Long Beach Contact Improvisation Festival
Join us for a 4-day celebration of Contact Improvisation in sunny Long Beach!
Enjoy classes & jams with world class teachers from California and across the world.
The 5th Annual Long Beach Contact Improvisation Festival is coming January 15-18, 2027 on the beautiful California State University Long Beach campus. Make it a weeklong immersion by joining the Agile Beast "Already Animals" January Training with Sebastian Grubb, January 13-15.
Brenton Cheng (Oakland, CA)
Two Classes
Brenton Cheng is a teacher, performer, and director of movement-based performance, as well as a core faculty of Integrated Movement Studies Laban/Bartenieff certification program and adjunct faculty at the University of San Francisco.
Karen Palafox (Mexico)
Crystalline Intelligence
Karen Palafox is a dancer, producer, and movement researcher whose work bridges Somatic Education, Contact Improvisation, and Evolutionary Aquatic Movement. She is a certified Body-Mind Movement® Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist (Mexico & Brazil), and a certified Janzu® Aquatic Therapy facilitator.
Taisha Paggett (Riverside, CA)
One Class
taisha paggett is an interdisciplinary dance artist whose individual and collaborative works re-articulate and collide specific western choreographic practices with the politics of daily life so to contemplate and interrupt fixed histories of Black and queer embodiment, desire, placemaking, possibility and survival.
Sebastian Grubb (Denmark)
Contact Improvisation as Evolutionary Movement
Sebastian has been a full-time personal trainer, health coach, and contemporary dancer since 2006. With a unique background in dance and biomechanics, he offers a detailed approach to movement training that emphasizes athleticism while minimizing injury risk.
Jessica Humphry (San Diego, CA)
Goldilocks Frequency
Jessica’s movement research began in childhood with gymnastics and continues with dancemaking from various, shifting perspectives, and states of body~mind. Her dances are expressions of her engagement with paradox, somatics, Integral Theory, Practice-as-Research, and reverence for the works of those within whose lineages she moves.
Nuria Bowart (TBD)
Toning Up, Tuning In, and Winding Down
Nuria Latifa Bowart is a professional dancer and movement artist; a student, practitioner, and teacher of Capoeira with the rank of Mestra and a movement educator authorized as a Teacher and Certifier within the Axis Syllabus© international research community.
Kevin O'Connor (Los Angeles, CA)
Wake Up Your Gooey Body
Kevin O’Connor is a multidisciplinary dance artist, somatic researcher, improviser and community engaged artist working between Los Angeles and London, Ontario, where he cofounded the Sweet Labour Art Collective. His practice braids movement research, improvisation, ritual, circus arts, and performance.
Jen Hong (Venice, CA)
One Class
Jen Hong (洪慧珍) is a dancer, choreographer, movement teacher and healer based in Los Angeles, CA. She is well-versed in numerous dance forms and completed her MFA in experimental choreography at UC Riverside. She is interested in the intersection of art, dance, anatomy/physiology, and individual/collective healing.
Sharna Fabiano (Long Beach, CA)
Jam Warmup
Sharna is an internationally recognized tango social dance artist with over 25 years of teaching experience in both academic and community settings. She has trained in multiple forms of conditioning including contact improvisation, physical theater, modern and postmodern dance, somatic conditioning, yoga, and mindfulness.
Maja (Denmark)
Jam Warmup
Maja will lead one of the evening Jam Warmups.
Land Acknowledgement
CSULB is located on the sacred site of Puvungna. We acknowledge that we are on the land of the Tongva/Gabrieleño and the Acjachemen/Juaneño Nations who have lived and continue to live here. We recognize the Tongva and Acjachemen Nations and their spiritual connection as the first stewards and the traditional caretakers of this land. We thank them for their strength, perseverance and resistance.
