. Flying Low is a physical and dynamic technique that was developed by David Zambrano. Flying Low creates diverse dynamic relationships between the dancers and the environment with special focus on floor work. By using one’s weight, gravity and the energy from the environment, there is a momentum created that allows the dancer to flow freely on the floor and in space. Through the basic principles of the technique that of gathering, sending and passing through, the dancers create concrete Inter-relationships between themselves, the floor, the whole room, so as to ultimately dance freely and instinctively all together as one living entity.
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He will teach exercises in Contact Improvisation such as lifting, weight distribution, free falling, balancing and counter-balancing, matching forces, sensing and feeling each other so as to find a unique communication within the self and the group. Contact Improvisation is a dance practice that allows greater connections between the body and mind. Vangelis will introduce coordination and improvisation methodologies to facilitate body awareness and articulation and also teach basic Forsythe’s Improvisation Techniques which will conjoin and fine-tune the physical with the mental bodies. The workshop is open to all levels of dance practice as well as different dance backgrounds. We will use breathing exercises to feel more our inner body and connect with the whole group and embody movement so as to enhance consciousness and in turn broaden perspective and possibilities whilst dancing.

​Saturday 5th + Sunday 6th May 2018

Morning Sessions:
10.00am - 1.00pm daily - Flying Low (suitable for dancers with technique experience)
Afternoon Sessions:
2.00pm - 5.00pm daily - Contact Improvisation (open to all)

-Single 3 hour session - $33.00+GST
-Full workshop - $110.00+GST
-Early Bird (first 10 people registered) - $100.00+GST

​Email info@independancenz.org to register
We encourage all those able to attend the full weekend to receive the full benefit of the workshop. Registrations close Friday 27th April.

​Tutor Bio:
Vangelis Legakis graduated from Laban Center (London, UK) with BA in Dance theatre and MA in Choreography and he holds a Masters in Buddhist Studies from Hong Kong Univerisity.

​He has been visiting the Forsythe Company regularly since 2004 with whom he performed ‘Human Rights’ in 2006. He holds a diploma to teach, spread and develop Flying Low and Passing Through from the 50 days workshop in Costa Rica given by David Zambrano. He is the founding and artistic director of The Van-L Dance Company with which he is touring his production across the globe and the organisation Unity Space based in Hong Kong.

His work is influenced by reknowned dance artists including William Forsythe, Julyen Hamilton, David Zambrano, Gill Clarke, Rosemary Butcher, Rosalind Crisp. He has synthesized his experience and knowledge from diverse dance artists with meditation and energy work (Chi Gong and Yoga) so as to provide a holistic approach into dance pedagogy and performance.

For over ten years he has been internationally teaching, researching, dancing, mentoring and performing having a concrete focus and understanding of the body-mind connection in dance. He has been helping thousands of dancers and non-dancers in their career.

​Links 

www.unityspace.org
www.thevanldancecompany.com

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Lofty Release Workshop
Aloalii Tapu

Lofty Release finds opportunities for improvisation through the relationship between Loftiness and Release. Using simultaneous isolation, speed and the search for the game within our conditioned fight with gravity, Lofty Release searches for activity within the dormant areas of the body. 

The dance between Loftiness (the heightened fight to remain upright) and Release (yielding, surrender and unlocking,) evolves from spontaneity and the celebration of finding a compromise between the two.

Lofty Release is an improvisation workshop Aloalii has been developing and facilitating since 2014.


Tutor Bio
Aloalii is a Samoan freelance artist from Otara, South Auckland, New Zealand. He frequently works in Berlin, Germany and Auckland, New Zealand. He is passionate about the character development of young people in South Auckland. He has previously worked as a mentor and academic coach in South Auckland. 

Throughout his career alongside his wife and collaborator, Tori Manley-Tapu, Aloalii has developed a passion for dance-theatre, experimental film, and improvised dance. In 2015, he began developing his movement workshop "Lofty Release" and has been facilitating it in Berlin and around New Zealand. 

Saturday May 19th 
12.30pm - 2.30pm
$12.00
Email info@independancenz.org to register
Registrations close Friday 18th May

In November 2016 he was awarded the Der Faust Award for the Best Dance Performance in 2016 for his solo performance in “Urban Soul Cafe” directed by Christoph Winkler. It is considered the highest honour in German Theatre. In 2017, Aloalii toured “Urban Soul Cafe” in theatres and festivals around Germany.

Reviewers from New Zealand, Germany and France have commented on Aloalii’s charm, presence, sincerity and spontaneity in performances