“I'm contact improvisation dancer and teacher with a broad experience in various movement disciplines from contemporary dance through acrobatics, gymnastics, juggling, POI dancing to Action Theatre and Physical Theatre. I have been dancing since 2001 and since 2007 I am actively popularising CI, organizing CI events, giving classes and workshops. I have been lucky enough to encounter on my CI road many great teachers. To name few of them: Nancy Stark Smith (USA), Chris Aiken (USA), Alicia Grayson (USA), Karl Frost (USA), Martin Keogh (USA), Adrien Russi (Szwajcaria), Claire Filmon (Francja), Ray Chung (USA), Simonetta Allesandri (Włochy), Rick Nodine (USA), Charlie Morrissey (Wielka Brytania), Robert Anderson (Wielka Brytania), Thomas Kempe (Wielka Brytania), Andrew Harwood (Wielka Brytania) and many others.
Since I started to teach I learn the most from participants of my workshops. Constant questioning gives me new ideas and drives me deeper into movement. Being a dancer, mover, performer and certified massage therapist, I'm broadening my knowledge of the body and its processes every day. Along almost 10 years of dancing I took part in numerous artistic events and projects in UK, France, Slovakia and Germany; and site-specific performances in Poland, Spain, France, Italy and Slovakia. Besides dancing I tried many different forms of movement in my life and I'm fascinated by the fusion of various movement and expression disciplines and technics, aiming at combining them in CI.”

Kira Kirsch is a movement artist, community organizer, experiential researcher, mother and initiator/curator born in East-Berlin. After many years abroad she now works and lives with her family in Berlin as residents of Lake Studios - an artist run dance, production and performance place. She is deeply invested into creating and shaping spaces for people to experience,learn about and sensitize their mind-body-movement continuum. She has pioneered, taught and continuously researched through the lens of the Axis Syllabus (AS) for almost 20 years and has established dance research communities in Brussels and San Francisco. Her work is also deeply influenced by Contact Improvisation and her continuous studies in Movement Alchemy/Sarah Shelton Mann, Craniosacral(Shannon Cooney), MindinMotion(Nita Little) and BMC(Nina Wehnert). In 2014 she started co-curating a new annual dance festival called “SENSING IN” and was establishing a regular educational program under the name of Movement Artisans in Berlin. Kira is invited to festivals and institutions such as Impulstanz, Ravnedans, Tanzquartier, Royal Danish Ballett/danshallerne, Areal-Bucharest or the Goa Contact Festival among many other as well as private initiatives of the grass root type. As a performer Kira has danced in the works of Sara Shelton Mann (US), David Szlasa (US), Avy K. Productions (RU), Christine Bonansea (US/FR), Half Machine (DK), ABCdance collective/Frey Faust, Cie. Anna Tenta (AT) and in numerous collaborations with her peers. From 2009 -2012 she collaborated with Montrealer Kelly Keenan and their creations "species - a moving body exposition" and "useless creatures" have been presented in the US, Canada and Austria.
Recent projects have been her piece (dis)comfort behaviours with actress Anneke Schwabe, a short dance film "The Earth will Come" with film maker Katelyn Stiles and musician/poet Barnaby Tree, a music video “We are the flood” and short film “dreamstroy” by Cargocult.

Contact, trust, movement are the central focus around which I develop teaching and practice, both for adults and children. Above all, trust in the present moment as a fruitful source of inspiration and meaning. I am attracted to places and contexts where various forms of art meet, communicate and create something new, that transcends languages and differences. I am also the co-founder and Art Director of Spazio Seme - International Cultural Arts Center in Arezzo (Tuscany, IT). There, we create opportunities to research, organize, and manage festivals, intensive workshops, performances, artistic productions, and residencies. I develop and lead classes for children (ContaKids, PlayContact).

I teach C.I for adults and students, in Italy and abroad. I feel very attracted by the nature and expansive dimension of travel. I have taught at festivals and done intensive labs in India, France, Portugal, Greece, Israel, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Russia, Moldova, Georgia, Northern Ireland, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Brazil. I am one of the organizers of ItalyContactFest.

Dancer, Teacher and somatic researcher.

Since my childhood, the Dance experience has accompanied my work as a human being.
I started practicing C.I 12 years ago, and during this time my curiosity about the phenomena of the movement continues to expand and invites me to continue to explore unknown places. I am interested in exploring the dimensions of improvisation and the virtues of creativity that can be applied to plasticity and creativity to dance.

In my curiosity about the phenomenon of being alive, in recent years I have ventured into the universe of contemplative arts and somatic practices, studying the Alexander Technique in greater depth. In addition, in my daily life I spend a large part of my time lovingly and respectfully raising my daughter Amanda, researching the Montessori and Pikler methods to delve into psychomotor evolutionary development in early childhood. Currently, I am studying the Ecology of Childhood Training at the European Institute of Perinatal Mental Health.

Sveta Bird is a professional dancer, performer, choreographer, dance teacher, organizer of festivals and workshops on CI and everything around CI. Certified massage therapist of Chiand Mai school (Thailand).
She has been dancing since childhood, for the last 16 years she has been living in exploaring Contact Improvisation, sometimes looking into other body-oriented practices.

Artist, dancer, director, music producer / DJ, founder / teacher of Metamotion. Also a certified massage therapist (Chiang
Mai School, Thailand).
As a performer and dancer, he brings together different art forms (butoh, Contact Improvisation, hip-hop, freestyle) and collaborates with theaters and theater groups.
Creates visual poetry and dance films.

Metamotion - an ongoing exploration of the human experience in the BodyMindSoul through various practices including dance, contemplation, martial arts, qigong, ideokinesis etc. The art of free flow as a way of knowing yourself, and living from the heart.

Virginia Negru is a dancer, performer and facilitator of movement workshops, dance and contact improvisation. Driven by her passion for dance, she traveled and worked with teachers from Romania and abroad that marked her experience and artistic identity:
Catrina Choate (Contemporary Dance and Feldenkrais), Amalia Strinopoulou (Limon Technique), Lelia Marcu (ballet ), Steve Batts and Ursula Laeubli (Poetic Movement), Benno Voorham and Sybrig Dokter, Scott Wells, Alexandra Soshnicova and Sergei Golovnya, Cyrus Khambatta, Nora Hajos, Nancy Stark Smith, Sasha Dodo, Adrian Russi, Susanne Martin, (Instant Composition and Contact Improvisation), Kira Kirsch and Antoine Ragot (Axis Syllabus).
Artistic approaches, pedagogical initiatives, performative invitations: ‘’My life is my art’’ - a performative journey from Venice to Finisterra - 4 months walking in a demarch of find out what is behind the “curtain” of everyday reality and to search other ways to contribute and be
present as an artist in the world; weekly Contact Improvisation courses followed by dance jam sessions - as a manifestation of the desire for direct and immediate communication with other artists and the audience interested in dance, but also from the need to replicate models of learning and practice encountered in other countries; Contact Bucharest Festival - the annual organization of an intensive event of learning, practice and experience exchange through dance and CI with teachers and participants from several countries; ‘’Pe Bune’’ - guest dancer and teacher in the PETEC project to help create an improvisation, music and dance performance for children; ‘’Balance in Imbalance’’ - a series of CI workshops dedicated to professional actors and dancers from several cities in Romania; ‘’Negotiating reality’’ - movement research laboratory through CI; ‘’After.Life’’ performances by Sasha Dodo, ‘’The illusionists’’ by Mădălina
Dan - performer; CNDB Dance and Performance Academy - guest teacher

Cătălin Diaconu studied Automatics in college and worked in this field in the period 2005-2021. His interest in music, theater and movement led him to become more and more involved in various artistic projects, and at present he dedicates himself almost exclusively to
this direction.
He studied guitar at the age of nine, and during college he started playing in the rock band Avatar, and continued for ten years. He later discovered electronic music and in 2012 began studying electronic music production. Over time he has been invited as a DJ to several events and festivals; participated in classes with Tom Cosm, Mr Bill, Simon Neumann, Keith Mills, Warp Academy, and in 2017 organized at SAE Institute Bucharest an electronic music laboratory inviting Simon Neumann as a mentor; composed the music for dance performances, ‘’Pe Bune’’,‘’After.Life’’, and for the dance film: "Ship of Fools", "The one here is not the one there".
All this time his passion for movement has led him from Kung Fu in childhood, Tai Chi in college and later on to Contact Improvisation and Aikido. In 2015 he began to study CI intensively in workshops, international courses and dance festivals. In 2017, in response to the invitation to teach, he decided that he could take the CI study to another level, initially as a course assistant and then leading his own classes. Those who inspired and guided him in this process were: Virginia Negru, Sveta Pashko, Cyrus Khambatta, Sergey Golovnea and Alexandra Soshnicova, Steve Batts, Scott Wells, Malcolm Manning, Sasha Dodo (CI), Kira Kirsch and Antoine Ragot (Axis Syllabus). In 2018 he held classes, individually and in collaboration with other teachers, in Bucharest and at a few international CI festivals.
Produces electronic music; initiates, seeks and experiments, individually and together with other musicians, different frames for composing music; supports and facilitates, in partnerships with Virginia Negru, CI workshops, dance jam sessions and performances for which he creates live music, acoustics and electronics.

In this class we will start exploring the fundamentals of our movement looking for an organic organization of our body; bringing in our movement the idea of body as a universe made by parts in communication between them. We will focus on the extremities, exploring different qualities and possibilities of movement; analyzing hands, arms and legs we will aim for fluidity, exploring rhythm, dynamics, shifting weight and reversibility. With the partners we will bring all the material exploring the relationships and the communication between bodies, looking for a clear and interdependent dialogue.

MANAGER: A CLOUD EMBRACED music band – management and promotion, producing ; NGO “Dance BG”, Created by Dune dance company, Burgas. CHOREOGRAPHER of Dune Dance Company. WORKSHOPS LEADER. Activities: Elaboration and carrying out of projects, for stimulation the contemporary art development in Bulgaria. Establishing of networks and cooperation between national and international artists and organizations. Promotion of the Bulgarian contemporary art on national and international level
Producing and carrying out of DUNE dance company and DUNE dance school.
Producing and organizing international festivals: “WATER” festival for contemporary art /annually since 2017/, Days of Africa festival /2017,2018,2022/
SPECIAL AWARDS:
2016 BURG of the year – award for significant contribution the the cultural development in Burgas 2000 - 2021 Over 20 awards for excellent performance in National and International dance competitions