Workshop »BetweenUs«
Dancing together can be a magical experience where everything flows spontaneously, and the connection is so deep that it feels like reading each other’s thoughts. However, it is not always that simple: in the beginning, and sometimes even with a lot of experience, difficulties may arise. Everything requires practice, listening, and patience. BetweenUs is the space created when dancing together, where the priority is to express confidence, listening, and respect so that each person feels comfortable and able to give their best. When the BetweenUs connection is strong, dancing together becomes more fun, easier, and more fulfilling, leading to better results. The practice is intense and energetic, ranging from studying partnering and contact elements to refine practical skills, to exercises for strengthening and mobility to expand awareness and movement quality. Improvisation will be key to developing listening, intuition, communication, and creativity. Additionally, learning stimulating duets will provide an opportunity to have fun and put the acquired knowledge into practice. The focus will always be on the quality of interaction, creating an immediate harmonious connection with the partner, valuing each person’s uniqueness, and encouraging the use of feedback as a tool for mutual growth.The goal of this practice is to enhance awareness, listening, and technical skills, in order to gain more confidence in dancing together.
We begin with a partner warm-up, where we actively engage with our partner’s body to create space and mobility. By exploring and understanding weight and structure, we learn how to connect body/body relation and discover the most functional ways to interact. This phase helps establish a foundation of trust among participants, blending playfulness with safety. Next, we move into a more active training phase, designed to strengthen the body’s structure and prepare it for dynamic movements and lifts. The goal is to build a solid physical foundation, enabling participants to approach the subsequent steps with greater confidence and ease. We then incorporate playful games inspired by martial arts to heighten attention, adaptability, and intuition. These exercises foster a functional, instinctive use of the body, enhancing reactivity and movement management skills.To further enhance creativity, we explore improvisational tasks that sharpen listening skills and encourage expressive freedom. We dedicate time to learning technical elements drawn from various disciplines such as contact improvisation, partnering, martial arts, and acrobatics. These elements are broken down step by step and adapted to different levels of experience, allowing participants to develop effective strategies for collaborating with a variety of partners. Throughout the workshop, we encourage participants to switch partners, as working with diverse bodies becomes a powerful source of growth and enrichment. Finally, we focus on learning a duet that integrates everything practiced during the workshop. Through the repetition of a structured sequence, we refine dynamic movements in space, enhancing spatial awareness, memory, and fluidity.
12. and 13. April
3 - 7 pm
Studio Kastanie
Berlin
Early bird (until 21. März): €90
Regular Price (ab 22. März): €110
Please sign up via mail to scandale.alessio.93@gmail.com an.
Alessio Scandale is an Italian dance artist born in the province of Varese, he graduated in 2016 from the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD), Austria. Since then, he has been deeply engaged in the exploration of movement and partnering dynamics through the "BetweenUs" project, which he co-created with Laura Beschi. He has performed with notable artists and companies, including Ariella Vidach AIEP (Italy), Daniele Ninarello (Italy), Zsuzsa Rozsavolgyi (Hungary), cie. Willi Dorner (Austria), Alix Eynaudi (Austria), The Loose Collective (Austria), and Tanz Company Gervasi (Austria). In 2018, he relocated to Berlin, joining cie. toula limnaios as a permanent member until 2023. He created and restaged several works, which toured in Germany, Italy, Greece, Finland, Georgia, Jordan, Chile, Canada, Panama and Nicaragua. In 2024 he has embarked on a new chapter of his career, collaborating with Sasha Waltz & Guests.
Laura Beschi was born in Como, she developed an early passion for the performing arts. She studied at Balletto Teatro di Torino, the Real Conservatorio de Danza Mariemma and she graduated at SEAD (Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance) in 2017. From 2017 to 2020, she collaborated with renowned international artists and companies, such as Eduardo Torroja, Francisco Cordova, Manuel Ronda, Michikazu Matsune, Anna Katalin Nemeth, Tanz Company Gervasi, Roman Baca, Judith Sanchez Ruiz, and Nicola Galli. From 2020 until the end of 2024, she was a fix-member of the Berlin-based company cie. toula limnaios, creating and performing numerous works. Her career has taken her to perform across Europe, North, Central, and South America, the Middle East, and Russia.Alongside her work as a performer, she has developed and shared her movement practices, ‘Sparkling Bodies’ and ‘BetweenUs’.teaching them in various schools in Italy and Germany.