17 April – 26 May 2025
Contact Improvisation & Group Facilitation
Immersive workshop in the Tuscan countryside
A lichen is a symbiotic organism, i.e. an organism composed of two different species that benefit from each other.
As in a lichen, the two worlds of Contact Improvisation and Group Facilitation intertwine in a synergetic and mutualistic relationship that generates new possibilities of investigation, learning and creation.
A new, immersive workshop is born: Lichene will guide us through an individual and collective exploration, with the aim of discovering how we can create more collaborative and satisfying relationships within the groups we are part of – be they related to a personal and/or professional dimension.
A “BODY- MIND – CONTEXT” INTEGRATED APPROACH
The conversation between the environment, bodily explorations and theoretical tools will give us the possibility to integrate our lived experiences and form a collective embodiment of knowledge.
Contact Improvisation is a movement practice based on touch, listening and an open-ended exploration, which allows us to re-connect with our body while meeting other bodies.
Group facilitation is a set of both theoretical and practical tools aiming to accompany groups throughout their processes and life cycles. By creating a safer environment, it allows collective intelligence to emerge and the group to manifest its own potential.
Living together in the same context and collaborating in daily activities helps us to cultivate co-responsibility and care.
Program
WEEK 1 | 17 – 23 Aprile
POWER &
CONFLICT
WEEK 1 / 17 – 23 APRIL
POWER & CONFLICT
In the first week we will get to the heart of relationships and their beating heart, starting with the inconveniences that can arise when we meet others: conflict and power dynamics. We will go through what sometimes frightens us and we don’t know how to deal with, accepting the idea that conflict is not a problem to be avoided, but an opportunity for transformation, a fertile ground for individual and collective growth.
WEEKEND / 19 – 21 April
Nica Portavia / Contrasts and Divergences / Contact Improvisation
Workshop Description
In this Contact Improvisation intensive we will explore the meaning of “dancing all relationships”.
Contact improvisation will be the tool of our research. We will immerse ourselves into the dance, while investigating conflicts, resistances and divergences. Together we will observe how to live and experience these concepts through the body, and how dance can lead us to places of growth, where conflict can become an extra space to get to know each other and the unexpected change of perspective, leading to small and big revolutions and evolutions.
We will research through CI, drawing on practices such as Lisa Nelson’s Tuning Score and Steve Paxton’s Material for the Spine.
We will explore dance as a place to cultivate new individual and collective awareness, practising consent and empathic communication.In this Contact Improvisation intensive we will explore the meaning of “dancing all relationships”.
Contact improvisation will be the tool of our research. We will immerse ourselves into the dance, while investigating conflicts, resistances and divergences. Together we will observe how to live and experience these concepts through the body, and how dance can lead us to places of growth, where conflict can become an extra space to get to know each other and the unexpected change of perspective, leading to small and big revolutions and evolutions.
We will research through CI, drawing on practices such as Lisa Nelson’s Tuning Score and Steve Paxton’s Material for the Spine.
We will explore dance as a place to cultivate new individual and collective awareness, practising consent and empathic communication.
BIO
Nica Portavia
I was born in Fano, Italy, from an Italian father and a mother from Lebanon.
I start dancing as a child, following a Professional Dance School program before in Italy and then in Spain, Barcelona.
I am a dancer, teacher and researcher, performer in the field of Contact Improvisation.
I discovered CI many years ago, after having followed a first training in contemporary dance, and I fell in love since the first moment.
I mainly trained abroad with many teachers including Steve Paxton, Daniel Lepkoff, Charlie Morrissey, Angelika Doney, Asaf Bacharach, KJ Holmes, Anya Cloud, Karen Nelson.
WEEK 2 | 24 – 30 April
VISION &
PRESENCE
WEEK 2 / 24 – 30 APRIL
VISION & PRESENCE
This week the topic invites us to live in the present moment, to celebrate every breath and make it fully ours. A time for silence, listening and connecting through simple gestures. How can we open ourselves to a vision of the future from a space of clarity and tranquillity? How can we be truly present in our relationships? How does a shared vision arise from deep listening?
WEEKEND / 25 – 27 April
Doriana Crema / E se fossi cielo? The transparency of the body in space
Theatre Dance and Somatic Practice
Workshop Description
What if I were the sky? A call to shift our point of view.
Opening up to questions that can lead us to explore the possibility of transparency, and moving in the space of dance and life. Is it possible to perceive the resonance of our gestures, their action and transformation of space? Starting from the breath and the relationship with the earth, we are invited to rediscover verticality with its infinite possibilities of entering into a relationship with space and with others.
I consider dance as a facilitating practice that, in a dialogue with the practice of speech, completes a process of mind/body/spirit harmonisation.
BIO
Doriana Crema
artist, trainer, counsellor
She collaborates as an artist and trainer in various projects by the cultural welfare section of Hangar Piemonte. She is an associate artist of Lavanderia a Vapore with the creative project Tabula Rasa and collaborates on the internal projects Corpo Docente and Dance Well. She has collaborated for many years on artistic and educational community projects with La Piattaforma, La Città Nuova and the Filieradarte association. As coordinator and trainer, together with Rita Fabris (Filieradarte), she runs the course for operators in cultural and community processes through dance.
She is a trainer and choreographer within the Solitudo Project – Visions for an Itinerant Creative Community.
She works as a counsellor with a psychosynthetic orientation, besides being a teacher at the Higher School of Counselling in Turin.
As an artist/performer, she has been involved in the productions of Raffaella Giordano (Sosta Palmizi) for ten years. Over the years, she has provided an external perspective, accompanying the creative process of various companies in Italy and France. Her performance pieces and her solos have nourished the artistic side of her profession.
Special Event 01 Maggio
UNDERSCORE
JAM
Special Event 01 Maggio
UNDERSCORE JAM with Tuscany Contact Community Teachers
Contact Improvisation
A day of Jam and celebration to remember Nancy Stark Smith, pioneer and godmother of Contact Improvisation. A moment to investigate through the structure of the UNDERSCORE JAM formalised by her. A day dedicated to meeting and connecting, to coming together and feeling a sense of community. An event in collaboration with the network of CI teachers in Tuscany.
WEEK 3 | 1 – 7 May
PERMEABILITY &
TRANSPARENCY
WEEK 3 / 1 – 7 Maggio
PERMEABILITY & TRANSPARENCY
In the third week we will get to the heart of Systemic Group Facilitation. We will address the complexity of living systems and the power of transparency. We will try to embrace the paradigm that invites us to show our vulnerability as an element of strength. Can we strengthen trust and openness in the groups we are part of by showing ourselves for who we are?
WEEKEND INTENSIVO / 03 – 04 Maggio
Efstathios “Delfino” Mavridis (GR / ITA) / FacilitArte
The Power of Transparency
Systemic Facilitation of Groups
Workshop Description
Transparency is an inner attitude and a practice that encompasses the ability to share with others what is happening inside us from an emotional point of view, to be able to understand it and express it.
It is about making the invisible visible; a movement of openness towards others that can generate trust, within groups and within oneself.
In group facilitation, transparency is a powerful tool that triggers a process of humility, in which by opening up to what happens inside me, I show myself as being human, with all my unresolved issues and difficulties, like everyone else – including the group. We don’t need to pretend we don’t have them and hide them. We celebrate these weaknesses together, because if we turn them upside down, they can become our strengths.
The more vulnerable they are, the stronger they are. This is the proposed paradigm shift, which centres on a different concept of strength and power.
Movements, emotions, thoughts and aspirations are born within each of us and in collective bodies, and require transparency in order to express themselves outwardly, to be accepted, understood and transmitted.
In this workshop we will explore how we can define the path of transparency for each of us.
We will work deeply and attitudinally involving different levels – personal, interpersonal and collective. We will give space to the manifestation of how transparency is linked to power and to the transformation of reality towards what we desire.
The tools I draw on are: working with night and day dreams, Tai Chi practices, Systemic Facilitation.
BIO
Efstathios Mavridis detto “Delfino”
Facilitator and trainer in Group Facilitation, Co-Founder of FacilitArte and the Academy of Facilitation and Transformation. (https://facilitarte.org/chi-siamo/)
My personal experience within collectives began when I was 15 years old and it is still ongoing. It has led me to research human and energy sustainability in organisations. The search for real alternatives and my life path led me to the Lakabe ecovillage, where I lived in a community for 12 years. I have been constantly accompanying groups for 10 years and have been a recognised trainer of the international training organisation IIFACe for 7 years. I have also trained in various approaches and tools such as Forum-ZEGG, Transformational and Systemic Coaching, the Art of Process, Bodywork, Dreamwork, Clown improvisation, and I continue to train, with no intention of stopping learning and growing, as a person and as a facilitator. In the last 4 years I have been supporting people on a personal and relational level. Over the course of all this time I have developed my own way of dealing with challenging situations and have helped to transform them into opportunities.
WEEK 4 | 8 – 14 May
CARE &
COMMUNICATION
WEEK 4 / 8 – 14 MAY
CARE & COMMUNICATION
How can we communicate authentically? How does connection transform our relationships?
In the fourth week of Lichene, we will explore the link between communication and connection, two fundamental aspects for the creation of more conscious and fluid relationships, both in the body and in speech.
WEEKEND / 10 – 11 May
Adam Cajka (CZ) / Insegnante Certificato NVC
Embodied Non Violent Communication
Somatic Approach to Nonviolent Communication
Workshop Description
The workshop is designed to introduce participants to the fundamental principles of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) through practical learning and body practices.
NVC is a powerful communication framework that fosters connection and understanding, both with ourselves and with others.
We will explore the three fundamental pillars of NVC: connection with oneself, honest self-expression and empathic presence. We will explore how they work together and how we can move among them in our interactions. We will explore the art of self-connection, learning to tune in to our thoughts, feelings and needs in a compassionate and non-judgmental way. Then we will focus on expressing ourselves honestly and authentically while remaining open and respectful towards others. Finally, we will cultivate empathic presence, in order to develop the ability to listen deeply and with empathy. The aim will be to find a sense of balance between focusing on one’s inner experiences and being present to the needs and emotions of others – to find balance and reciprocity in communication.
BIO
Adam Cajka
Certified NVC Trainer (www.cnvc.org/trainers/adam-cajka)
I have been working with groups for fifteen years. My main research topic could be summarised in the question: how can we flourish and realise our potential as individuals and at the same time liberate ourselves as a collective? I have a background in global education which has taught me different perspectives for facing social and environmental challenges. I am fascinated by processes and the transformation of conflicts. I support groups in dealing with conflicts (mediation) and in collaborating better (convergent facilitation). I use NVC methodologies, and I also offer training in these at an international level.
My practice of martial arts inspires my work with groups and the attention I dedicate to the physical dimension.
WEEK 5 | 15 – 21 May
AWARENESS &
RELATIONSHIPS
WEEK 5 / 15 – 21 MAY
AWARENESS & RELATIONSHIPS
This week the cornerstone of our research will be showing our vulnerability through our emotions. We will try to look at them in their light and in their shadow. We will pay attention to how they influence the perception of our relationships and we will try to accept their transformative side. Can we show our vulnerability in our relationships?
WEEKEND / 17 – 18 May
Debora T. Stenta / Dao Tribe / Touch and Vulnerability
Body Awareness and Emotional work
Workshop Description
Through touch we can explore our most intimate, delicate and sensitive dimensions. Bringing awareness to touch brings out the body’s organic wisdom, its wild wisdom, as well as the memories and stories that have been told to us by our culture and that we have internalised.
These stories often speak of unknown and unrespected boundaries, of unexpressed limits, of consent which has not been asked for. They speak of how well we have honoured our yeses and our nos, of narratives linked to shame, guilt and inadequacy. Entering a space of touch can lead to intense emotions and unknown vulnerabilities and, to avoid being in that intensity, we reduce our ability to feel.
This weekend we’ll open ourselves up to observing the ways in which these stories dance in the body, and what tools we have at a somatic and emotional level to move, manage and transform energy, to reclaim and inhabit a sentient, present, connected body.
BIO
Deborah T. Stenta (www.daothetribe.org)
Facilitator, trainer, dancer
Researcher on everything concerning wildness- inside and outside the human being.
Activist in the fields of eros and love, she leads retreats and individual sessions on relationships, intimacy, conscious touch and consent.
Facilitator of associations and groups’ processes.
Passionate about deep ecology and biophilia, she carries out outdoor education, wilderness awareness and experiential learning activities.
MusiArTherapist, former dancer and dance teacher.
WEEK 6 | 22 – 26 May
INTEGRATION and
REGENERATION
WEEK 6 / 22 – 26 MAY
INTEGRATION and REGENERATION
This is the final week, where we will try to tie up loose ends, to open ourselves up to the new, to what is yet to come. But we will do it by starting from resting, from simply being, from emptiness.
A time to integrate what we have done and to project ourselves into the future.
WEEKEND / 24 – 25 May
Samuel Nicola Fuscà e Giulia Lampignano / Be into the void
Contact Improvisation and Group Facilitation
Workshop Description
The calm after the storm.
The void that precedes and follows the action.
Opening a passageway of exploration and relaxation. Allowing the body’s intuition to guide us in an intimate encounter with the unknown, to allow a personal push, an urgency, a creative act to happen.
Allowing dance to be and desire to manifest itself.
We like to draw on the varied wealth of tools and knowledge that we have encountered in our journeys, to allow the disciplines and practices of discovery and awareness to merge, meet and dialogue. We would like to play with the space that is created between two bodies, between the sky and the earth, between the body and the floor. Falling, letting oneself be crossed, being in the uncertainty of the relationship. Being in the breath, in the small things, in the in-action. We will train ourselves to jump, and to experience empty space with serenity and confidence.
We will train divergent thinking, intuition, provocative operation, questioning through the body.
Group facilitation will accompany us and pull the threads of the skein, like a rudder in a stormy sea.
BIO
Samuel Nicola Fuscà
Dancer, group process facilitator, movement teacher, founder of 50 days Movement Retreat.
He trained in physical theatre and performing arts; he has been studying dance and martial arts since he was a child. He teaches Contact Improvisation and Physical Theatre. He coordinates study programmes for young dancers, children and adults. He collaborates with institutes and training centres in the performing arts both in Italy and abroad.
He promotes physical practices as a means of genuine and spontaneous interaction between bodies. He trained in group facilitation with FacilitArte and integrates these tools into his teaching work to create a context of listening, care, awareness and personal and group growth.
He has a degree in Anthropology and is studying Organisational Pedagogy at the University of Siena.
Giulia Lampignano
Trainer, group process facilitator, social and community theatre operator, researcher.
Throughout my career I have dedicated myself to weaving bonds and relationships – between people, cultures, disciplines, concepts, practices: I am passionate about exploring the margins, the manifestation of its emerging properties.
Ethical-political commitment, an ecosystemic perspective, sensorial and imaginative experimentation, the search for beauty, are values and guiding principles in my research work.
I have trained in various disciplines, which are related and complementary, and I continue to do so through lifelong learning: philosophy, social and community theatre, documentary and participatory video, group facilitation. From a theatrical and body awareness point of view, I consider my teachers to be Serena Sinigaglia and the ATIR company, Cesar Brie, Teatro Nucleo, Claudia Castellucci, Julie Stanzak.
For more than ten years I have been working with groups of different ages, coming from different contexts – from schools to associations, from multicultural to socially marginalised and fragile contexts – promoting transformation and social cohesion through artistic languages and experiential and participatory methodologies. In recent years I have been studying and practising systemic facilitation, working with different types of groups: vision work in cultural associations, conflict transformation in work groups, surveys among networks of associations, and participatory community processes.
Structure
Each week will investigate a specific theme related to group dynamics, by bringing together Contact Improvisation (CI) and Group Facilitation (GF).
Each weekend we will host a guest teacher who will touch upon a specific theme from their own perspective and discipline.
During the first part of the week the resident teachers will introduce the theme, and after the weekend they will help the group through the integration process.
Each week begins on Thursday and ends on Wednesday (except for the last week).
- Thursday – Friday (morning): introduction and preparation
- Friday (afternoon) – Sunday: intensive with external teacher
- Monday – Tuesday: integration and participant workshops
- Wednesday: break day
How To Participate
It is possible to participate to:
- the entire duration of the event on a continuous basis
- one or more chosen week (Thursday to Wednesday, including the intensive weekend)
- mixed package. For instance:
- one weekend + one week from different modules
- 2 full modules not consecutive (two weeks)
*We will give priority to people who stay for a longer period of time, with the intention of creating a longer and more intimately shared learning process.
Where
We will be guests at Podere Calcinaia, immersed in the beautiful woods, olive groves, and vineyards of the Tuscan countryside.
Who is this for
- A small number of people who have a desire to create more conscious relationships within the groups they are part of
- The workshop is open to all bodies and levels of experience, in the dance as in the facilitation practices
- It is for you if you want to get involved, if you want to grow and learn in new ways
- if you want to live an intense and enriching experience, both personally and professionally
.
What We Offer
- a house where to experience a temporary and conscious community
- an outdoor dance floor among the olive trees
- Contact Improvisation classes, workshops and jams
- Group Facilitation classes and workshops
- a structured training programme with international teachers
- a collective learning experience
- a new way of seeing the world!
FOR THE COMPLETE ABSTRACT
WITH ALL THE INFOS AND COSTS
WRITE AN E-MAIL TO: info@50dayscontactdance.com
APPLICATIONS TO PARTICIPATE WILL OPEN ON 15 FEBRUARY