CONTACT FESTIVAL SOUTH AFRICA 2026

Pre-Festival Workshop in Cape Town with Charlie Morrissey:7-8 Feb

Main Festival: 13-17 Feb 

Post-Festival Jam Immersion: 17-19 Feb

At Hearth & Soul Eco Farm, a beautiful retreat centre in the heart of the Overberg. Surrounded by trees and mountains with a river for swimming; a creative sanctuary just 2 hours drive from Cape Town.

• CI Intensive with Charlie Morrissey
• Morning Practice with Tasha Saha
• Outdoor Practice with Thalia Laric
• Jams every night with live music (4 exceptional local musicians who are all CI dancers)
• Immerse deeply in dance and nature
• Learn new CI skills 
• Connect with a vibrant community of local dancers
• Beautiful mountain surrounds 
• Vegetarian meals
• Time for resting and connecting

See our website for all Info and Registration

Dancers from South Africa and abroad come together to share, connect and expand through the practice of Contact Improvisation. Guest teacher, Charlie Morrissey, and local community leader, Thalia Laric, lead the five day immersion with CI Intensives and workshops that will expand your dancing experience.The Festival also offers daily morning practice, taught by Tasha Saha, outdoor sessions, bodywork and evening jams with live music, as well as free time for resting, reflecting, connecting, walking the land and swimming in the river.

- Our daily Morning Practice asks us to fully inhabit our own bodies and breath, as the steady ground of presence for contact with one another. With fine attention and great compassion we will tend to and prepare bodies and minds with movement, meditation and breathwork, cultivating and aligning to a soft, strong and grounded centre from which to move.  ​​

-Our Contact Improvisation Intensives will focus on enriching and refining the dance through our deepening attention. We will learn detailed techniques of lifting, flying and falling, exploring momentum and unlocking subtle understandings that open new movement possibilities and bring natural, effortless flow to our dance. 

-Our Post Festival *Jam Immersion* offers two more days of dancing together - an opportunity to integrate skills and experiences, and deepen in practice and community. Through jams, scores and discussion, we explore different ways of directing our awareness within the dance, sustaining our interest, creativity and presence. ​We will explore different approaches to witnessing and observing Contact Improvisation, noticing composition from within the dance and though observing each other.​ 

- Our Pre Festival Workshop takes place in Cape Town, two days in the city, before heading into the mountains for the Main Festival.