Contact Improv Vermont

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  • Annual Burlington VT Jam
  • What is Contact Improv?
  • About Us

The Annual Jam Weekend


​Welcome!

The Annual Burlington VT International Contact Jam
Sept 6-8, 2019

This event happens with a lot of love and support from everyone involved, including participants.  
Thank you all for making the Burlington Jam so special.  


The 2019 organizing team:
                 Abbi, Amanda, Michelle, Hazel and more

Your dedicated organizers create a dynamic experience for the local and wider contact improv community every year.
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Each Jam includes a fundamentals class for all levels by a teacher that is familiar with AXIS Syllabus, music jam, guided warm up, urban dance walk / embodiment activism, DJ dance party, and an Underscore. 

We work to incorporate social justice into our theme each year and to diversify the organizational and guest artist team. 
Please reach out to us with your ideas.  


​Location

Join us in downtown Burlington on Church Street, at City Hall, in the beautiful Contois Auditorium
149 Church St., Burlington, Vermont
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Schedule

Friday 5 pm - 10 pm:
  • 5pm: Group Floor Cleaning.  Join the clean team, its fun!   
  • 5:30pm-7:30pm: Fundamentals Class with Kelsey Hobbs or Personal Warm Up Time  
    • You are welcome to join the class or quietly warm up in the space on your own.  The class will offer tangible skills to support newcomers to the form and provide content interesting to experienced dancers.
  • 8-10pm: Open Jam with Live Music with Ali Skalli & Moti Zemelman

Saturday 9:00 am - 11:30pm:
  • 9am Breakfast Served
  • 10am Opening Circle
  • 10:30am Warm up into Open Jam with Anne Orellana Whitney
  • ​1pm Lunch Served
  • 3-4:30pm Workshop: Embodying Inclusion and Consent Consciousness with Hilary Lake and Opeyemi Parham 
  • 4:45-6pm Urban Dance Walk / Embodiment Activism with Abbi Jaffe
  • 6-7:30pm: Space open for jamming.  Dinner on your own
  • 7:30-8:30pm: Focused Jam, some live music  
  • 8:30-9:15pm Slow DJ'ed Music with DJ Journey Weaver / Sarah Monette 
  • 9:15pm-11:30pm: DJ'ed Music Wave with DJ Journey Weaver / Sarah Monette 

Sunday 9 am - 3:30 pm:  
  • 9am: Breakfast Served
  • 10am: Underscore Talk Thru  **Required for those new to the Underscore.**
  • 10:30am-1pm: Underscore  **Full attendance of the Underscore is requested.**
  • 12:42pm: Closing circle begins
  • 1:15pm Lunch Served​
  • 2:15pm Group Clean (many hands help so much) and Farewell =)


​Artists in Residence

Jam Hosts: Amanda Franz and Abbi Jaffe: theeverythingspace.com
Contact Improv Class on Friday:
Kelsey Hobbs
Jam Musicians include: Ali Skalli, Moti Zemelman
Warm-Up Saturday morning: Anne Orellana Whitney: www.anneorellanawhitney.com
Urban Dance Walk / Embodiment Activism: Abbi Jaffe theeverythingspace.com
Saturday Workshop: Embodying Inclusion and Consent Consciousness with Hilary Lake and Opeyemi Parham: (movingingrace.com and ceremonyheals.com)
Saturday Night DJ: DJ Journey Weaver / Sarah Monette djjourneyweaver.com
Underscore talk through and Underscore: Michelle Lefkowitz


​Registration 

Cost Includes FOOD: We serve snacks Friday and Saturday night, a simple breakfast Saturday and Sunday morning, and a simple lunch Saturday and Sunday.  Dinners are not provided.    

EARLY BIRD (Paid for by Aug 23, 2010, 2 weeks before the jam): 
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED so we can better plan the food we will be feeding you =)

Whole Weekend: $75
Saturday only, $50
Sunday only, $25

REGULAR PRICE
(The regular price of the jam is higher because we want to encourage you to register ahead of time so we can better plan the food we will be feeding you.)  
Whole Weekend: $100
Saturday only: $70
1/2 DAY Saturday: $40 (includes lunch only)
Sunday only: $40

FRIDAY NIGHT only (starting at 5:30pm): 
Sliding scale $10-30

FRIDAY NIGHT only (starting at 7:30pm): 
Sliding scale: $5-15

SATURDAY NIGHT only (starting at 7:30pm): 
Sliding scale $10-30

Community Effort:  Would you like to be a part of the magic that makes this jam run?  We would love your help.  Just fill out the work trade form and let us know you don't need reimbursement.  Extra funds raised each year will go into our newly forming scholarship program. 

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​IMPORTANT: SCENT FREE ZONE: Help us create the most accessible space possible. To support the needs of those that are sensitive, please do not wear perfume, essential oils, cologne, scented face creams or scented body/hair care products, or, wear clothing containing chemicals such as: dryer sheets, perfumed laundry soap, cologne, perfume, scented deodorant, mothballs, etc. Thank you! Thank you!
Click here to Register



​Work Study

Work Trade Available: If you are able to commit to help for 3 hours during the weekend, we would love your help.  We need help washing the floors each day (so fun!), help with registration, cleaning up meals (yum), and with clean up at the end (so helpful!).  3 hours of help takes $30 off of the jam cost.  You will pay the regular jam fee and be reimbursed at the end according to the hours you worked. 

Thank you so much for co-creating a smoothly run jam with us!
Click here for work study



​scholarship

We want to be a part of a thriving community.  We are grateful for the gifts of contact improvisation and the contact improv community.  We understand that there are barriers that make the jam not feel accessible.  We aspire and work towards being a welcoming place for a diverse community.  

In 2019 we can award 2 scholarships.

This scholarship is for anyone who has a relationship with contact improv or wants to start and who self identifies with being a part of an underrepresented and/or marginalized group.  Preference is given to those who have not previously attended the Burlington Jam. Scholarship participants do not have any obligation to the jam besides attending the jam at their level of comfort and filling out a feedback form about their experience. 
 
The scholarship includes:
Burlington Jam admission (including the meals provided at the jam)
A campsite for one tent.  (Northbeach Campground, Burlington VT, more info below)
Welcoming orientation Friday at 4:45pm and additional support from Burlington Jam organizers
Total value: $100
 
Scholarship Application Deadline: Aug 16, 2019 11:59pm
The Burlington Jam will award 2 scholarships at its discretion to applicants who have met the application deadline of Aug 16, 2019 11:59pm. Notification of scholarship awards will be sent by August 22, 2019.  Please email Abbi with any questions: abbi.jaffe(at)gmail.com
Scholarship Application is Here


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​Housing Options

We are a small and yet vital community, and sadly we don't have the ability to find housing for dancers.  
We changed the date of our jam from March to the Summer so that you can camp during the jam.   

We ask that you find your own housing.  

Do you have housing to OFFER?  Would you like to find housing? 
Here is a Housing Offered/Desired Document.  This document is not monitored.  We hope it may be helpful.

North Beach Campground: A really beautiful location, right on the bike path (bring your bike) and next to the LAKE!, just 2 miles from the jam. They accept reservations and will fill up, so... Go online to http://enjoyburlington.com/ or Call the campground directly at 1-800-571-1198. Tent sites with one tent =  $72 for the two nights for up to 4 people. If you want more then one tent, then that is $5/night more. So at the most, split between 4 people and having an extra tent, brings you to $20.50 for lodging for the whole weekend.  Only one car per site, extra car parking is available.

*
Camping will run out, so reserve your site with the campground soon.  

More info and to reserve a campsite: http://enjoyburlington.com/

Couch Surfing: couchsurfing.org. (Free) This is a really great resource that we highly recommend. 

Burlington Hostel: $40/night. Learn more: http://www.theburlingtonhostel.com/rooms.html

AirBnB: Really charming options for as low as $40/night. The lower price ones will go quickly. More info: www.airbnb.com

​


​Accommodations

Programs and Activities held in facilities of the City of Burlington are accessible to people with disabilities. For information or to request accommodations, call Michelle - 802.864.7306 lefkoweiss(at)yahoo.com or 802.253.0195 VT Relay Service.


​Theme 2019

​Embodying Inclusiveness and Consent Consciousness

​GIVEN that trauma is so prevalent and held in our bodies,

AND that so many bodies are holding different stories, often with disproportionate impacts based on identity,


AND that generally people have good intentions and would like to reduce harm, 


WE BELIEVE it is time for this CI community to more explicitly bring consent culture and conversations about privilege into our world.


We believe together we can hold the complexities of cultural transformation.  


We believe we can work together to embody inclusiveness and to integrate consent culture, a verbal yet, somatic process of empowerment, to a somatic/embodied, generally non-verbal movement form. 


We believe we can move what the world needs to move.


And so, together, we ask,


“What are the personal, cultural and structural changes that our communities can make to become a welcoming, inclusive, consent-based culture?”


“What are the skills we need to learn/relearn in our communities and ourselves to be able to have these conversations (embodied and languaged) with compassion and humility?”


“How can we/I/you claim impacts, reduce harm and dream ourselves into being?


“What parts of ourselves can we invite to show up for these conversations?”


We welcome you into a weekend of exploration on being human.  


We welcome you into the embodied research of transforming ourselves and our communities. 


We welcome you to soften your edges to make space for vulnerability, yours and others, because there is tenderness all around us.  


We welcome you into making braver safer spaces to grow together by unpacking our constructed identities and dreaming into what’s next.  


We welcome you into the possibility of forming longitudinal relationships that will evolve over the years.


We know it won’t be perfect, as we are all learning/unlearning right now. Learning to show up for ourselves and for each other.  Learning to be how the world needs us to be.


We welcome you into this dance.  

~Amanda Franz and Abbi Jaffe. 
Theme title credit: Hilary Lake and 
Opeyemi Parham

FEEDBACK

As organizers, we know that feedback loops are a necessary part of every system.  Feedback loops are found in nature, in our bodies and in our social structures. Often unhealthy systems have destroyed or not listened to the feedback loops that were present.  We value your opinions, perspectives and wisdom.  
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Feedback form is here
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