Our Instructors
Our Instructors
Delia Brett
Cyrus Khambatta
Anne Cooper
Olivia Schaffer
Manuel Rochette
Selena La Brooy
Annie Becker
Helen Walkley
Jo Kreiter
Aaron Malkin
Arash Khakpour
Jennifer McLeish-Lewis
Natalie Rousseau
Teresa Lalupavia
Joni Cooke
Stuart Phillips
Robert Kitsos
Wonder Phallen
Jonathan Kerslake
Sashah Klapkiw
Serge Gubelman
Kristen Lewis
Adel Andalibi
Delia Brett Cyrus Khambatta Anne Cooper Olivia Schaffer Manuel Rochette Selena La Brooy Annie Becker Helen Walkley Jo Kreiter Aaron Malkin Arash Khakpour Jennifer McLeish-Lewis Natalie Rousseau Teresa Lalupavia Joni Cooke Stuart Phillips Robert Kitsos Wonder Phallen Jonathan Kerslake Sashah Klapkiw Serge Gubelman Kristen Lewis Adel Andalibi
Robert Kitsos
He has performed his own and other works at international festivals including the Spoletto Festival in Charleston South Carolina, the World Expo in Lisbon, the Grec Festival in Barcelona, the Palais Royale in Paris, and others in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, Hong Kong and Venezuela.
Kitsos has also appeared in well-known theatres including the Cultural Center in Hong Kong, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the Joyce Theatre and DTW in New York. He has been commissioned by artists and companies in Hong Kong, Seattle and Vancouver including Bard on the Beach and the British Colombia Ballet in Vancouver BC.
Jo Kreiter
PHOTO by Weiferd Watts
Jo Kreiter is a dancer, choreographer and site artist with a background in political science. She engages physical innovation and the political conflicts we live within. Kreiter’s tools include community collaboration, a masterful use of place, an intersectional feminist lens and a body-based push against the constraints of gravity. Jo has spent 27 years building coalitions with women marginalized by race, class, gender and workplace inequities. Her work has been supported by Guggenheim and Rauschenberg Fellowships, New England Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has taught at Ohio State, Arizona State, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and in the Bay Area’s contemporary and CI communities. She has been teaching contact improvisation for 30 years. https://flyawayproductions.com
Olivia Shaffer (she/her)
Photo: Hilary Maxwell
Olivia Shaffer is a professional dancer and choreographer born and based in Vancouver, located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded Coast Salish lands and waters of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) people. Olivia performs with and teaches at EDAM Dance, Vancouver’s long established dance company and training center for Contact Improvisation (CI) and dance improvisation. As a choreographer, her passion lies in the creation of embodied, evocative performance by way of crafted improvisations.
Olivia has taken daily classes in CI since 2011 as a dedicated student of master teacher, Peter Bingham. She has also learned from international CI teachers such as Alicia Grayson, Angelika Doniy, Karen Nelson, K.J.Holmes, Andrew Harwood, Ray Chung, Chris Aiken, Frey Faust, John Faichney, Martin Keogh, and Ruslan Baranov, and she has trained extensively with local improvisation and somatic expert, Helen Walkley.
Olivia's passion for teaching is fueled by her diligent and ever-expanding background in contemporary dance, improvisation, Pilates, Grotowski theatre, Feldenkrais, and complementary somatic modalities. She is an adjunct movement professor at the University of British Columbia, and has also taught at Modus Operandi, SFU, Douglas College, Polymer Dance, Salt Spring Jam, Leviathan Studios, Ballet BC, and internationally at Oberlin CI50 Celebration, Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation, the Berkeley Jam, and at the University of the Philippines. Olivia has a BFA in dance from SFU. // www.oliviashaffer.caSelena La Brooy (she/her)
Selena discovered Contact Improvisation in 2014 and has been fascinated with it ever since. She has studied and played with various yoga lineages, developmental movement patterning, BMC, Feldenkrais, breathwork, vipassana, clowning, the Axis Syllabus and circus arts which colour the lens of her inquiry of the form. She is an anatomy nerd, certified rolfer and somatic movement integration practionner which inform her approach to teaching. Some of her most influential teachers have been Martin Keogh, Kira Kirsch, Frey Faust, Andrew Harwood, Anjelika Doniy, Karl Frost, Alicia Grayson, Nita Little, Ida Rolf and Monica Caspari. She is most passionate about ways to make contact improvisation playful and accessible to all bodies by empowering choice, inviting deep listening and inspiring perpetual curiosity into what else is possible. She is a core member of the Salt Spring Island Contact Improvisation community, Salt Spring Island Contact Improvisation Festival (www.contactimprovisationsaltspring.com) and the founder of Rhizome Springs (www.rhizomesprings.com), a community project hosting multi-day Contact Improvisation festivals and intensives on the unceded terrtories of the Hul’Q’Umi’Num and Sencoten speaking people where she is grateful to work, live, teach and play.Cyrus Khambatta (he/him)
Cyrus Khambatta is From Seattle, Washington. As an artist he seeks to reach out to and communicate with his audience through his work. He founded The Phffft! Company (now Khambatta Dance Company) while attending New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he studied dance and theater. In addition to the many national and international venues Cyrus has toured with KDC, as an independent dance artist and director, his work has been presented at The Smithsonian Institution, The Dartington Improvisation Festival (England), The Bialystok Dance Festival (Poland), The New York Improvisation Festival and the Seattle Festival of Dance and Improvisation and others.Helen Walkley (she/her)
Since 1980, Helen Walkley has, as a contemporary dance artist, certified LabanMovement Analyst and somatic movement educator, lived in the U.S., Germany, the Netherlands and Canada choreographing, improvising, performing, and teaching/mentoring. She completed an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies in the School for Contemporary Arts at SFU in 1996 and has since been based in Vancouver. In 2020, Helen received the Dance Centre’s Isadora Award, which recognizes an artist’s outstanding contribution to the BC dance milieu. In 2022 she received the Lola Award.
http://helenwalkley.comManuel Rochette (he/him)
Manuel Rochette is a dancer, facilitator, and host of Salt Spring Island Contact Improvisation Festival in Canada. With more than 15 years of experience, his personal studies got him closer to teachers such as Martin Keogh, Angelika Doniy, Alicia Grayson, Karl Frost, Ray Chung, Scott Wells, Vega Luukkonen, Kira Kirsch, Paul Singh, Andrew Harwood and more.His facilitation approach creates an attentive container where skills, states and group spontaneous composition emerges. Curiosities of the moment: Accessing polycentricity, how to increase availability & generosity with the body, opening the backspace, falling together, and continuity of movement. He regularly explores the world dancing and is an avid jammer while he continues to deepen the practice in classes and workshops. Manuel is also a DJ and a gardener from which he sources inspirations and metaphors. Delia Brett (she/they)
Delia is an established Vancouver performing artist, teacher and choreographer. She took her 1st CI class from master teacher Peter Bingham when she was 14yrs old and began training, almost daily, in CI when she was 18 yrs old, 33 years ago (Eek!). Delia teaches people of diverse, ages, abilities and genders locally And has toured as a CI teacher and dancer to Austria, France, Greece, Finland and across Canada and in the US. Locally, Delia has been a contributing teacher to Dance and theatre programs: Modus Operandi, The BPA, SFU, Studio 58 and of course, last but not least…EDAM Dance (Canada’s premier contact company) in which she was a primary contributing dancer with for 24 years! Pre-covid, Delia and her company partner Daelik, offered regular CI classes and workshops at their studio, Left of Main as well. Delia’s perspective as a CI teacher, facilitator and dance artist has been informed by numerous practices, including her extensive background in acting, theatre, martial arts, voice, breath, Yoga and Myofascial structure and function. But one of the single most enlightening of all her experiences as a teacher/ facilitator, was the 8 years her company, MACHiNENOiSY dedicated to working with LGBTQ2+ youth (ages 13-25) producing 11 different shows called, PROX:IMITY RE:MIX, during which they trained the youth in the skills of CI. Because it was through these years that Delia began to understand how this dance/awareness practice we call, Contact Improvisation can be used not just to create wickedly awesome dances, but also to develop complex inter-relational capacities such as confidence, deep listening, somatic and intuitive knowing, as well as collaborative and divergent thinking.Delia is also a Hatha yoga teacher with 20 years experience, has an extensive knowledge of myofascial anatomy and bio-mechanics and post covid has transitioned from running a dance company to running her own business in transformational coaching and wellness for artists, activist and creative beings.Link to my website bio:https://www.deliamoves.com/about-deliaJoni Cooke (she/they)
In 1990 while completing her BFA in dance up at SFU Joni encountered Peter Bingham and fell in love with the form of Contact Improvisation. She avidly delves into the myriad ways CI leaks into life, into her Zen practice, her yoga practice, her relationships and even into her farming (of goats and greens). She is a shiatsu massage practitioner (CSMT) of 30 years and it could be said even studies the point of contact while working on clients. She teaches yoga and CI and is passionate about the healing arts and cultivating (or uncovering) radical presence. Annie Becker (she/her)
Annie Becker is passionate about movement. Annie has trained within many modalities of movement including ballet, contact dance, vinyasa yoga, and yin yoga to name a few. Annie brings together her 300h Karma Teacher Certificate, 50h Yin Certificate, and pranayama training to the matt. A balance of looking inward while Annie holds space in a unique way that allows a deeper connection to the body. As a professional musician, playing nation wide for over a decade, Annie co-weaves music and movement to create an experience.Sashah Klapkiw
This form found me at the age of sixteen, and I am grateful for all that it has given me so far. I have been fortunate to study with a number of very potent teachers and each of them has gifted me with something unique to explore. I received the value of studentship and movement inquiry from Peter Bingham, while Karl Frost supported me in invoking relational curiosity. Ray Chung shared with me a love for the details, and from Martin Keogh, I was given an appreciation for the power of state. These teachers, among others, have all deeply informed my dance. This form has held me through the most vulnerable times of my life and provided a medicine like no other. Seeing how this container also holds space for others in their human experience, I am continually inspired to lean into the somatic relational emergence that is contact dance.Natalie Rousseau
I have been passionate about movement since I was a child and came to the practice of Contact Improv Dance by way of a 20+ year career teaching yoga and mindfulness. I discovered Contact Improv because I was looking for a movement practice that would allow me to access the more playful side of my nature while also supporting the deeper trauma healing I was doing on a personal level. As a Somatic Therapist, I know that healing occurs in relationship and I am endlessly inspired by the ways in which Contact Improv Dance can support us in the art of relating through embodied mindfulness and authentic expression. I love to explore these topics with others and look forward to sharing them with you.Wonder Phallen
Wonder Phallen, started movement improvisation in 2001. They spent years exploring creative expression. In 2004 Wonder began training in the martial arts. Training in martial art, they developed kinesthetic awareness of self and other bodies. In 2011, they started social dancing which led to increased understanding in partnership, connection, rhythm, floor craft, social etiquette, and consent-based practices. In 2015 Wonder received their bachelor degree in communication, dance, and leadership from Western Washington University. Their dance education overlaps with functional movement, pilates, and yoga, which sparked their interest in other movement modalities. Eventually, their dance study brought them to Contact Improvisation (CI). After being introduced to CI, Wonder began studying, traveling internationally and diving into the form and teaching. They continue to learn forms such as Butoh, aerial arts, clown, yoga and performance. They continue to emphasize presence, authenticity, movement expression, functional movement, mindfulness, and movement skills.Anne Cooper
Anne is a dancer/performer, improviser, choreographer & teacher based in Vancouver, BC. She has taught Contact Improvisation since 2001 at EDAM, WOW, Leviathan & in the NWT and has studied CI with many teachers including Peter Bingham as well as Nancy Stark Smith, one of CI's originators & the deviser of the Underscore. Anne has performed with Nancy Stark Smith & other improvisers in Nancy's 'Glimpse' projects. She's recently returned from 'Glimpse 4' in Salt Lake City, USA, researching & offering the Underscore as both Community Underscore & 'Performance Installations'. Anne has danced for a number of choreographers for over 20 years, and also creates her own hybrid dance/voice works. Upcoming she performs in EDAM's Spring Choreographic Series. She's happy to give the Underscore 'Talk-through' & do the Practice with people at the Vancouver CI Festival! Monica Strekle and Anne Cooper. Photo by Chris Randle
Arash Khakpour (آرش خاکپور)
Arash Khakpour (آرش خاکپور) is a dancer and choreographer from Tehran and based in colonially known as Vancouver. Arash has been practicing dance and performance for the past 15 years and has been a company member of the EDAM ensemble since 2017. He tends to invest in the nuances of prejudices in the body as a way of inviting the unconscious to the conscious, and as a doorway to confront unknown emotions. He sees dance as a process of physical, emotional and spiritual discovery and a mode of transformation. He works with dance as a language that researches the human condition through mythical, historical, social, political and existential interpretations. As a first-generation immigrant, he continuously considers what healing he can bring to the land and communities he works with. He is building a culture of relationality and reciprocity that celebrates the multiplicity of presences and approaches. Arash is the co-founder and artistic director of the dance-theatre-film company The Biting School (alongside his brother Aryo Khakpour).Teresa Campbell
My work is rooted in a deep love for and commitment to community. I have been a Bodywork Therapist, Celebrant, Full spectrum doula and yoga teacher/trainer for over 20 years, working intimately with community in transitions and thresholds.
I have shared yoga, dance and embodied movement teachings for 20 yrs; leading local and international Yoga Alliance certified yoga teacher trainings, life changing local and international Retreats and workshops on grief, reclamation, .
Stuart Phillips
Stuart Phillips dances CI as a healing process for over 40 years, teaching, performing & researching said form worldwide
Aaron Malkin
Aaron joins us from the world of theatre and clown. At its foundation, clown is a theatrical craft that relies on impulse fluency and performance honesty (no red nose, no floofy hair, and no face paint required!). In addition to leading workshops in clown, Aaron has toured his theatrical physical comedy shows internationally for the past 12 years, mainly as “James” in the award-winning duo known as James & Jamesy.With experience in CI, mime, jazz and swing dancing, and a bottomless spirit of play, Aaron finds ways to bring delight into everyday life… and in this context, to our CI playspace.
Jennifer McLeish-Lewis
Jennifer McLeish-Lewis has been a teacher of Contact Improvisation since 2006. Since 2002 she has studied and has had an ongoing practice under master improviser and contact dancer Peter Bingham. She has also trained with international teachers such as Ray Chung, Andrew Harwood, Chris Aiken and Karl Frost. Jennifer was a performer from 2002- 2012 with the contact based company MACHiNENOiSY in Vancouver, directed by Delia Brett and Daelik, performing in works inspired and underpinned by Contact Dance. In 2005 Jennifer was a performer in Karl Frost's improvised participatory performance, Axolotl, a show that toured the west coast of Canada and the U.S.A. She taught at Leviathan Studio in 2012 and 2013, and was a guest teacher at the Elsewhere Canadian Improvisation Festival in 2013. Her unwavering commitment to Contact Improvisation has lead her to teach classes and workshops in Vancouver, Victoria, Lasquiti Island, Salt Spring Island, Calgary, Cortes Island, Zagreb (Croatia) and Nanaimo. As a student of EDAM and Peter Bingham, Jennifer takes her place in the linage as third generation to the originators and innovators of this postmodern partnering form.Jonathan Kerslake
With a background in physical theatre and corporeal mime, Jonathan Kerslake has been practicing Contact Improvisation for more than thirty years. A long -time student of Peter Bingham’s, Jonathan has also studied CI with teachers such as Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood, Nancy Stark Smith, Jaci Metivier, Anne Cooper and Pam Johnson.Living in a remote valley in the BC Interior has led Jonathan to explore the physics of movement in relation to landscape, terrain and ecology. This, in turn, informs his interest in finding pathways into dance with as wide an array of human shapes, energies and abilities as possible.Marie Osterman (They/She)
Serge Gubelman
Serge has been involved with contact improvisation for several decades as a dancer, and as a musician.
He has played live acoustic Instruments for Contact performances and jams in New York, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Paris, etc.
Breitenbush hot springs for several years (love that place!), the Port Townsend Jams, and the Bellingham jams...
If you want to sample the sounds, you can find them on Band Camp under "Manna Presence" the album "Palate"
Hang (Hand Pan), Didgeridu, Harmonium, Cambodian Bells, Waterphone.
Kristen Lewis
Kristen's life has centered around dance since the beginning. Her formative training happened in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she learned as much from the ferocious North Atlantic wind and engulfing fog as she did from her formal movement teachers. Her performance practice spans the disciplines of sacrificially-oriented performance art, contemporary dance, experimental theatre and contact. Her teaching practice bloomed on Salt Spring, starting in 2010, and grew from there to engage with communities of practice in Victoria, Ottawa, Montreal. Her work is influenced by the developmental movement work, embodied anatomy, the general life process studied as-is, and by the mentorship of her primary CI teacher, Stu Phillips.
Adel Andalibi
Adel Andalibi, is a physical theatre artist, movement educator, somatic psychologist and a scholar of contemplative practices. He explores the exchanges between somatic practices through history and among contemporaries. Adel is a board member of Asia committee at International Association for Creative Arts in Education and Therapy (IACAET, https://www.iacaet.org/board-and-committee) also board member of the Commission on Visual Anthropology at IAUES (http://cva-iuaes.com ). His main contact teachers has been Nancy Stark Smith, Lisa Nelson, Andrew Harwood, KJ Holmes, Ray Chong, and a few naughty kittens in Here & Now studio. For an extended movement biography and other somatic work see https://www.herespace.com/adel-1
