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 country.
The 5th Annual Long Beach Contact Improvisation Festival coming January 2027 on the beautiful California State University Long Beach campus.
*Teachers and classes listed are from 2026 Festival. Will be updated summer/fall.
Emily Jones (Portland, OR)
Triaxial Trajectories
Triaxial trajectories are inherent to bodies in motion—attuning to them cultivates internal sensitivity and awareness of how we relate to space and to others. Through spirals, we locomote, fall, and suspend—each spiral offering a more easeful relationship with gravity.
Nguyen Nguyen (Los Angeles)
Release Technique into Contact
The class is built on fundamentals of release technique and will serve as a laboratory for us to explore the moving body and how it functions within the context of contact improvisation. We will discover together how to awaken our inherent physical intelligence.
Rene Alvarez (Oakland)
Soloing into Group Scores
Build from our solo practice of awareness, presence and efficiency to expand into trios and larger groups. Indulge in the unpredictability and flow of a large improvisational ensemble, with tools to support oneself and each other.
Jesse Johnson (Los Angeles)
Dancing with Gravity
This workshop invites us to deepen our relationship, sensitivity, and capacity to receive support from the unconditionals: gravity, the floor, the breath, the pulse, and the moment itself.
Mihyun Lee (San Francisco)
Function and Expression
Function and Expression is one of four themes in Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis. Explore six body connectivities, rotation, neurocellular patterns, and movement qualities to explore the interconnectedness between function and expression in dance relationships.
Nhu Nguyen (San Diego)
Make Space, Take Space, Borrow Space
We will consider Contact Improvisation as a practice in meeting one another across differences. Inspired by the theory of Quantum Entanglement, we will experiment with various ways of using space to co-create dances that are ever-emerging.
Rebecca Bryant (Long Beach)
Friction/Contrast/Counterpoint
Contact Improvisation can beautifully articulate harmonious relationality; this session investigates the possibilities that unfurl when we pointedly and purposefully embrace ideas of disharmony and difference.
Alicia Grayson (Nederland, CO)
Yielding to the Tonal Spectrum
Creating connecting and choice in CI through the spectrum of softness to strength. We will explore how we use tone in our body as a whole and in parts so that we can dynamically respond and express in our dance.
Sharna Fabiano (Long Beach)
Letting the Dance Unfold
We will refine the skills of listening and responding. Using adapted techniques from tango, we will develop our capacity for shared proprioception (the sense of two bodies moving as one), replace thinking with observing, and encourage our physical intelligence to guide us into the present moment.
Live Music
Saturday Evening Jam with Live Music
Peter Jacobsen will play improvisational cello music to accompany our dancing at the Saturday evening jam.
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.
