This class will introduce us to working methods of contact improvisation, exploring our sense of weight, volume and container. It will support and create a safe and playful environment as a springboard for an Open Contact Jam that will follow. We want to invite you into this context to prepare us for the afternoon’s open Jam session. The Jam will be led and facilitated by Andrea Buckley and Daniel Lukehurst.

As an independent dance artist, maker, teacher and mentor, my work is informed by over 30 years of dance improvisation practice. Through various working encounters, performing nationally and internationally, I have been inspired by and worked with a number of dance artists including Sue MacLennan, Rosie Lee, Kirstie Simson, Nancy Stark Smith, Lisa Nelson, Gill Clarke, Deborah Hay and Siobhan Davies Dance. As a solo artist, past commissions have been with Siobhan Davies Dance, Les Laboratores a Auberville and Merseyside Dance Initiative. I have created work for small-scale site-specific, theatre and gallery-based performance settings, working with a wide sector of the community, ranging from professional dancers, mixed ability groups, and dance and theatre students.

I have worked co-creatively with Mary Prestidge and Paula Hampson as part of Liverpool Improvisation Collective- developing a programme of workshops, performances, commissions and festivals within the

Northwest of England. Over the past year we have been working more closely together to source and pursue new avenues. The presentation of first on the heel, is a collaboration with film maker Tommy Husband, commissioned by OUTPUT.

Over the last 13 years, my practice in dance has been integrated with my work as an Advanced Certified Rolfer® and Movement practitioner. This combination supports my focus in deepening my understanding of the sensing, thinking, moving body.

My developed teaching practice is broad and receptive to the various contexts. Over sustained periods, I have taught for the independent dance sector, professional dance companies and as a guest lecturer in various settings to include Higher Education as well as one-to-one Rolfing movement sessions. My research continues to allow me to draw upon a range of improvisation and contact skills and investigative movement practices where process and reflections are grounded in observation, perception, culture and imagination.

I’m excited about teaching opportunities as it gives me the possibility to share and exchange the work as an evolving practice and to contribute to the wider community.

My work continues to evolve through the practice of making, facilitating, delivering, witnessing and co-collaborating.