Summer Intensive

Summer Intensive 2014 – Teachers



“Play-Fight” - Bruno Caverna
amalgamates elements from martial arts, such as Capoeira, Taiji and Russian Systema, with Contact-Improvisation and Contemporary Dance, wherein a play-fight arena becomes the thrilling drive to explore and challenge one another in all different fashions. “Positively intended” is the individual mental tuning required for the rise of a friendly collective ground, from which a visceral and sensuous experience can be safely cultivated and extrapolated. Each encounter carries the latent power to tilt either towards confrontation or collaboration or into a blend of the two. This oscillating course is naturally defined by the unique alchemical potentials from each ever-unfolding duet relationship, sculpted into the depths of vulnerability and honesty.
Born in Rio de Janeiro and based in Europe since 2000, Bruno Caverna has always been strikingly fascinated by human bodies in motion and its instinctual intelligence derived from our animal evolutionary legacy. In 1987 Bruno began practicing Capoeira, which led him to work in a circus as an acrobat in 1993. The year after Bruno "fell into" contemporary dance, a landmark in his professional development for realizing that dancing was the missing link. Over the past 20 years, Bruno has been moving through a thread of uncompromised dedication putting together his visions and principles from various dance modalities and martial arts, into a visceral corporal language of his own. His approach to body language is spiritual and aims a refined understanding of our ancestral animal powers and origins. Caverna's motivation has been nourished and sustained by the realization that by retrieving of our dormant primal condition we become able to access countless benefits on many levels that go beyond the mere physicality.
By authentically reconnecting to our animal evolutionary legacy we move towards heightened levels of sensitivity, perception, awareness and, consequently, an improvement of motor skills and finer expressions. The established frameworks and guidelines becomes our fertile terrain for the awakening of a dormant instinctual intelligence capable of operating our bodies effortlessly with easy and grace.

See more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxulHZunZlM

Maria Kolegova


Basic Training for dancer – Maria Kolegova

This class is an exploratory dive into the many possibilities of a body well prepared and how to make it fully available in an efficient and safe way. An inner look, enhancing strength and flexibility at same time, this class that melts together elements of yoga, floor movement and taekwondo, aims to develop a common conscience of the surrounding obstacles within the space, and a common rhythm in the group while moving extreme. This class becomes a trip that challenges your focus to keep always aware of different elements and multi-tasking.

Maria was born in Russia and brought to Ballet first by her parents when she was but 5 years old. She sticked to it and studied Ballet until 1999 in Yekaterinburg ballet ( director E.Sherbakova). However right after, she shifted to contemporary dance and finished the school of contemporary dance of Centre of Contemporary Art (director L.Shulman) Yekaterinburg in 2003. Thereupon she enriched her education with studies at the Theatrical Academy (department of acting and filming-teacher V.Kokorin) Yekaterinburg, where she graduated in 2006. Duirng her studies she choreographed her first own piece „natural sleection“ in 2005 in Yekaterinburg, . From 2007 until 2012 she worked as a dancer in the theatre of contemporary dance in Moscow. At the same time she teached in the theatre-studio of contemporary art in Moscow(director I.Afonina) and trained taekwondo until she reached the black belt in the school of taekwondo ''Halelluya"(WTF)Moscow in 2012. Since then she has moved to Belgium and is working as a dancer in Ultima Vez company(director Wim Vandekeybus) Brussels.

See more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEUO5GX0Cy8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAd3VBQGWPY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMVgFdPlFSc



Yogaflow – Martina Griewank

As an eager, dynamic dancer and mover (swimming, cycling, capoeira…) I discovered yoga some years ago. It was THE method to find inner rest and concentration within this ever-changing and -moving life of dancers. As soon as I install the calm breathing I return to my inner self and can practice the Yoga Asanas accurately. Due to a continuous series of traditional yoga poses and exercises we will warm-up our muscles, open our body and stretch together, but everyone according to his individual capacities and needs. Within two weeks each participant will be able to observe smaller or bigger progresses, according to his own capacities,


Martina Susanne Griewank (born 1/09/1987 in Joliet/ USA) has german roots. The reasonable choice for medical studies was taken, but after succeeding the important exams of the 2nd year, she cannot repress her real passion any longer: dance.
One week later she enrolls at the Royal Conservatory Artesis in Flanders. During the three years of the Bachelor she had alternating international dance teachers. At the same time she always aimed to follow other workshops and organized her internships (Ballet Preljocaj and Staastheater Kassel) abroad to widen her horizon and enrich her education. On the way especially Capoeira and Tanztheater gave colour to her movement language.
After her graduation in 2012 she grabbed her bike and rolled of to Budapest where she had a scholarship within the wild card program/ Jardin d’Europe, supported by Ultima Vez. However she did not return to Belgium but affiliated a year of postgraduate studies within the company Marchepied/ Switzerland. Her return to Belgium was a choice and luckily brought her to help Untamed in 2013.
During the second year of studies she started to tour with “I can ride a horse whilst juggling” by Jan Martens. In 2012 she was part of the reopening of the Royal Opera of Wallonia in Liege under the directorship of Jaco van Dormael in” Stradella”. After her first year working for KUnstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels, she danced in Saloon” by Def Donkey at the Fringe Festival in Amsterdam in September 2013 and since then turned into Madam Steltenloper for the dance-puppet new collaboration piece of Natgras “De Steltenloper”, touring in Belgium. In 2014 she may return, for the second time, to the Kunstenfestivaldesarts.





The intuitive body – Zebastian Mendes

The word intuition comes from Latin verb intueri which is usually translated as to look inside or to contemplate. The modern usage of the term is the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason. It is also believed that the senses provide an intuitive understanding of reality.
But as such it is a term that has resulted in lots of positions and theories about its true meaning.
However at the same time we all handle a general and more or less common idea (inserted in the particular cultural context) of what it is.
The intuitive body is a quest to develop intuition as a tool, going to the root of the idea of intuition as a process of continuous "unconscious" learning. In the session, throughout a task or arriving to a certain state, the participants will be left with no time to consciously plan or calculate, and through this practice, give way to the "thinking of the body" (intuition), that is a state in which the body and mind analyze and learn while allowed to get carried beyond its control area. The idea is to train using this tool, to make it applicable to professional work in many areas ranging from injury prevention to opening a wider spectrum of creative possibilities.

Zebastian studied dance in Conservatorio El Barco, one of the most renowned dance schools in Latin America, having in this process a wide variety of teachers from all over the world. After school, he created a small dance collective (La Fabulosa Chanchavalancha) and also worked with many Costa Rican dance companies and choreographers. In 2010 he took part in David Zambrano's 50 Days of Flying Low and Passing thru workshop in Costa Rica. Then, in 2011, was offered a full time contract for a year as a teacher and dancer in residency in the Center for dance and movement research at the university Rafael Landivar in Guatemala. At the end of this period, Zebastian travelled to Europe to audition for Wim Vandekybus/ Ultima Vez and got selected. Since then he is dancing with Ultima Vez and living in Brussels.


Untamed Method – Ricardo Ambrózio
The workshop aims to work with the material that emerges from the creator-performer after he crossed his own limits.
It will start with a lesson based on strong physicality, with elements of Flying Low, Parkour, Break Dance and Capoeira in order to establish a language in common. This will then, with the guidance of the teacher, demands for precision, strength, speed and spatial displacement, be pushed to the limits of each participant. The achieved exhaustion of the body will open even new ways of moving enriching the following improvisations and partnering work. In the final phase all the material collected by the participants will serve to compose and direct a small choreographic cell (solo, duo or trio).

Born in the south of Brazil, Ricardo Ambrozio lived in Rio de Janeiro, where he had the opportunity to experience the best and the worst of Brazilian culture and day-to-day life. His first contact with rhythm and movement was at the age of 6.
After meeting and working intensively with Flavia Tapias, a Brazilian dancer, teacher and choreographer, Ricardo immersed himself deeper in dance and attended the ‘Faculdade Angel Vianna’ for two years.
At the age of twenty he left Brazil to go to Lisbon, Portugal, to attend the ‘Escola Superior de Dança’ and work with some companies (Companhia de Dança de Almada, Company Istável).

At this time he also started to develop his own work as choreographer and teacher by blending all the influences that he had experienced in dance with a lot of energy and momentum. After working with Helder Seabra in Company Istável (Porto, Portugal), he moved first to Amsterdam and then to Brussels to work with Bruno Caverna, Gerard Mosterd, Dogwolf (Chris de Feyter), Willy Dorner and Ultima Vez (Wim Vandekeybus), the company which he is currently working in.
While working with the Belgian company Ultima Vez, Ricardo Ambrozio starts to gather his own cultural projects (choreography, video, text and photo) under one name, one roof, one mark: Untamed.


Contemporary technique - Luke Jessop
This class will involve highly physical exercises and taught repertoire looking at how we can push our understanding of dynamics. Working primarily with moving in and out of the floor but also, on leaving the floor in more creative rather than acrobatic ways.



Luke Jessop fell into dance at the age of fifteen, taking an academic route from school, college and then to the University of Bedfordshire on the BA (Hons) Dance and Professional Practice course.
During his final year of study in 2011, he began working with 2Faced Dance Company for the creation of 'In The Dust'. He toured with this triple-bill around UK, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Bulgaria.
Since January 2012 he has been working in Brussels with Ultima Vez / Wim Vandekeybus, creating and performing in "booty Looting", "Spiritual Unity" and "Talk To The Demon" as well as performing in "Oedipus/Bêt Noir", "Nieuwzwart" and "FEAR NOT"
He is heavily involved in floor-based techniques such as Bboying and Capoeira and continually wishes to push his creativity in an effort to create and develop new movement language.
Luke regularly teaches workshops and classes and is now beginning to develop my own choreographic work.

See more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG9KTnu-lhQ

One man crowd - Máté Mészáros
Our body is the same in every movement and in any style but the possibilty to change is essential. We focus on these principals through different exercises and ways of approches. We explore floorework and partnering based on the material of Ultima Vez.

Máté Mészáros is born in Hungary and studied dance at the Hungarian Dance Academy in Budapest.
During his studies he joined the Szeged Contemporary Dance Company, the leading contemporary dance ensemble in Hungary. He received several prizes during the four years that he performed with this company; the Keresztes Mária prize (1999), the prize for the best male dancer at the 4th National Art Fesztival (2001) and the Zoltan Imre prize (2002). In the spring of 2003 Máté joined Carte Blanche, the Norwegian National Company of Contemporary Dance, and in 2004 he danced with the experimental Spanish dance company Lanònima Imperial. He also created two pieces of his own; Rush (2001) and Vossa Jass (2006). Máté joined Ultima Vez for the Creation 2009. And works with them ever since In 2012 Mate danced in AGAIN of the company Zero Visibility Corp of Ina Chirstel Johannessen, which premiered the 30th November 2012 at NorrlandsOperan in Umeå.