CONTACT FESTIVAL SOUTH AFRICA 2025

Pre-Festival Workshop: 1-2 Feb  
Main Festival: 5-9 Feb
Post-Festival Jam Lab: 9-11 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.

• Immerse deeply in dance and nature
• Learn new Contact Improvisation skills 
• Jams every night with live music
• CI Intensives with international teachers
• Connect with a vibrant community of dancers
• Beautiful mountain surrounds 
• Delicious vegetarian meals
• Time for resting and connecting

Dancers from all over South Africa and the world come together to share, connect and expand through the practice of Contact Improvisation. Guest teacher, Serafima Darova, and local community leader, Thalia Laric, lead the five day immersion with CI Intensives and workshops that will transform 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. Curiosity and presence provide us with a sense of safety; the more aware we are, the more we are able to confidently engage in dances that are dynamic, experimental and adventurous. 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 Lab* offers two more days of dancing together - an opportunity to integrate skills and experiences from the Main Festival and deepen in practice and community. Through jams, scores and discussion, we will 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 and also though watching each other.​ In this lab, we will combine technical exploration with the art of spontaneity, creating a profound connection to ourselves, each other, and the space around us.​

- Our Pre Festival Workshop takes place in Cape Town, two days in the city, to lay down foundations before heading into the mountains for the Main Festival.  Discover how mastering the basics—falling, lifting, gravity, momentum and sharing weight—can lead to a greater sense of freedom and creativity in Contact Improvisation. This workshop is about uncovering the profound in the simple and letting your movement flow naturally.​