Workshop Teachers
Paul Singh, who holds a BFA in dance from the University of Illinois, has danced for a diverse range of choreographers and companies including Gerald Casel, Risa Jaroslow, Phantom Limb Company, Stephanie Batten Bland, Douglas Dunn, Christopher Williams, Kathy Westwater, and Faye Driscoll. Singh was featured in the inaugural cast of Punchdrunk’s American debut of Sleep No More. During his international ventures, Singh performed in Peter Sellars’ opera The Indian Queen (Madrid) and Peter Pleyer’s large-scale improvisation work Visible Undercurrent (Berlin). Singh’s choreographic works have been showcased at various venues in New York and Berlin, including a presentation of his solo piece Stutter at the Kennedy Center in 2004. Most recently, he premiered two new works on A.I.M by Kyle Abraham in 2024. In addition to his performance and choreographic endeavors, Singh is an experienced educator in contact improvisation (CI), teaching intensives and workshops worldwide for both teacher training and beginner studies. He teaches a range of technique classes, including CI, floor work, contemporary, and partnering, at Movement Research, Sarah Lawrence College, and The Juilliard School. Singh was program manager at Baryshnikov Arts Center from 2021 to 2023. (Photo credit: Andrew Jordan)
Bradley Teal Ellis is a New York City-based dance artist and educator specializing in Contact Improvisation. He has researched and practiced Contact Improvisation for 28 years. Since 2009, he has been on faculty at Movement Research, one of the world’s leading laboratories for dance and improvisation. Since 2013 he has been teaching at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts/Experimental Theatre Wing, SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Dance, and has served as guest lecturer at Columbia University’s MFA Acting Program. His teaching extends across international contexts—from leading workshops at the International Contact Festival in Freiburg, Germany, to residential intensives in France, Vermont, and Cuba, to facilitating public classes & performance inside MoMA’s galleries during the Judson Dance Theatre: The Work Is Never Done exhibition. Bradley’s pedagogical approach centers on individual embodiment, shaping the attention and relational intelligence, drawing from postmodern dance lineages while remaining grounded in the foundational principles of Contact Improvisation. As a performer, he has created site-specific durational works, collaborated with visual artists, and devised scored improvisation performances with the performance group SetGO. His work explores the intersection of improvisation, ritual, and social engagement, consistently asking how bodies in contact can create spaces of vulnerability, attentiveness, and transformation.
International Warmup Teachers
Born and reared in Semiahmoo territory (South Surrey) Hayley Gawthrop is an independent
artist residing on the ancestral territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil- Waututh Nations
(Vancouver). Hayley has been singing and dancing since their beginning. They are passionate
about gentleness, bodily autonomy and listening with curiosity. Since 2015, Hayley has studied Contact Improvisation under Peter Bingham and has danced professionally with EDAM since 2021. Contact Improv serves as a framework for their ongoing exploration of movement, care, listening, disruption, and flight. Passionate about gentleness, bodily autonomy, and deep listening, Hayley’s classes balance skill-building with space for personal inquiry. They aim to help students feel thoughtful, brave, and confident in the unknown.
Anna Vilhelmine Wallin is an artist, mother, and educator based in Malmö, Sweden, working with movement research, corporeal art, and community dance projects. Their work is anchored in relational movement, exploring the interplay of the solid and the fragile to investigate how we meet and move with one another. They initiated an annual CI program in Sweden in 2023, now in its fifth edition growing across three cities, and organise the Malmö jam, ongoing for 20 years, alongside regular classes throughout the Nordic region. wallin is the creator of Moved by…, studio-based conversations exploring how practices, philosophies, and embodied ideas move us. International teaching includes the Berlin CI Festival (2019), Nordtanz (Hamburg, 2014), Midnight Sun CI Festival (Finland, 2025), and the upcoming Freiburg Festival 2026, as well as workshops across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Their performance work spans galleries, stages, and site-specific projects, including the touring children’s piece HOLD ME and collaborations across Europe. Faculty at Danscentrum, the national organisation for professional dancers, and guest at numerous Nordic art institutions, wallin is currently developing RELATIONAL BODY, a practice embodying their ongoing practice-as-research and teaching. (Photo credit: Patrick Beelaert)
Festival Organizers
Chris Cahoon is an improviser, teacher and facilitator based in Brooklyn, New York. He embraces the “art-sport” approach to Contact Improvisation, where his movement background in team sports meets his early initiations in Authentic Movement and Skinner Releasing Technique. Chris is curious about the spherical body in space, observing reflexes, and playing with states of physicality. He is influenced by teachers Paul Singh, Bradley Teal Ellis, and Alicia Grayson. Recent teaching engagements include the Freiburg Contact Festival (Germany), La Manzana de Paxton (Mexico), and Earthdance (USA). Chris holds a BA in Rhetoric from Whitman College and was an Artist-in-Residence with the Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation in 2019. Chris teaches CI classes and facilitates jams in New York City.
Gabrielle Revlock is a New York City–based performer, improviser, educator, and Bessie Award–winning choreographer whose work is influenced by postmodern dance, experimental theater, conceptual art, and compassionate communication. A practitioner of Contact Improvisation for over twenty years, her teaching spans academic institutions, international festivals, and community-based workshops. Recent teaching engagements include the European Contact Improvisation Teachers Exchange (Poland), Brinca Galicia Contact Festival (Spain), Ontario Regional CI Dance Jam, The School for Contemporary Dance & Thought, Salt Spring Island Contact Improvisation Festival, and Earthdance. Revlock’s writing on the therapeutic applications of Contact Improvisation appears in Resistance and Support: Contact Improvisation @ 50 (Oxford University Press, 2024), and her research has been presented at CI@50, the Embodiment Conference, and the Dance & Somatics Conference. She holds an MFA in Dance from Smith College. (Photo credit: Stephen Texeira)
Schedule
Friday
10:00am-1:00pm Morning workshop with Bradley
1:00-3:00pm Dance, eat, or sleep
3:00-3:30pm Guided warmup into jamming with Hayley Gawthrop (CA)
3:30-8:00pm Dance, eat, or sleep
8pm The Stand
8:10pm-10pm Dance, eat, or sleep
10:30pm Last ferry off the island!
Saturday
10:00am-1:00pm Morning workshop with Paul
1:00-3:00pm Dance, eat, or sleep
3:00-3:30pm Guided warmup into jamming (Teacher TBA)
3:30-8:00pm Dance, eat, or sleep
8pm Accumulation score
8:10pm-10pm Dance, eat, or sleep
10:30pm Last ferry off the island!
Sunday
10:00am-1:00pm Dancing
1:00-1:30 Closing Circle
1:30-2:00pm Goodbyes and out of the space!
Accommodations
HI New York City Hostel
891 Amsterdam Avenue, NY 10025-4403
Dorm rooms w/lockers and large private green space.
$63+ per night
33 minute subway ride to the ferry stop via the 1 train.
Chelsea International Hostel
251 W 20th St, New York, NY 10011
Private & dorm rooms.
$72+ per night
18 minute subway ride to the ferry stop via the 1 train.
Now Now NoHo
338 Bowery, New York, NY 10012
Private sleeper cabins with shared bathrooms. Women's only floor option.
$87+ per night
22 minute subway ride to the ferry stop via the R or W trains.
Youtopia Basement
Communal House in Bedstuy. Can accommodate up to 10 people. Should bring sleeping pads and bags.
$25 per night.
25 minute subway ride to the ferry stop via the A to the R train.
For details message Chris Cahoon on Whatsapp at +1 781-854-2957.