When: TUESDAYS, 5:30-6:30PM

Course I: March 5,- April 30 (No class April 2)

Course II: April 30-June 25 (no class June 5)

Where: @ Church of Truth, 111 Superior St., James Bay, Victoria, B.C.

How Much: $12 Drop in. $70/7 week course

Why come? You want technical dance training that embraces expressive freedom, while giving you a base of rock-solid, good old fashioned discipline.

This class offers a rigorous but accessible physical and conceptual practice, wherein contemporary dance is approached as a medium through which to think, feel, and deeply embody the continuum between bodies and world. The class will appeal to dancers hungry for a structured, rigorous, but also deeply playful and fun approach to freeing the thinking-feeling-dancing body from its habits.

If you are interested in working with Gull Cry Dance Theatre on performances, this class is the source from which Kristen invites performers to move into deeper process work on professional projects.

All levels welcome. The rigour is in the intensity of focus, not in the presence or absence of a temporarily young/fit body. We practice with the aim of being able to offer to each moment a gesture that is free and true.

When: Wednesdays, 8-10pm

Course I: March 6-April 17

Course II: April 24-June 5

Where: @ Camosun College Movement Studio, room 114, Yonge Building, 3100 Foul Bay rd., Victoria, B.C.

How Much: $150/7 weeks.

$25 Drop-in.

Why come?

The progressive series approaches the Art of Contact Dance as a platform for uncovering and transforming deep habits of the relational self. The approach is rigorous. The atmosphere is friendly. The work is, inevitably, surprising, deep, hard, and, in the final analysis: good.

We investigate dynamics of passivity and activity, of surrender and control, as physical and psychlogical actions that animate life—and contact dance—by enhancing dynamic range across polarities.

This work comes out of Kristen’s extensive teaching practice, in contemporary dance and contact dance, and has benefitted from her studentship with master CI teachers Stu Phillips and Bonni, Bainbridge Cohen to whom she remains, most grateful.

When: Sundays, 4-6pm, April 7- June 2 (no class April 14 or May 12)

7 weeks.

Where: @ Camosun College Movement Studio, room 114, Yonge Building, 3100 Foul Bay Rd., Victoria, B.C.

How much: $175/ 7 weeks

Why come? Woman! She has caused no end of grief, no end of elusive delight. You want to find out a little more what’s up with that, from a creative rather than a strictly therapeutic angle. You want some time for serious, growth-oriented play targeted to solving the unsolvable riddle: WOMAN. You sense working this angle will help.

Under the direction of Kristen Lewis, former director of the Canadian Centre for Men and Families, men will be introduced to tools from contemporary performance practice to help expose faultlines in their relationship with the feminine: inner and outer. With permission to feel the darker edges of what the feminine is and can do, men are encouraged in crafting new narratives that open new doorways of potential.

This is not a substitute for therapy, but the process will be, inevitably, therapeutic—through practices that support men in being men, as they relate to femininity.

No dance experience necessary.

Interview required for admission.

Participants will create a 5 minute performance, which we will show at the end of the term; men are invited to bring 1-2 guests at the end, as audience to the process.

When: Sundays, 7-9pm

Course I: March 3-April 21 (no class April 14)

Course II: April 28-June 15 (No class June 1)

(3 SPOTS LEFT FOR Course I, now accepting registrations for course II)

Where: @ Camosun College Movement Studio, room 114, Yonge Building, 3100 Foul Bay Rd., Victoria, B.C.

How Much: $175/7 weeks

Why Come? You want to investigate, empower, and transform your relationship to the masculine, inner and outer.

Sourcing practices from the edge of contemporary performance, participants explore their relationship to DADDY.

Ultimately, the goal is to strengthen the Inner Daddy: find out His name, how He likes to roll, how He might help with the work at hand.

The atmosphere will be one of equal parts discipline and creative exploration, with a strong container provided by Kristen Lewis—whose second name, growing up, was DD. She is happy to support deep transformation, at this edge.

Women will work to create a short (5 minute) performance to present at the end of term.

Feminine people of all stripes, most welcome.

Contact Improvisation class and jam, with Kristen Lewis, on SALT SPRING ISLAND @ the beautiful All Saint's Anglican Church

April 5, 12, 19

7-9pm

$25/class or 3/$60

(No one refused for reason of inability to pay--contact me if you truly need a deal).

Cash at the door or e-transfer in advance to: gullcrydance@gmail.com

We start with 1.5 hours of class, and conclude with a 30 minute jam.

Rules of engagement:

1) Kindly arrive on time--we are talking trains run on time, Berlin time, NOT West Coast time 😉

2) enter in reverence, with care;

3) Practice profound kindness towards self and other

We engage contact dance as a deep study of the space where self and other meet. Class is playful bytimes and also rigorous; this is a class where we enter into contact as a profound artform, a metaphor for the play between I and You, in the space that forms us and that we in turn form, as we dance. All levels welcome.