Open Flight Studio is delighted to present pieces by Flight Deck Artists In Residence Jordan MacIntosh-Hougham (they/them) and Jesse Freitas (he/him), and Carolina Marín (she/her).

Tickets go on sale SOON!

Open Flight Studio is delighted to present pieces by Flight Deck Artists In Residence Jordan MacIntosh-Hougham (they/them) and Jesse Freitas (he/him), and Carolina Marín (she/her).

Tickets go on sale SOON!

Hey dancer.

Are you looking to learn Contact Improvisation?

Welcome to Momentum : Beginner Skills Contact Improvisation Intensive, a fundamentals workshop for those curious movers looking to learn the primary pathways and partner-work skills in Contact Improv.

Soften into touch, playfulness, stillness, and somatic practices. Contact is not just dance, but a continuous investigation on movement as a vehicle for present moment awareness, connection, creative expression, community, and self empowerment.

Ideal for anyone brand new and those who would like to brush up on their skills. No previous experience is required, however some dance or movement background is an asset. 

This will be our 20th round, having trained over 200 dancers in Bali since 2020.

SCHEDULE

Saturday, September 9th 9:00am - 4:00pm (1.5 hour lunch break)

Sunday, September 10th 9:00am - 11:30am 

WHAT WE COVER

DAY 1 •  CI Foundations, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Contemporary Floorwook, Falling Safely, Weight Sharing, Surfing, and Table.

DAY 2 • Improvisation and Play, Authentic Movement, Bodywork, History, Contact Improvisation Combos, and Jam Etiquette.

FACILITATOR 

Aalia Hashem is a dance artist hailing from Vancouver, Canada. She has been sharing the practice of Contact Improvisation in Bali since 2019, hosting many jams, workshops, and dance retreats. A dancer for over 20 years, she has studied with 40 Contact Improv teachers and is deeply ingrained in the practice. Primary influences include Contact intensives with Andrew Harwood, Leilani Weis, Kirstie Simson, Martin Keough, Mark Young, Vega Lukkonnen, Olivia Shaffer, Sasha Dodo & Dolores Dewhurst-Marks.

Professional projects include launching Contact Body, the first ever self-paced online course for Contact, and hosting the podcast Faces of CI, interviewing Contact facilitators about their affinity with the practice as a mirror for life. Momentum, her workshop for beginners to Contact Improvisation, has been taught 18 times in Bali, training 200+ dancers. 

Clients and teaching opportunities in recent years includes Bali Bloom Festival, Towards 50CI Conference, NYX Bali Co-working and 1:1 private dance coaching. She directs collaborative art films and has worked as a dancer in music videos for artists such as Make Like A Tree & VLKNO. She believes dance is a vehicle for present moment awareness, connection, creative expression, and self empowerment.

Learn more + Student Testimonials

For questions, reach out on Instagram to @facesofci

REGISTER HERE

***Pre-Registration Required***

TICKETS  

120 USD | Early Bird by Sept 1st
150 USD | Regular Bird til Sept 9th

Limited to 15 spaces.

Hey dancer.

Are you looking to learn Contact Improvisation?

Welcome to Momentum : Beginner Skills Contact Improvisation Intensive, a fundamentals workshop for those curious movers looking to learn the primary pathways and partner-work skills in Contact Improv.

Soften into touch, playfulness, stillness, and somatic practices. Contact is not just dance, but a continuous investigation on movement as a vehicle for present moment awareness, connection, creative expression, community, and self empowerment.

Ideal for anyone brand new and those who would like to brush up on their skills. No previous experience is required, however some dance or movement background is an asset. 

This will be our 20th round, having trained over 200 dancers in Bali since 2020.

SCHEDULE

Saturday, September 9th 9:00am - 4:00pm (1.5 hour lunch break)

Sunday, September 10th 9:00am - 11:30am 

WHAT WE COVER

DAY 1 •  CI Foundations, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Contemporary Floorwook, Falling Safely, Weight Sharing, Surfing, and Table.

DAY 2 • Improvisation and Play, Authentic Movement, Bodywork, History, Contact Improvisation Combos, and Jam Etiquette.

FACILITATOR 

Aalia Hashem is a dance artist hailing from Vancouver, Canada. She has been sharing the practice of Contact Improvisation in Bali since 2019, hosting many jams, workshops, and dance retreats. A dancer for over 20 years, she has studied with 40 Contact Improv teachers and is deeply ingrained in the practice. Primary influences include Contact intensives with Andrew Harwood, Leilani Weis, Kirstie Simson, Martin Keough, Mark Young, Vega Lukkonnen, Olivia Shaffer, Sasha Dodo & Dolores Dewhurst-Marks.

Professional projects include launching Contact Body, the first ever self-paced online course for Contact, and hosting the podcast Faces of CI, interviewing Contact facilitators about their affinity with the practice as a mirror for life. Momentum, her workshop for beginners to Contact Improvisation, has been taught 18 times in Bali, training 200+ dancers. 

Clients and teaching opportunities in recent years includes Bali Bloom Festival, Towards 50CI Conference, NYX Bali Co-working and 1:1 private dance coaching. She directs collaborative art films and has worked as a dancer in music videos for artists such as Make Like A Tree & VLKNO. She believes dance is a vehicle for present moment awareness, connection, creative expression, and self empowerment.

Learn more + Student Testimonials

For questions, reach out on Instagram to @facesofci

REGISTER HERE

***Pre-Registration Required***

TICKETS  

120 USD | Early Bird by Sept 1st
150 USD | Regular Bird til Sept 9th

Limited to 15 spaces.

Please come help us give Open Flight Studio the attention and make-over it deserves!

This 70-year-old dance space is in need of a deep clean. It takes a generous community to keep this studio alive and able to provide low rental rates for Seattle artists. Right now that means volunteer hours from not just our OFS members but from community members like yourself. At this work party, we will care for the space and then celebrate together over pizza, drinks, mingling, and maybe even dancing.

If you've attended a class, rehearsal, workshop, or event at OFS once in the last year, please consider attending. The more the merrier!

Get a taste of the devising and movement methods of the internationally acclaimed physical theatre company FRANTIC ASSEMBLY (UK).

Alina Rios is a playwright recently back from a week of intensive training with Frantic Assembly as part of their International Summer Course, and she’s eager to try out some of their devising techniques with anyone who’s interested. You don’t have to be an actor or a movement person. If you’re curious about using your body to create, you’re more than welcome.

You’ll sweat, explore your physicality, create something collaboratively, and have fun.

Cost: Free
To sign up or for any questions, email alinarioswriter@gmail.com.

Bio

Alina Rios is the founder of Bracken magazine and a published writer. Her plays have been produced on both sides of the Atlantic. Recently, she’s been the quarterfinalist in the ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition 2023 and longlisted for the New Media Prize 2023. In the summer of 2023, she trained with Frantic Assembly as part of their International Summer Course (Train). She's been mentored by Kevin Dyer (winner of Best Play, Writers’ Guild of Great Britain) and Stella Duffy. More at alinarios.com.

Hosted by Open Flight Studio, and inspired by a desire to shatter any feelings of disconnect and passivity, Ellie van Bever and Audrey Rachelle present a new show series called “Fuck It, We’ll Do It LIVE”.

12 musicians and dancers will have two hours to collaborate on an improvised score and a final hour to perform this newly created score for a live audience.

This is a call for Seattle artists to respond radically to their individual passions and frustrations through improvisation and performance, rather than mirroring Bill O’Reilly’s meltdown in the newsroom. 

Nikolai Lesnikov will be facilitating an upcoming SPIDER movement research session informed by the practice of Open Source Forms (OSF), which offers specific methods to shed layers of held tension in the body and tap into the flow of spontaneity. Nikolai will guide all participants through an introduction to OSF and the session will allow for the timing of each individual’s process of research and integration of lived experience. We will then experiment with writing from witnessing and explore ways in which our writing can enter our process through our voice and/or as a source of scores to improvise from. There is no requirement of previous knowledge of OSF or technical dance training to participate.  

Nikolai Lesnikov is a multidisciplinary human based in Seattle. He is engaged to varying degrees with the practices of law, writing, dance, aerial, wooden flutes, singing, photography, and filmmaking. He started studying the practice of Open Source Forms (OSF) in 2012 and received his OSF teacher certification in 2017.

Dance w/ me - intentional collaboration with audiences in immersive dance

This workshop introduces an adaptable framework for approaching movement based immersive performance. It balances theoretical and practical approaches to performing alongside audiences. Ultimately it is an invitation to play, collaborate and dance together. 

Koryn Wicks is an LA based choreographer, immersive maker, multimedia artist, and dancer. She creates explorable performances in which live movement and digital media build off one another in real time.

Koryn’s work has been shown in the U.S. and abroad at diverse festivals and venues including Slamdance DiG, The Bootleg Theatre, and the University of Rome Tor Vergata. In 2019, her intimate immersive piece Casting won Grand Prize at the LA Immersive Invitational. 

Koryn also choreographs for film, television and music videos, most recently, SHAED’s VR music video for their single “Once Upon a Time.”

Before moving to California Koryn danced professionally in New York and Montreal. She earned her certificate of dance with Honors from the Ailey School and a BA in Political Science from the CUNY Baccalaureate Program. Koryn holds an MFA in dance from the University of California, Irvine. She has participated in conferences on dance and embodied cognition and has been on faculty at CalArts, Cal State Fresno, Glendale Community College, Cerritos College and Cypress College.

This workshop is designed for full or partial participation

$50 Full Workshop

$35 Day 1

$30 Day 2

*If you need financial support to attend, please reach out to Audrey at rentals@openflightstudio.com
Reserve your spot or find more information HERE

Dance w/ me - intentional collaboration with audiences in immersive dance

This workshop introduces an adaptable framework for approaching movement based immersive performance. It balances theoretical and practical approaches to performing alongside audiences. Ultimately it is an invitation to play, collaborate and dance together. 

Koryn Wicks is an LA based choreographer, immersive maker, multimedia artist, and dancer. She creates explorable performances in which live movement and digital media build off one another in real time.

Koryn’s work has been shown in the U.S. and abroad at diverse festivals and venues including Slamdance DiG, The Bootleg Theatre, and the University of Rome Tor Vergata. In 2019, her intimate immersive piece Casting won Grand Prize at the LA Immersive Invitational. 

Koryn also choreographs for film, television and music videos, most recently, SHAED’s VR music video for their single “Once Upon a Time.”

Before moving to California Koryn danced professionally in New York and Montreal. She earned her certificate of dance with Honors from the Ailey School and a BA in Political Science from the CUNY Baccalaureate Program. Koryn holds an MFA in dance from the University of California, Irvine. She has participated in conferences on dance and embodied cognition and has been on faculty at CalArts, Cal State Fresno, Glendale Community College, Cerritos College and Cypress College.

Hosted by Open Flight Studio, and inspired by a desire to shatter any feelings of disconnect and passivity, Ellie van Bever and Audrey Rachelle present a new show series called “Fuck It, We’ll Do It LIVE”.

12 musicians and dancers will have two hours to collaborate on an improvised score and a final hour to perform this newly created score for a live audience.

This is a call for Seattle artists to respond radically to their individual passions and frustrations through improvisation and performance, rather than mirroring Bill O’Reilly’s meltdown in the newsroom. 

Come witness the first experiment this May!

Doors open at 8:30pm

Cash/Venmo $10 - $30 

Password to Enter: Fuck It

Description:

Toss out gender-norms and say hello to physics! This workshop opens the doors for everyone to base and fly. A partnering technique created by Pilobolus, non-traditional partnering harnesses the efficiency and strength of the human body to lift, lower, and carry one another through space, all while creating integrated designs and fluid transitions. Come explore the human experience of sharing weight and discovering connections. There’s no previous partnering experience needed.

Katarina Lee was born in Crawfordsville, Indiana where she began her training at Crawfordsville Academy of Dance. She continued on to Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan where she graduated Cum Laude in 2016 with a BA in dance and Minor in Business. While there, Katarina performed works by Amy O'Neal, Takehiro Ueyama, Lauren Edson, and Jesse Zaritt. Upon graduation she moved to Houston to dance with Ad Deum Dance Company, where she was given the opportunity to dance with Springs Dance Company in London for a period of time.

In 2017 Katarina moved to Cleveland, Ohio to dance with Inlet Dance Theatre  undertaking the roles of Company Dancer and Costume Coordinator. While there she trained in Erick Hawkins Release technique, Pilobolian Nontraditional Partnering, and group based improvisation. In 2022, Katarina premiered her first professional work, Hiheyhello, as a part of Inlet's summer dance intensive.

In September of 2022, Katarina moved to Seattle to begin exploring the west coast dance scene and creating her work.

The Study Group is free for everyone, as part of Carolina Marin’s Axis Syllabus teacher Candidacy.

Matthew Offenbacher:

Hello, I have been an artist and grassroots community organizer in Seattle for almost twenty years. My work has been called “freakishly egoless”, vulnerable, funny and queer. A critic once wrote that in my work “quality control is replaced by good will” which I think was intended as a bad review, but I like it. My most recent project was a painting/performance residency at Oxbow in Georgetown with four dancers, a rock musician and a bystander intervention trainer.

Description:

Masculinity. We’ll explore some of the ways that men move though the world — with a special focus on how white cis-men take up space. I’m most interested in dance that does not require special technique and builds a sense of community and shared trust. We’ll do a little discussing and then some experiments with task-based improvisational movement. People of all genders welcome!

Leaving Pt 2 : The shapes we leave in

This workshop will be a deepening of part 1. We will explore our relationship to leaving - looking at the range of ways we can leave, the range of things we can leave, and playing with how we leave influences how we arrive, connect, or relate to what’s next. Using solo, pair, and group movement, as well as journaling/writing exercises, we will explore our tendencies, open into possibilities, and find our agency to shift or transform how we leave.

Madison (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist working along the intersections of mindfulness, movement, healing arts, and theatre/improvisation. Madison adores somatic exploration as a means to uncover unconscious patterns and try on or learn new ways of being that support our dignity, connectedness, and freedom -- and that honor the beautiful breadth and depth of being in a human body. A long time student of trauma-informed practices and facilitation, Madison is always considering the containers that best support safe, playful, and delicious exploration. Madison has lived all over the globe, but has taken up residency in Seattle since 2020.

Helena (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist focused on art as process, rather than product. As an experimenting ground for ideas, emotions, and beauty, performative arts and contact improvisation have been an integral aspect of Helena’s identity and curiosity for the past 5 years. She finds inspiration in nature and in the subtle complexities of human relating. Alongside improvisational arts, Helena composes poetry and music. She is currently based in Seattle, Washington, USA, but has her roots in Asia.