At this creative jam we had two streams of improvisation: musicians improvising music and dancers (Sarah Louadi, Alejandra Miranda Caballero, Michael Demski, Alina Sotskova, Nadia Dobrianskaia, and Ian Cunningham) improvising movement. We played with individual movement, contact improvisation, and even a bit of contemporizing pointe in a partnered improv setting. This was Voirelia’s first art lab experiment and a valuable experience of artistic research into how improvisation within dance and music influence one another – how the dancers’ movements evolve when the rhythm changes and how musicians adjust their style when they see the dancers move. We look forward to hosting more art lab like this in the future.

Music improvisation by: Andrew Short, Scott Aitken, Dave Leith. Video by: Jason Kirkness. Photography by: Jason Kirkness. Editing: Alina Sotskova.

In this video, we have Michael Demski and Alejandra Miranda working with some contact improvisation.

Our musicians, very focused and hard at work:

Sarah Louadi, Michael Demski, Alejandra Miranda. The light and playful side of contact improv really shines in this video.

Here we have Alejandra Miranda and Michael Demski playing with aerial work; in the background: Sarah Louadi, Alina Sotskova.

Alina and Michael, with a bit of contemporary pointe thrown into the improvisation mix:

Alejandra, Michael, Alina, and one pointe shoe:

More photos and videos are coming to this section soon!