ORGANIZATION TEAM.

The organizing team is made up of Carmen Alcalde, Diana Bonilla, Leilani Weis and Lucía Sánchez. Four women who have been dedicated for years to the practice, dissemination and teaching of Contact Improvisation Dance. Four people. Four ways to understand and experience this discipline, and something that unites them: the desire to continue studying and delving into the principles of CI with the help of international masters with extensive experience who were close to its origin.

CARMEN ALCALDE.
Spain (Extremadura).

Organizer and dance teacher Contact Improvisation. Social educator, cultural anthropologist. Gestalt therapist with a gender perspective. Facilitator of group processes.

I am interested in the synergies between CI, voice, sound and movement improvisation and how these practices affect our perception, subjectivity, health and modes of relationship, creating new forms of contact with ourselves, with others and with space-world.

I trained in parallel in the social and artistic fields, approaching singing, theater and dance since childhood and later doing different training from which I still continue to draw. In 2005 I fell in love with Contact Improvisation and delved deeper with numerous teachers. Since 2010 I have been teaching CI in different spaces and with various groups, in addition to getting involved in the organization of meetings, festivals and instances that promote the practice and its philosophy. Since 2017 I have lived in and managed La Enramada, an art and creation space located in the Vera Valley (Cáceres) where I work as a therapist, host workshops, residencies and cultural events, and offer JAMs and regular CI classes.

As an CI teacher, I have participated in the festivals of Asturias, Madrid, Cardedeu, Malloak (Lecumberri), Italy, and La Provenza and in other events such as “Pirineos en Danza”, “Namoreira”, “Itineranzza” “WIM Festival” or “FestCAM”.

I co-organize the CI Meeting “Danzas Magas”, the CI and improvisation residential “Spaces ( ) between life and dance” together with Lucía Sánchez, the meeting “Enramando” together with Ernesto Novales, and the workshop “Color and movement”, along with Leticia Ruifernández.

I coordinate co-educational projects on Gender Equality in public schools and women's associations in the La Vera region and have taught several dance, voice and self-care workshops for women both in rural areas and in Equality Spaces in the community of Madrid.

DIANA BONILLA.
Spain (Madrid).

Dancer, performer, pedagogue and organiser. She began her studies in 1996 in classical dance, Spanish dance and flamenco in Madrid. A few years later she continued her training by entering contemporary dance and discovering Contact Improvisation. Since then she has continued her study, practice, teaching and dissemination uninterruptedly. She dedicates herself to researching the art of improvising with teachers such as Shahar Dor, Keith Henessy, Julyen Hamilton, Katie Duck, Daniel Lepkoff, Cristiane Boullosa and David Zambrano, who have strongly influenced her in both her artistic and teaching practice.

Since 2002 Diana has been dancing in different companies and for different choreographers such as Cristiane Boullosa and Francesc Bravo (Cía Rayo Malayo). She has collaborated as a dancer and assistant to the choreographer Meyling Bisogno in multiple works since 2009 (www.meylingbisogno.info). As an improviser and performer she participates in the Omos Uno project, performing periodically since 2008 on independent circuits mainly in Madrid. Since 2019, Pedro Berdayes (National Dance Award in the Creation Category of the year 2000) has collaborated as a choreographer with the company Omos Uno.

Diana teaches CI and has regularly organised CI festivals in Madrid since 2006. She has been part of the teaching team of the CI Training in Madrid and Bilbao ( www.espaciofci.com ) since the beginning of the project. She has organised EXIN since 2014 with teachers such as David Zambrano, Edivaldo Ernesto, Sara Shelton Mann, Meg Stuart and Guillermo Weickert. ( www.exindance.com ).

LEILANI WEIS.
Chile, Spain (Barcelona).

I am a dancer, mover and researcher of movement as a creative process. I am very curious about my own body and others bodies dancing, together or alone.

I live dance as an act of presence and attention, where I receive information from myself, from others and from the environment. With these I can play, compose, create and feel great joy.

My work focuses on the mechanics of bodies on Earth and how they affect us. When I come into contact with others and with the space I let myself be affected equally. The dance space, filled with information, is my place to practise presence and attention.

In the classes I try to open possibilities for practitioners/dancers to find their own organic, biological and natural paths, the ones the body possesses and we so often forget. I trust in the beauty and natural organisation of the body and seek its wise ways.

My work world is moving around, teaching classes, facilitating labs, performing, organising CI events and creating pieces.

I have taught in several countries in Latin America, North America and Europe where I continue researching and collaborating with different groups of artists. For 18 years I have been investigating the intersection between Contact Improvisation and Argentine Tango, two dances that I love deeply. In this research I have learned a lot about space and compositional musicality in the body. I am fascinated by understanding the depths of these two techniques and seeing how they can meet and disagree during a creative and compositional process. I contribute to the organisation of different events whose aim is to create attentive containers where we can study and practice Contact Improvisation and the techniques that nourished it. (ItalyContactFest, IMMERSIONES, Contact Improvisation festival).

LUCÍA SÁNCHEZ.
Spain (Mataelpino, Madrid).

Movement teacher for 15 years (Contemporary Dance and Pilates since 2008, and Contact Improvisation since 2011). Lucia teaches regularly in Madrid as well as Spain and Europe (intensive workshops and Festivals such as: Asturias Contact Festival (2023), “En Provence” Contact Festival (2022, 2023, 2024), Malloak Contact Festival (2022), Cardedeu Contact Festival (2019), Italy Contact Festival (2018), Contact Meets Contemporary (Goettingen, Germany, 2016, 2017 and 2018), Madrid Contact Festival (2017) and others...).

Projects: In 2008 she opened, directed and taught at the Lapuertaroja studio (Madrid) and managed it until 2021. In 2021 she consolidated La Mimosa, a room dedicated to conscious movement and dance, where she teaches regular classes and intensive workshops as well as organising Jams. Lucia has also co-organised the End of the Year Contact Improvisation Meeting (now Danzas Magas) from 2015 to the present.

From 2012 to 2016 she was part of the improvised music and dance company Omos Uno, directed by Cristiane Boullosa, which regularly performed in Madrid.

More about Lucía.

MUSICIANS 2024.

(Soon more information about the musicians for 2025)

DAVID LARRÍNAGA
España (Cercedilla, Madrid).

David Larrínaga (Bilbao, 1981) multi-instrumentalist musician, composer, vocal teacher, music therapist.

Creator and director of the musical project "La Baldosa Flotante", combining world music with the author's vision; performing concerts for 20 years. Composer and musician on stage for plays. He participates in other musical bands such as “La Escuela Encantada” or “La Rosa Suena”.

David works as a music therapist in the field of Geriatrics, Mental Health, and family music. Captivated by the songs and music of the world (Hindustani classical music, Turkish maqam, harmony singing...) As a vocal therapist, she teaches courses and workshops called "Being in the Voice", providing a context in which to resonate in the body with tranquility, and share the songs, the sounds, in a circle of voices.

In his relationship with body movement, in Bilbao he received flashes of contemporary dance with Idoia Zabaleta, Olaf Kehler, and physical theater with Ander Lipus. More recently he participates in Jams and retreats with the Danzas Magas collective.

The relationship between music and dance is something so precious, so primordial. Both feed each other, it is a joy for me to play when there are dancers, the meaning is clear, we improvise, the music occupies a place in which it gains lightness and loses demands.

For me, participating in the CI is always a learning experience, a therapy, an exercise in listening and presence, an observation of inertia and resistance. In unison. It is health to play together, dance together, ways to relate and perceive each other more positively; towards the authentic, towards the living.

VÍDEO: Jam musisized by David Larríanga

SIMONE UNSUI

Italia / España (Madrid).

Unsui is an Italian producer and live-set performer living in Madrid. Unsui means “water cloud” and it identifies the water cycle as a metaphor which describes the flow of the experience through the searching for wisdom and knowledge.

The flow of water passing through different landscapes searching for new hidden places inspires the sounds of unsui productions. His music reflects the abstract world of feelings and the physical experience of nature. Through his sound design explorations unsui is always searching for a secret place where dreamy atmospheres, mysterious noise and textures match with the persistent energy of groovy rhythms.

Unsui discovered contact in 2020 and he becomes a deep passionate about the discipline.

He soon began to explore new sound spaces, accompanying CI jams with live music, where he always tries to interpret the sound as another body that moves through the collective space.