Join Us For a Weekend of Contact Improvisation

Join us for a weekend of dance and delight at the 2014 Ontario Regional Contact Jam. Beginners, novices, and old-timers are welcome! The theme this year is connection. Connect with yourself, with the space, with the Ontario community, with the dance. Find the time to connect, remember what it means to connect.

It's a 3-day jam this year, Saturday through holiday Monday. Arrive Friday for Toronto's weekly ecstatic dance and late-night contact jam at our traditional home, Dovercourt House. The full schedule is here.

A long weekend: More time to sink into your body and into the dance.

Last year, over 140 dancers of all ages came together. A third were from out of province, including Winnipeg, Nova Scotia, and multiple cities in Michigan and New York State. A dozen participants came from Quebec, including a Finnish scientist; and one intrepid van load travelled 12 hours from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

A fresh wind is blowing through the organizing group. Find out how you can help with the jam.

Event Details

What: A Contact Improvisation dance jam! The ORCJ jam will feature workshops and special sessions, featuring some of Ontario's and the surrounding area's wonderful movement teachers.

Who: Whether you are a newcomer or a veteran of the form, people of all abilities and all levels of dance experience are welcome. If you can get to Toronto from wherever you live, you're in the Ontario Region and we'll treat you like family! Bilingual English/français facilitation will be available (as volunteers permit).

How: Want to learn Contact Improvisation? During the jam, come to our Contact Improv Beginner class. Come with loose-fitting or yoga clothes and be prepared to dance in bare feet. For all languages - we'll do our best to provide translation as volunteers permit. To support those who are sensitive to smells and odours, avoid scents or perfumes on you and your clothing, please! Come as you are!

Where: The beautiful National Ballet School. We have 2 wonderful, spacious dance studios.

See a video of the space here.

Directions: The National Ballet School is at 400 Jarvis St. It's an 8-minute walk from Wellesley subway station (walk east to Jarvis St). The parking garage across the street from the ballet school is $5/day (bring change).

Food: Sumptuous vegetarian feasts provided throughout the weekend. We'd like to know who has food allergies that we should be aware of; we can't promise that we will accommodate all of them, but we will do our best. Contact us via OntJam@contactimprov.ca. We ask people to bring plates, bowls, mugs and cutlery with them to the jam. (Food help needed! See below.)

Housing: With the theme of Connection we are committing to try to find a local home for all pre-registered out-of-town jammers to stay. Register early so we can find you a special place to call home while you are with us. If you live in Toronto, consider sharing your home with those from away. Host someone or a posse of someones in your home. See information below.

Ride Sharing: We can help you find a ride to and from Toronto. Register early to help the process.

Weekend Schedule: The full schedule is here. Each day usually starts with a lead warm-up and jamming in the morning, more jamming and workshops in the afternoon, and dancing with live or DJ'd music at night. Beginners can have 1-on-1 intro sessions throughout the day.

Cost (Sat-Mon including food): The early-bird price is $90. If you register, your kids can come for free, and your parents too. For alternative financial arrangements, including daily rates, hardship discounts, and easy payment plans, contact us at ontjam@contactimprov.ca .

Venue: The National Ballet School

Here's a video of our amazing venue (weddings and theatres not included):

Beginners

To fully welcome people who are completely new or fairly new to contact improv, there will be a class right after opening circle to get you into the flow.

The aim is to provide a fun and safe introduction so that you can then begin dancing at the Ontario Regional Contact Jam (and elsewhere). Come play with us!

Come to the intro with stretchy or yoga clothes (no zippers, buttons, or buckles) and be prepared to dance in bare feet. Please refrain from wearing perfumes or other scents, to support the health of those who are allergic.

The class is included as part of the Ontario Regional Contact Jam admission fee.

This class is a good prep for the all-levels contact improv class happening after lunch on Day 1.

1-on-1 lessons will also be available throughout the event.

Our peace team will be available throughout the event, if you have any questions or need any support around safety, personal boundaries, beginning or ending dances, or if you have any feelings come up during the event that you'd like to talk about.

For more information about how we welcome beginners, including extra registration options for beginners, contact us at OntJam@contactimprov.ca.

Peggy Baker All-Levels Dance Lab

We're delighted to have Peggy Baker offering an all-levels dance lab. Labbing means that she'll offer us tidbits to play with and explore.

As you watch her dancers labbing in this video, imagine the direction it might go with a room full of contact improv dancers, of all levels:

Our theme this year is connection. Connecting with Peggy Baker in this way, while she's artist in residence at the National Ballet School, is a wonderful way to deepen our connection with NBS while we're there. For many of us, it will be a new way to connect with our bodies and our dancing selves. Perhaps it will be something new for Peggy too.

Authentic Movement

Day 1 will include an authentic movement session. It's a deeper way to connect with ourselves, a way to invite more of ourselves into the experience of the jam.

Here's a random youtube video of what authentic movement might look like in a ballet studio.

A key part of authentic movement is that the mover is being witnessed. While you watched the video, how did it feel to witness? Take a moment to consider what feelings came up for you while witnessing.

Bodywork and Healing Arts

Once again we are inviting community health professionals and amateurs to share their passion for enhancing the healthy & dancing body-mind-and soul!

We already have several registered volunteer care givers and have opening for more. Participants will benefit from quality exchanges and therapists may find this to be an interesting place to showcase their work, explore and exchange. Go to the Bodywork and Healing page for details.

If you are interested in participating as a caregiver or healing circle volunteer (to organize the space and exchange rotations) please email healing.orcj13@gmail.com with the following info: Name, technique/service, time/day you are willing to contribute to the event, your mini bio, a 200*200px photo, website & contact info and we will post it on the Bodywork and Healing page.

Call for Ontario Regional Contact Jam Volunteers!

Contact us!: OntJam@contactimprov.ca

Help Organize:

We're organizing the 2014 Ontario Regional Contact Jam in May 2014, in Toronto. We invite all interested and committed contacters to join in the creation of another awesome contact dance experience. We're looking for help with all kinds of sub-projects:

• flyer design,
• advertising and promotion,
• specialty workshops,
• food,
• housing / billeting,
• set-up and clean-up,
• facilitation,
• talent show,
• music,
• budgeting,
• and that other idea dancing around in your head.

We'd like to invite members of the contact improv community throughout Ontario and neighbourhood to help us pull it all together. If you've got an idea of how you can contribute, please let us know. Get in touch, and we'll get you hooked in with the group:

Share Your Home:

Can you offer housing space for our out-of-town dancers? Can your parents offer space, or your friends, or your neighbours? Guest jammers bring their own sleeping bags and pillows and their sense of fun; the Jam feeds them; and you contribute your friendly hospitality and a bed, sofa, or perhaps a floor. If you have space to house out-of-town dancers contact us at ontjam@contactimprov.ca.

Help with Food:

We are looking for volunteers to help with the food for the Ontario Regional Contact Jam. Can you help make this happen in May 2014? Contact us at OntJam@contactimprov.ca The work will be mostly prep work (slicing, dicing, food processor running...). Not hard and lots of excellent company!

2014 Open Planning Meetings

We invite all members of the Ontario contact community to join this year's planning group.

We want to plan our way forward in an open way with broad involvement from the Ontario CI community. So join us and help guide our common future.

We regularly accommodate out-of-town teleconferencers, so please let us (OntJam@contactimprov.ca) know if you would like to call in. In addition to all the regular organizational tasks, we're imagining the future of the Ontario Regional Contact Jam and how we can better support contact improv in Ontario.

If you'd like to participate, but can't come to meetings, contact us, and we'll get you hooked in with the group:

Thanks, and connect with you soon,
Brad, Tanya K, Henry, Frank, Mischief, Pablo, Dana, Keith, Adam, Rosemary, Ian!, Tanya W, Ben, Erica, Pierre, Arsalan...