CCDWP was designed in collaboration with the French dancer & Choreographer Laurence Rondoni. The vision behind it was to establish for the first time in Egypt, a long-term contemporary dance educational program introducing contemporary dance to the local scene, by giving the necessary tools, openings, and perspectives of development to the young generation of artists in Egypt.

CCDWP took place over a period of four years for a promising group of young Egyptian dancers and choreographers at Studio Emad Eddin and Falaki Theatre. The first 3 years were composed of workshops given by international choreographers, dancers, critics, cultural operators who were invited to tutor the participants, based on an intense curriculum set by a specialized dance professional. In the fourth year, the Egyptian participants were given residency opportunities abroad, in collaboration with dance organizations in in France, Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, and opportunities to perform in Falaki Theatre.

Towards the end of the programme, the participants were divided into dancers and choreographers, and given capacity building Training of Trainers ToT sessions in order to develop a new generation of dance trainers and choreographers in Egypt, to keep the process sustainable for the future. The result was very successful, as several graduates of this programme have become trainers themselves opening up their own studio like Ezzat Ezzat, and others have become acclaimed professional choreographers touring their work in Egypt and abroad like Shaymaa Shoukry, Mounir Saeed, Sherine Hegazy, Mohamed Foad, and Salah El Berouji who was selected by Akram Khan to join his esteemed dance company after seeing him in this programme.

Session 1 – By Claudio Loanna (Italy): In this session, participants have made exploration, research and choreographic composition. During the technical course, Loanna led the dancers in a floor work and a work on the vertical.
Using a skeletal structure, she brought notions of anatomies applied to movement and worked on the visualization of its own structural image (the formation of the image of its own structure and the taking of awareness of its own weight and functioning is the basis of my pedagogy). In this drawing, the Loanna also proposed couple exercises, manipulations which had as an aim the exploration and the knowledge of the human body to improve the approach of the functioning of the body.

Session 2 – By Gaspard Guilbert (France): This February course was an extension of the January 2008 course within the framework of a program comprised of a series of meetings between education experts and artists that allowed participants to immerse in a large number of styles of creative dancing and artistic creativity in general. Gasper Gilbert’s workshop belonged to this procedural framework.
His work is connected with the empowerment of art in performance (this is the art of movement, the art of all that is living and moving where the body, space and time are the main outline. This leads us to consider the empowerment of the art process “performance” a hybrid art – an explanatory note from the translator) as well as the voices of poetry (“voices” means making words articulated with vowels to emphasize their resonance) and moving the body meaning putting it in a state that allows movement within a dancing context far from any dance traditions.

Session 3 – By Silvia Di Rienzo (Italy): This session followed Gasper Gilbert’s workshop for 2 hours and a half. In order to benefit from the dancing preparation there was a necessity for introductory familiarization of the body so that dancers can know their tools (the body) and work as well to improve it (flexibility and opening energy circuits, breathing, resistance and the balance of deep muscle forces) as well as reach an independence via experimentation to identify their limitations, a dancer’s self-limitations which they always have to overcome.

This concept which relates body and spirit is powerfully present through practicing Yoga even if we do not follow the creeds associated with it.

Session 4 – By Germana Seveira (Spain/France): During this workshop, Seveira led the students to a special technique specific to her methodology as the presence issue and its trial was emphasized. Removing the word and closer to a communication built on the power of energy fields, the students passed through experiments across movement and body in order to attach and merge their individuality (their self and their personality) and uniqueness (original creativity) inside the group.

Session 5 – By Claudio Loanna (Italy): This November course was based on a technical approach to the dance class, with development of verticality, movement in space, from adage to jump, based on personal style of the space construction approach (dance construction game by with respect to lines, points and volumes), not far from the style that we find in particular techniques by William Forsythe.

Session 6 – By Silvia di Rienzo (Italy): Participants gained perception and awareness of the inner body, awareness of a body’s life, how it grows and how it is broken, flexibility and balance with regards to dancing, feeling capable and bodies equipped to dance, discipline with a feeling of resistance and surpassing the self, positive energy, as well as an image and a clear sensual awareness of the body and a clear sense of touch.

Session 7 – By Sandrine Mezonouf (France): Participants worked for 10 days from the following different elements: the bones, the organs, the muscles, the skin, while Mezonouf put them in a state of exploration (dual movement and practice) then in an applied position inside the space: different types of movements, the relation with the other, and the relation of the self with the space.

She led the practice in groups or as individuals to reach an instant formation that stimulated the dancers’ presence and calibre. Mezonouf borrowed some elements of BMC (body mind centring) so that she could lead the dancers towards instant formation.

Session 8 & 9 – By Laurence Rondoni (France): Participants have worked on the body, through different techniques allowing a better knowledge and reading of the human body and the body in movement. Using the method of feldenkrais, yoga, martial art, anatomy applied to movement, different techniques of contact dance and body warming that we find in what we call the “new dances” (borrowed from Martha Moore and Trisha Bauman).

Session 10 – By Sandrine Mezonouf (France): Following on from the April 2008 meeting, Sandrine Mezonouf developed her instant composition work by pushing the question of presence further with the support of notions such as: architecture, “placing oneself on the edge”, the element of the spiral, the notion of landscape and awareness of the created landscape, notion of imagination, and of reception of the present.

Session 11 – By Claudio Loanna (Italy): This session was based on a technical approach to the dance class, with development of verticality, movement in space, from adage to jump, based on a personal style of approach to space construction (game of construction of the dance in relation to lines, points and volumes), not far from the style that is found in particular in the techniques of William Forsythe.

Session 12 – By Laurence Rondoni (France): This final session included the supervision of the last educational session of the speaker Claudio Ioanna, preparation of students’ end-of-year work, work support, rehearsals, staging, technical management, and participation in the “Round Tables” organized by the Studio Emad Eddin Foundation; as artistic director of the program which brought together cultural operators from the Middle East around the question of training and development of contemporary dance in the Mashreq Region and in the Arab world.

Schedule:

Session1 – from 13th – 23rd of January 2008
Session 2 – from 11th -17th February 2008
Session 3 – from 11th -17th February 2008
Session 4 & 5 – from 19th -28th of February 2008
Session 6&7 – from 19th -29th of April 2008
Session 8 – from 14th – 26th of July 2008
Session 9 – from 1 – 18th of August 2008
Session 10 – from 19th -27th of August 2008
Session 11 – from 17th -30th of November2008
Session 12 – from 1st – 20th of December 2008
Evaluation of CCDWP Students – on 19th & 20th of December 2008