Hugh Stanier
Hugh is a Contemporary Dance Artist specialising in Floorwork & Contact Improvisation. He has 16 years of teaching & performance experience. He began dancing when he was 15, training in Break dance and Contemporary. He went on to train at Northern School of Contemporary Dance, graduating in 2008.
Since then he has worked with companies such as 2Faced Dance, Tom Dale, STAN Won’t Dance, and Wim Vandekeybus/Ultima Vez.
He has taught internationally at the Goa Contact Festival, Goa Dance residency, Thailand Contact and ecstatic arts festival, Berlin contact festival and Portugal Contact festival and for National Dance company Wales (NDCW) as well as organising his own workshops and retreats in Portugal, Germany and Israel.
Within his teaching practice he combines his experience in Breakdance, Contemporary and Contact Improvisation to create a highly physical, technical and intuitive approach to movement exploration.
He is also a qualified TMW (Tai Chi Movements for Wellbeing) facilitator. The principles of Tai Chi and Qi Kung underpin his approach to teaching and facilitating movement.
Presently, what interests Hugh most about teaching and facilitating movement is how to create and hold spaces for other people to find a deeper connection to themselves through playful exploration. Whether it is improvisation, contact Improvisation, or a choreographed dance class, the focus and intention lies in finding the joy and power of a movement practice connected to presence, awareness and breath.
Unfolding Flow: Contact Improvisation
The focus of our practice is physicality.
We flow in and out of contact, viewing the dance as a playful dialogue which breathes freely as it develops.
We work both technically – concentrating on building up a functional understanding of underlying physical principles
and structures of contact improvisation - and experientially – widening the trust to instincts, impulses and intuition.
The principal themes behind our work are organic, fluid and functional movement.
The sessions develop slowly from inside to out, ending towards more technical material.
We often start with individual floor-work, offering particular principles and tasks,
and then gradually build up to standing using the natural spirals of the body.
Material alternates between contact and solo tasks, and also exercises that connect the group as a whole.
Within specific exercises we explore tools that are helpful to work in contact such as;
sharing weight, center-to-center, leaning and supporting, rolling point of contact.
Also we use ideas around momentum, suspension, inertia & falling. We will find effortless ways into weight transfers and lifting.
Falling and catching. Suspending the time.
Technique and Poetry.
Structure and Freedom.
Playful Beings in Motion.