Workshops and classes contents
Rope Manipulation
speaking knots
In this session, Gaia will share a methodology developed since her Master’s studies at DOCH (now SKH) in Sweden. We will engage in a series of task-based improvisation approaches designed to create focused spaces for exploration, allowing practitioners to experiment freely with aerial apparatus.
The emphasis of this exploration is to learn to speak the language of knots, where each knot represents a potential new pathway. The aim is to encourage participants to make conscious choices, think through movement, and be fully present in the moment. This process is intended to enhance and deepen adaptive skills. Ultimately, I hope to broaden our technical understanding of our practice through an approach based on personal experience and inspire a shift from thinking in terms of knots instead of tricks, to allow to discover the full potentiality of our apparatus, our movement and our bodies.
Lab - generating material on the ground
In this lab, I will guide participants through some of the methods I use to generate sequences with the rope on the ground, hence my choreographic process. We begin with rope manipulation exercises that serve as both a warm-up for the body and a creative exploration. Using our phone cameras, we record an improvisation task, allowing us to capture and observe key moments with potential for further development. Throughout the session, I will move around the group to offer individualized guidance, helping each participant dive deeper into the ideas they’ve chosen to explore. It’s a dynamic, weaving process that blends physical practice with imaginative discovery.
Sensing
During the pandemic, I decided to stop defining rope as an object, rather I prefer to refer to it as an inanimate body just as present and involved in the process as much as I am.
This two-hour session is dedicated to the investigation of the non-verbal dialogue we establish with our apparatus through our senses and perception.
To perceive is to experience and through experience we grasp deeper knowledge. This is an opportunity to explore our apparatus through an alternative lens, more human and personal.
Focus is on connecting to our senses as a channel of communication and expression. We will connect rope's qualities and break down the actions that make the rope–doing to grab and to go.
Can my apparatus choreograph me?
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We will stay in very close connection to the ground.
Writing the body
We live in a society where we learn to communicate verbally and, simply, we do not understand the language of our own body. We learn to train and perform tricks without establishing an intimate connection with ourselves and the relationship with the bodies - animate or inanimate - involved in the process.
This lab time is focused on movement research through the lens of writing as a method to verbalise the body.
A simple sequence is altered and transformed adding layers to it with my guidance in a continuous tit for tat between writing and movement to feed off and enrich one another.
This poetic, profound process aims at encouraging awareness within participants and to come closer to the emotions embedded in our movement and in the actions we normally do without noticing.
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Musicality
This session is for anyone who wants to explore aerial disciplines through the lens of music and musicality.
The point is not to see music as a background element that accompanies pre-set movement, rather to take the time to listen to it carefully and to originate movement inspired from it.
Music embodiment will be our research method. It is for anyone who enjoys moving and the pleasure of dancing as well as for those who are interested in letting go of control even if it is not easy to do so. An opportunity to be guided by melodies, rhythms and harmonies and to see how they inform our movement.
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There are places the music will take you where you would never alone take yourself!
The aerial dancing body
This session is for all those who love dancing and are interested in exploring dance and creative movement in the air, where we don’t have a floor to push off and our steps are climbs.
Instead of forcing the floor dance knowledge into the air realm, we learn from it.
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We pay extra attention to each joint to warm it up individually and in deep connection with at the music and our bodies' musicality. We explore how to articulate a body part specifically, its range of movement, possibilities and variables, progressively moving from the floor to the air.
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Duo
During this sessions, The group travels through a series of exercises that stimulate creativity to find new and continuous ways to give and take weight, building trust in their partner, understanding how to communicate and manipulate one another, as well as experiencing aerial rope from another perspective.
The objective of this workshop is to investigate the principles necessary to move with a partner on the rope through games aimed at allowing participants to explore and discover new routes together.
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It is not necessary to have a partner beforehand.
Rolling technique
This workshop involves a series of exercises, short and longer sequences to help you improve and better understand the art of rolling, designed to enhance your understanding and execution of rolling techniques. We’ll explore roll-ups, roll-downs, rolling on the spot, and entries into S-wrap I’ve developed through my own creative research.
Starting from the floor, we will progressively work our way to higher levels, allowing you to build on your foundation and expand your skills.
The point is to allow everyone to refresh the basics while experiencing them through my lens as well as to give to each and every participant the possibility to push their own limits.
Personal technical advice and requests can be taken on board too if some participants have specific questions or ideas they would like to try out.
Technique through sequences
This session features a diverse array of tricks and sequences that Gaia has explored and developed over the years through her creative methods.
The goal is to acquire new tools and deepen our knowledge of our practice by engaging with her repertoire which see intertwined elements of knotting, lassos, rolling, dynamic and rope manipulation.
We will work on sequences in both ground and aerial contexts, breaking them down through a progressive approach that enhances participants’ understanding of the movements and the techniques needed to achieve them.
Floor Rope
This intensive will delve into the interplay between rope and the ground, enhancing our understanding and movement possibilities while dancing on the floor with our apparatus. We will collaboratively explore how our relationship with the ground informs and transforms our movement and vocabulary.
This process will allow each participant the opportunity to discover and develop their own unique ways of expressing themselves. We will work closely with the ground, fostering a deeper connection to our senses as vital channels of communication and expression. Gaia will share her own repertoire and the creative processes that underpin her individual Floor Rope explorations.
