Once we are born, we sense the pull of gravity. We invite you to explore and play with coordination, movement vocabulary and relation. In this intensive we will engage with movement patterns, the base for movement, and develop from there soft ways into Contact Improvisation techniques. Sensing a deep center connection, easy weight shifts into take off and leaving the ground.

In the womb, swimming in the fluids, movement is already happening: as vibration, attraction and repulsion, as sponging, as pulsation. When the transformations into shapes and patterns begin, we are forming a midline, a front and backbody, a center and a periphery – a complex system that enables us to move, sense, react, take in and let go. Once we are born and sense the pull of gravity, there is a lot to learn about coordination of all the parts of the body. Diverse needs  appear, emotions and possibilities call us into action. As babies we explore movement patterns, each one being the base for the next.
As adults we can revisit these inherent patters for the joy of it or to embody missing links and expand our variety of movement.

For one week we will dive into BMC material through movement exploration and hands-on touch and enter from there curious ways into Contact Improvisation.

We will meet, dance and live together in SerVivo, a community project and event centre in the Arrábida Nature Parc, 40 minutes from Lisbon.

“SerVivo is a venue, which holds space for living and exploring authenticity, connection and joy. We support integral human development, co-creating a global culture of trust and heartful connection, inspired by the wisdom of nature.” Learn more about SerVivo here.

Price incl. accommodation and meals:
Organic Interaction Intensive (monday-sunday)
Early Bird until 1.09.2026 sliding scale 820-520€
Normal Price sliding scale 820-590€
*special price for local residents, please write us an e-mail

Weekend Price (friday-sunday)
Early Bird 370-230€
Normal Price 370-270€
*special price for local residents, please write us an e-mail

Registration is open: here

Jennie Zimmermann
works in the intersection of somatics, dance and soundart. Within her experience as a CI Dancer and Somatic Practitioner she offers embodied anatomy and movement improvisation based classes, facilitates workshops and festivals. As a musician she arranges minimalistic polyphonic setups for performance and dance, experimenting with layers of subtle sounds, voice and field recordings. Her work is influenced by many years of Contact Improvisation, Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies and the Body-Mind Centering® approach.

“I love to draw and write with a pen on paper as well as through movement in space. Taking a note of what is passing so quickly, grabbing a glimpse of a moment. Observing movement, listening to the texture of an encounter, involving rest as a state from where activity can unfold.”
Jennie Zimmermann

Angela-Mara Florant
had her first experience with CI during her performance arts studies in Besançon, France. In 2005 she moved to Hamburg. She teaches several regular contact classes, gives workshops and organizes jams and festivals (NORDTANZ Festival). Since 2015, she is co- director of the dance studio “Triade” in Hamburg.
When Angela-Mara is not dancing or teaching contact she is teaching Pilates, directing independent theater productions, choreographing dance pieces (mostly based on CI) and teaching theater and dance to children.

“For me CI is an art form.
I love allowing my dance to be inspired by the composition of the room.
CI opens up space,
Space within me and outside of me,
Creative space unfolding.

I enjoy looking at movement from an anatomical perspective and at the same time love the playful unfolding of stories that can occur while dancing CI. Over and over again finding and reinventing myself while continuously rediscovering and uncovering new aspects of the form are my favorite subjects of my ongoing research.”

Body-Mind Centering® (BMC)

is a somatic approach. It offers a frame for anatomical and physiological studies as a base to integrate inherent movement patterns and psychophysical aspects through movement awareness and touch facilitation. BMC engages itself towards movement patterns, reflexes and the lively interplay of different body systems, like bones, fascia, muscles, organs, fluids and the nervous system.