BARI KIM
Bari Kim is a dance artist, improviser, choreographer based in Korea and travels various places. Her focus of dance is listening. She keeps learning dance and music from nature, Buddhism philosophy and Korean traditional medical philosophy.
She has been performing improvisation in Korea, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Czech Republic, Portugal, Spain, Norway, Hungary, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Ireland and Canada.
She had founded the improvisational performance group, Improad Badak in 2008 and working as a member of the groups-<BARINAMO>,<SHINBI BAND> and <Windstone>. She co-created CI annual performance project <Physical Space> since 2020 and has taught CI in various festival & workshops-Seoul improvisation dance festival, AIAE,Towards, Samdal contact festival, Seoul Contact improvisation dance festival
ŽAN PERKO
@primalstates_
www.primalstates.com
For Žan, movement is a language of the soul — a way to listen, release, and return home.
As a somatic therapist, interdisciplinary artist, water therapist, Molchanovs freediving instructor, OceanDance instructor, he explores the fluid meeting points between body, emotion, and consciousness.
Over the past 14 years, Žan’s path has been shaped by therapeutic, artistic, and contemplative disciplines. With a background in authentic movement, voice, and somatic therapy, he creates experiences that invite participants to soften, feel, and rediscover their natural state of presence.
He is the founder of Primal States, a living field of exploration where movement, awareness, and emotional integration meet.
His work — including Beyond: Field Dynamics — opens spaces for deep connection: within oneself, with others, and with the living environment.
Through movement in the water and somatic flow, he invites a return to the primal — to the rhythm of the heart, to surrender, and the subtle intelligence that moves through all life.
DAVID LEUNG
Born and raised in Hong Kong, David Leung has been involved in the study and practice of dance continuously for the past thirty years. He has shared his dance in various capacities and settings in the USA, France, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, China, et cetera.
Contact improvisation, as well as various improvisational and somatic movement educational models, have been influential in his personal growth and development as a professional. Teachers who have touched him profoundly in various ways include Dawnna Wayburne, Geta Constantinescu, Aaron Wan, Juliu Horvath, Tai Kung Ching, Nancy Stark Smith, Julyen Hamilton, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Katie Duck, Yukio Waguri, Ruthy Alon, Ku Ming Shen.
He has been guesting for TOUCH, the first dance festival dedicated to the practice and research of contact improvisation in China since its inauguration in 2017. He was a core member of Kongtact Square until 2016 and co-created CIHK with friends in the same year.
Contact improvisation continues to be his primary tool physically and philosophically to deep dive into his existence as a human being.
He firmly believes that dance plays a vital role in holistic education and holistic healing.
HESTER de VRIES
is the founder of Pai Water Temple, a space dedicated to healing and exploration through the qualities of water in the valley of Pai, Northern Thailand.
With a background in behavioral science alongside somatic and aquatic training, Hester works in a grounded, attentive and intuitive way. Since 2021, together with her partner Teun Melis, she has been offering Aquatic Arts education, with a focus on Aquatic Therapy and Waterdance.
Her aquatic work is informed by the ongoing study of movement in water and influences from schools of FlyDeeper, Wataflow, Healing Dance. Her practice is shaped by training in Taoist arts, Breathwork, and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. Her journey into bodywork began with Vipassana meditation practice, which continues to anchor her approach.
Hester hosts a weekly Waterdance at Pai Water Temple, creating a consistent space for movement, inquiry, and connection with the water. Her facilitation begins from quiet attention, listening to the body and its natural rhythms.
As a mother of two, Hester brings a gentle, centered way of being into her facilitation. Together with Teun, she has followed a heart-centered path rooted in authenticity for over 15 years.
TEUN MELIS
lives and works in Pai, Northern Thailand. As part of his ongoing research into somatics and embodied living, he founded the Pai Water Temple in 2021 together with his partner, Hester de Vries. Here, therapeutic disciplines and explorations in warm water are facilitated in a natural hot springs pool, creating a unique environment for deep rest, healing, and reconnection.
Teun’s work is rooted in an early fascination with martial arts, which grew into a lifelong curiosity about human potential, body–mind awareness, and somatic intelligence.
His background in Leisure Management and counseling gradually evolved into a spaceholding practice spanning multiple healing disciplines, including Water Therapy, Water Dance, Contact Improvisation, Forest Bathing, Psychedelic Guidance, and Deep Tissue Bodywork.
In addition to one-on-one sessions, Teun offers his experience in hosting groups, leading somatic retreats, water-based workshops, nature immersions, and transformational journeys in both structured and intuitive formats.
His approach is informed by somatic education programs such as Towards Contact Improvisation, FlyDeeper, Wataflow, Healing Dance, Habitat Embryology, and Structural Energy Alignment. These influences shape the grounded, intuitive, and sensitive quality of his current work.
MASHA GRUDSKAYA
Has been dancing contact improvisation for almost 20 years and teaching for over 10 years in Russia, Europe, Israel, Thailand, Japan, Malaysia. Based in Moscow, she is one of the main teachers supporting regular classes, jams and other events in the city. Over the years Maria has participated in performance projects involving contemporary dance, movement and contact improvisation in Russia and other countries.
She is inspired by the approach of poetic movement developed by Steve Batts and Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company (Northern Ireland). Her deep interest is to dance with people of different ages and abilities, believing that dance is a natural skill and joy that all of us share.
Maria is a certified Somatic Movement educator, teacher of IBMT Somatic Institute and co-organizer of IBMT in Russia. Co-founder of international CI festivals in Russia and Thailand.
Currently she continues to develop in the somatic field, exploring the mystery of body and mind and the possibilities for movement and presence.
And as well she enjoys the physicality of movement and endless fun of acrobatics and contact technique.
SASHA BEZRODNOVA
Social psychologist, coach, certified embodiment facilitator (EFC), certified practitioner of Bodymind Gestalt therapy, international teacher of contact improvisation and body awareness.
Practitioner of the Deep Listening method, teacher of author courses for people in helping professions, developer of methods for teaching underwater dance (Ocean Dance), freediver, host of retreats and festivals, and author of the blog “Body My Home”.
Guide for regular Contact Improvisation events on land and water in Tepoztlan.
ANASTASIA SAEVICH
Somatic therapist (IBMT), dance movement therapist, performer.
Author and facilitator of workshops on somatic movement, contact improvisation, and the Discipline of Authentic Movement. Co-organizer of dance festivals and conferences. Has been practicing for the past 17 years. Instructor in A. Girshon’s “Integral Dance” program in St. Petersburg and Perm.
Co-creator of the Wild Women community, inspired by the tale of La Loba. Leads a women’s somatic retreat based on the story.
“Contact improvisation became the embodiment of my dream of dance. It is a dance where you can be anyone, where any movement—or stillness—can be part of the dance. A dance full of play, and at the same time exploration and focus, which expands the dance and offers new possibilities. Contact improvisation is a dance for people, a dance between people, with each dance being unique, like a personal conversation. Contact improvisation is a place of meeting, a place of self-discovery, a place where you can be yourself and explore the different potentials of your body.”
YANA SUTINA
Teacher of dance in water, watsu and aquahara therapist, freediving instructor, co-owner of “Freedive Nusa” freediving school, mother of a little mermaid.
I got to know contact improvisation in 2007 and instantly felt that I found what is just right for me – the practice that inspires, expands boundaries and makes me purely happy. My main interest in dance and in life – is the readiness to continue, to carry on. Continue to dance even when is seems already boring, or tiredness builds up, or the the sparkle fades away. Continue to dance when my dance seems not interesting. Continue to dance when it takes an effort even to begin. My interest is in long dances and stories that develop there. When I think – what I can do, so that my dance (as well as my life) is filled with things that I value… the answer comes clearly – just carry on
For several years now my professional life has been connected with water. It inspires me that in water we can feel as comfortable as on land. At our freediving school we teach students to dive apnoe – while holding the breath. Since 2015 I have been practicing aquahata and watsu – relaxing bodywork techniques in water, which can be a deep journey of release, letting go and trust… And connecting this with contact improvisation led to dancing in water – the essence of my most valuable and beloved practices.
KIRILL POPOV
Since childhood, my relationships with water haven’t worked well. I grew up in the semideserts region, with no place to swim, so I was not a “water person” at all.
Then contact improvisation came into my life, after that – freediving, and CI in water as a blend of all these things.
I was driven by freediving so quickly and strongly, so it became my main job and passion and kept this status nowadays. My relationships with water are so close that I can’t imagine my life without the sea.
I’m one of the founders of the leading freediving school in Indonesia – Freedive Nusa located on the stunning island of Nusa Penida.
I’m teaching all levels of freedivers from complete beginners up to professional freediving instructors.
With my team, we organize unique freediving expeditions in the most beautiful and remote places in Indonesia.
Freediving is a beautiful, safe, and simple activity available for everyone!
Freediving is a fascinating world and I love to help others to enter into this world.
JAM TEAM
Each year we invite a special team of experienced CI practitioners and teachers with a “secret” task to support jams at the festival. Each year Jam Team find new and creative ways to explore and hold jams – scores, talks, labs, one2one sessions, warm-ups etc. We love and cherish jams as the main space for CI practice.
NITIPAT ONG PHOLCHAI
Nitipat “Ong” Pholchai (Spine Party Movement) is a dance artist, physicist and educator. His practice lies at the intersectionality of dance, healing, and activism with a focus on communal rituals and emergent collaboration. Ong views life and art as intertwining forces that nourish and inform each other in a becoming flux of his being and environment.
Professionally, Ong has gathered more than 10 years of experience teaching creative physics and improvisational dance in multiple platforms including universities, alternative schools, meditation centers, social activism spaces and international dance festivals. He has enjoyed leading artist communities and giving consultation to teachers/facilitators. He has choreographed works, curated activities and directed many community-based artistic projects in Thailand and internationally. He has received institutional support from Dance Nucleus (Singapore), MyDance Alliance (Malaysia), Asian Cultural Council, Kelola Foundation (Indonesia), Wanny Angerer’s Moving Cultures, Alliance Francaise Bangkok and British Council Thailand.
Among his most influential dance teachers are Kathleen Hermesdorf, Sarah Shelton Mann, Augusta Moore, Lizz Roman, Daiane Lopez Da Silva, Karl Frost and Katie Duck. Since 2015, he has enjoyed collaborating and building a soulful network with many Asia-based dance artists. Since his pioneering work “Blind Rituals” with Thai blind dancer Toffee during 2017-2022, he has grown a strong interest in activating collective discourse about art and spiritual accessibility in society. When it comes to the art of dance, it becomes clear to him the saying “sharing is caring.”
KUTAY AKSOY
Aquatic therapist and holistic educator.
He is the founder of the Turkish Water Community, the Federation of the Turkey Therapeutic Aquatic Practices, and AquArt Fest, Turkey’s largest water and art festival.
After more than 20 years of experience in holistic healing, he created Eternal Flow Aquatic Therapy to support physical, emotional, and mental well-being, and to activate the healing power of the nervous system.
He is also the creator of AquaWeb, a psychosomatic water dance technique that offers a space for deep exploration and embodied movement.
Kutay works in the fields of body awareness, emotional transformation, and psychic deepening.
He continues to guide hundreds of people in Turkey, Asia to dive deeper into the water and into their own journeys of transformation.
DASHA FILIPPOVA
I have been dancing CI since 2011 and teaching since 2016. Was teaching in Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan. Why do I love CI? For me it is a dance of possibilities.
It is a manifestation of freedom of choice.
It is an opportunity to learn from your body.
In teaching, I love to take a complex form into parts, do an introductory exercise and voila – the whole group is getting the hang of it.
I enjoy working with mixed groups, when beginners and advanced students are together. I believe that in any form of contact improvisation we can bring the movement experience of our whole life, no matter if it was dance or just everyday actions. That’s enough. It’s always enough to get you started.
Other favorite body awareness practices of my life are mountaineering and rock climbing. So I have some experience with embodyment the fear of falling, the experience of feeling physically weak (“I could never do this movement”), and the opportunities to turn all this thoughts into the experience. And keep moving again.