Rope Dance

VoxBody is excited to welcome local contact improv and rope practitioners Brian O'Connell and Sasha Wright to share this class and exploration with us!

Rope Dance is an embodied practice of merging contact improvisational dance and rope. It's a practice full of exploration, playfulness, curiosity, creativity, spontaneity and possibilities. 

Contact improv can help to enhance your embodied presence and connection in rope scenes. It is also great for learning body mechanics and the ways you can manipulate other bodies, or be manipulated. Sometimes Rope Dance ends up looking like a two way rope scene, where the roles can switch back and forth or merge into one, playing with both control and surrender through movement with yourself and another.

Class will start with an hour of exercises on the fundamentals of contact improv, first learning to follow and explore your own movements (connection with self). Before moving into paired exercises (connection with other), we'll discuss navigating boundaries and consent both verbally and non-verbally. The second hour will move through exercises that introduce rope into the dance. The last hour of the event will be left for open practice.

* There is no need for experience with either contact improv or rope to join this class! This is a complete beginners class and can be a lovely introduction to how it feels to play with rope in both roles! 

* Loaner rope is available for the event, but feel free to bring your favorite 15-20 footer!

A note from VoxBody about pairing up with new folks in class: 

* Remember that there need not be any pressure to pair up with someone if you would prefer not to.

* VoxBody offers no guarantees or predictions as to the make-up of class attendees in terms of those who will attend paired-up and those who will come solo. Please manage your expectations and come with curiosity and an open-mind!

* When pairing with a new friend please keep in mind your consent practices and our studio etiquette practices. (well, keep these practices always in mind, but especially when meeting a new person!) 

COVID policy

Getting Here

About the presenters:

Brian O'Connell has lived and played in the intersection of bodywork, contact improv, and kink/bdsm for the past two decades. They have a passion for creating safer spaces for people to learn and grow through new experiences. Embodiment, presence, attunement and communication are key foundations to everything they share/teach. In the last decade, they’ve created numerous intimate events and led classes/workshops to help people explore different parts of themselves through the realms of sensuality, sexuality and kink/BDSM. 

Sasha Wright is a somatic psychotherapist, an avid dancer, and an earthy soul who loves to guide people into shared experiences of creative connection and embodied aliveness. Curiosity, experimentation, and attunement are her allies. These principals first allured her into a longstanding love affair with Contact Improvisation in 2009, and have kept the relationship ever-evolving and ripe with new discoveries all the time. Sasha leads dance workshops and retreats involving contact improv, authentic movement, nature-connection, and other conscious dance modalities. Sasha also leads embodied earth-based rituals where dropping into body wisdom and synching to natural rhythms connect people to an authentic experience of their own magic and meaning. Sasha provides psychotherapy that supports inner alignment and the mindful embodiment of one’s wholeness. Learn more about Sasha here inbodyritual.com