23/07/2026
CONTACT IMPROVISATION INTENSIVE with Jörg Hassmann 29/09-10/10/2026
Surfing Gravity & Alive Pausing
About the program
After Jörg Hassmann's 2024 visit to Bali, the resonance of his teaching remained strongly felt in the local Contact Improvisation community. We are inviting him back for a longer and more focused period of study.
This program is held as two connected parts: a seven-day intensive with Jörg, followed by an optional two-day laboratory for those who complete the intensive and wish to continue the research.
The first part offers a guided process of study, practice, and dancing. The second part opens into a laboratory format, where the material gathered during the intensive can become a ground for further exploration. Jörg will continue to hold the frame, while the emphasis shifts toward embodied research: following questions, working with growing edges, and allowing the group's shared experience to shape the direction of the practice.
Words from Jörg
"There is a quality in my dance and in many advanced Contact Improvisers that I don't really know how to teach. It is about momentum and flow; it feels like surfing gravity, or moments on a rope swing, or flying by using the density of the air. There is acceleration, suspending, hovering in the unknown, weightlessness, and a delicious knowledge about slowing down, taming, or containing momentum.
I'd like to spend more time than I usually dare in my teaching with solo and bodywork-ish explorations, to let these qualities sink into the body - like rebounce, recoil, micro-falls, swinging, sloshing, shaking - so that the body slowly and gradually soaks them up like a sponge. So that these qualities are effortlessly present in our dance.
I also want to include the question around tonality: how can we train multiple muscular tones in the body and use strength while staying in a listening, responsive state?
My teaching and exploring lives in polarities. Stillness, alive pausing, micro-movements, and micro-dialogues are becoming more and more precious to me. They expand our options and aliveness, and bring an intuitive compositional flavour to our dancing.
Witnessing work will support our presence and become a glue for us working as a group.
I also wish to establish a labbing culture, where we support each other to move towards our growing edges - doing the things we avoid or feel we never practice enough, where fear patterns kick in in a limiting way. Simple or challenging pathways can be a starting point.
The labbing will be seeded in the first seven days and will become our main way of working in the additional last two days.
The main learning and integration will probably happen in the dance.
I wish that we dance a lot."
About Jörg
Jörg Hassmann is a dancer, teacher, performer, writer, and organizer whose main field of research has been Contact Improvisation since the mid-1990s.
His work grows from a deep interest in the moving body, the intelligence of touch, and the question of how people find connection through movement. Over many years of teaching internationally, Jörg has developed a precise and curious approach to CI technique, drawing from developmental movement patterns, anatomy, fascia, Release Technique, Capoeira, sports, and a long inquiry into teaching as an art form.
Together with Daniel Werner, he developed CI Training Programmes in Berlin in 2007, creating a systematic approach to the technical foundations of Contact Improvisation.
For Jörg, teaching is not only a way of passing on material, but an art form in itself. His workshops often move between detailed technical study and open frames of exploration, inviting dancers to meet both clarity and uncertainty, precision and play, trust and disorientation.
Jörg's work has moved through many layers of the Contact Improvisation field: the studio, the stage, the festival, the training program, and the informal spaces where dancers gather to question and practice. For many years he contributed to the CI landscape in Europe, including as artistic director of the Contact Meets Contemporary Festival in Göttingen, Germany. He now lives in Australia, while continuing to teach regularly in both Australia and Europe.
Intensive
29 September - 7 October 2026
The intensive is the main body of the program. Across seven sessions, Jörg will guide the group through a deep physical inquiry into momentum, flow, falling, suspension, tone, stillness, micro-movement, and the subtle compositional intelligence that becomes available through Contact Improvisation.
The work will include solo explorations, partner work, bodywork-informed research, witnessing, dancing, and the gradual development of a shared group field. During this time, the seeds of the laboratory will also begin: participants will be invited to notice their own questions, habits, avoidances, thresholds, and growing edges.
Schedule
29-30 September: 10:00am - 2:00pm
1 October: day off
2-3-4 October: 10:00am - 2:00pm
5 October: day off
6-7 October: 10:00am - 2:00pm
Laboratory
10-11 October 2026
(Optional continuation, open only to participants who complete the Intensive)
Jörg will continue to hold the frame, while the work enters a more open laboratory mode: following the questions that emerged during the intensive, working with personal and collective edges, and allowing the dance itself to reveal what wants to be studied.
Both days will include
10:00am - 1:00pm: session
Lunch break
3:30pm - 5:30pm: session
Who should apply?
This program is designed for dancers with previous Contact Improvisation experience who are ready for a committed period of study. This program is not suitable for first-timers.
You should have:
Familiarity with basic CI skills: weight sharing, changing levels, rolling, falling, and moving safely in physical contact
Curiosity toward both technical precision and open-ended research
Readiness to participate in a full group process
Full commitment to the intensive schedule
Registration:
A Contact Improvisation study program with Jörg Hassmann: a seven-day intensive followed by an optional two-day laboratory.
