In conjunction with his visit to Toronto to take part in the 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art, Colombian choreographer, contemporary dancer, performance artist, and university teacher Eduardo Oramas will present two workshops in Toronto, on Thursday October 23 and Saturday, October 25, 2014.
Ensemble Improvisation
Thursday October 23 | 12 pm to 3 pm $15
Artscape Youngplace Centre, Studio 103, 180 Shaw Street
Eduardo will work with participants on group improvisation to develop the capacity of listening and working together. “I understand improvisation as a non-formalistic technique, based on the construction of relationships and the possibility of communication with the others. The aim of this workshop is to train a particular sensitivity that I will call “listening” which consists in establishing connections with other people through movement, paying special attention to the here and now when connections develop. In order to achieve this, I use a methodology based on group exercises where the participants become familiar with basic concepts of composition such as time, space and weight. We work on these concepts progressively, with the purpose of doing something together while being aware of what we do. In this way, we can develop what we come up with right in very the moment we are improvising.”
Contract Improvisation & Contemporary Partnering Workshop
Saturday October 25 | 12 pm to 3 pm, $15
Artscape Youngplace Centre, Studio 103, 180 Shaw Street
Eduardo invites participants of all levels to participate in a Contact Improvisation & Contemporary Partnering Workshop. Starting with and then departing from the technical principles of contact dance, I propose exercises and dance sequences that are thought to be executed in pairs, focusing on weight transfer, the study of supporting points and the use of gravity force as a main impulse for movement. Thus, the workshop encourages participants to increase their sensitivity towards other bodies, working on movement flow and the use of inertia, all of which allows a minimal use of muscular energy.
For information regarding the Toronto classes please contact the organizer: lo bil – lbil@rogers.com
Biography
Eduardo is a Colombian choreographer, dancer, performer and university teacher. He was born in Grenoble, France, in 1975. He graduated as an anthropologist at the University of Los Andes (2000) and has an interdisciplinary Master in Theater and Live Arts from the National University of Colombia (2009). Eduardo has won various prizes, including: a national internship for creative incentives from the Ministry of Culture (2007), two grants from the District Secretary of Culture to create new dance pieces as a dancer (2008 and 2010), two grants for interdisciplinary creation as a co-‐director (2009 and 2011), a grant for dance creation from IDARTES as a director (2012).
As a dancer and performer he has worked with: Corporación Danza Relieve -‐Medellín (2003-‐2006), Compañía Impromotion In Promoción -‐España/Colombia (2003), Ballet Metropolitano de Medellín (2005-‐2006), Compañía Danza Común-‐Colombia (2007-‐2008), Compañía Estantres-‐Colombia (2008), Mapa Teatro-‐Colombia (2008) Compañía Korpe-‐Colombia (2010), Compañía Tercero Excluido-‐Colombia (2010-‐2012), Colectivo Los Desvestidos (2012).
He is the director of the group “La Bestia”, a space for collective research and scenic creation, which gathers artists from different disciplines to explore the body in its scenic dimension. He has directed three pieces: FELICITACIONES (2009), ROSALA (2012) and PATAFUERTE (2012), and co-‐directed two interdisciplinary works: INVIERNO (2009) and INVESTIDURAS (2011).
Eduardo started his pedagogic experience in contemporary dance in 2003 teaching at the universities of San Martin and San Buenaventura. Between 2004 and 2007 he gave workshops periodically, maintaining a training space at the Palacio de la Cultura in Medellín Colombia. He has also taught in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Antioquia (2006), the Institute Jorge Robledo (2006-‐2007) and the Technological Institute of Medellín (2006-‐ 2007). Between 2008 and 2012, Eduardo worked as a pedagogue in the Faculty of Arts of the Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas (ASAB), giving curses in contemporary dance technique, applied dance composition, improvisation, interdisciplinary ensamble and contact dance. Eduardo has been contemporary dance teacher in Colombia at Danza Común Foundation (2012), La Ventana Productions (2009 and 2013), the Politécnico Gran Colombiano Institute (2010-‐2011), Tercero Excluído Dance Company (2010-‐2012) and in USA at the “Modern Guest Artists” program of Dance New Amsterdam (DNA), New York (2012).
He also worked at the Centre for Experimentation in Artistic Pedagogy of the Secretary of Education of the District of Bogotá CEPAS (2011), was teacher at a Diploma in Story Telling at the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (2012), and was part of the pedagogic team of the Diploma in Dance Creation of the Teaching Teachers Program of the Ministry of Culture of Colombia (2012). He has participated in various academic events, such as the World Dance Alliance Global Dance Event, organized by the University of New York, USA (2010), and the First Latin American Encounter of Scholars researching on Bodies and Corporealities in the Cultures in Rosario Argentina (2012). Nowadays, he is working at the Performing Arts Department of the Faculty of Arts at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana of Bogotá, and is coordinating the professional training project 2es-‐Bogotá with the collective La Bestia.
Promo Video Link: https://vimeo.com/96722762