Spring Jam 2024
Update 4/2: The Spring Jam is full. You can add yourself to the Waitlist.
The Spring Jam in Bellingham is a Contact Improvisation weekend hosted by Carmen and Rajendra Serber, featuring a special workshop with Anne Cooper and music by Serge Gubelman, Yam Sweets and Ira Echo. We are lucky to have Wonder Phallen and Michal Lahav as additional facilitator. On Sunday evening, we host another farewell dinner at our home, with an optional hearty gluten-free meal ($14) – freshly cooked.
Join us to practice Contact Improvisation with the inspiration of classes, scores, labs, music, contemplative dance practice*, the underscore, and of course jamming. We are invested in creating a welcoming and safe container while also inviting the experimental nature of a radical community process.
At the Peace, Education and Somatic School (previously called the Aikido Peace Education Center) in the Masonic Hall, downtown Bellingham, WA.
April 12 ~ Friday day workshop with Anne Cooper.
April 12-14 ~ Friday evening, all day Saturday and Sunday
You can join us for ...
- Friday Workshop with Anne Cooper (including Friday evening) $80 to $150.
- The Jam Weekend (Friday evening - Sunday) $80 to $300.
- Workshop and Jam Weekend $150 to $300.
- Evening Jams only, $20 per evening.
- Sunday farewell dinner at Carmen and Rajendra's (optional $14 a meal).
The Spring Jam is full. You can add yourself to the Waitlist.
Please let everybody you want to dance with know ~ share this post in email, on Facebook or wherever you are social.
🏕️ 🚗 🛏 Housing/Carpool
Upon receiving your registration/payment, you will get access to a self-serve spreadsheet to inquire about rides and housing.
Workshop with Anne Cooper
SIMPLE/Complex/SIMPLE
Based on the idea of 'Simple/Complex/Simple' (Nancy Stark Smith), we'll hone in on elements of the Underscore, other short scores and preparations and the states and qualities they bring us into. This supports our solo dancing to resurface. The focus will be on solo tuning and improvisation and its movement into duet contact improvisations and group compositional improvisations.The workshop will serve as an envelope and as seeds from which the physical voice of each duet and of collective improvised action unfolds.
Preliminary Schedule:
Friday April 12 ~ workshop with Anne Cooper 10am-5pm
10:00 Workshop
1:00 Lunch Break
2:30 Workshop
Friday April 12 ~ Jam starts
6:00 Open Space
7:00 Welcome mixer
7:30 Jam ~ music by Serge
Saturday April 13
9:30 Open Space
10:00 Underscore the Practice with Michal Lahav
1:00 Lunch
3:00 Welcome activity
3:30 Class with Carmen + Rajendra
5:00 Evening break
7:00 Open space
7:30 Jam ~ music by Yam and Ira
Sunday April 14
10:00 Contemplative Dance Practice* with Carmen
12:00 Ensemble Practice with Wonder
1:00 Lunch
2:30 Spring harvest score
4:15 Closing Round 🐪 🐡 🐙
4:30 Clean up
6:00 Farewell dinner at Carmen and Rajendra's (optional), ($14)
The Underscore was developed by Nancy Stark Smith in the 90's. It is a spacious experience shared by the participants which can spark surprising kinesthetic and compositional improvisation and Contact Improvisation within this defined framework.
*Contemplative Dance Practice
Contemplative Dance Practice, developed by Barbara Dilley, is a Dancer's Mediation Hall or a Meditator's Dance Hall. It offers a place to observe and research, alone and together. This practice deepens our relationship to impulse. It invites us to listen and to court the unexpected. We may move, or be moved, into deeper streams of consciousness.