Soft Power

How can strength become softness? How can weight become movement? How can we learn to lean into the forces around us rather than fight them?

In this 10-day intensive, Artem Markov invites us to explore Contact Improvisation through the principles of physics, biomechanics, and embodied listening.

Rather than focusing only on exercises or movement vocabulary, we will investigate the principles that make movement more effortless: gravity, inertia, momentum, counterbalance, support, compression, expansion, and direction.

Gravity flows through the body anyway. The question is: does it break me, or can I learn to let it pass through?

We will explore how to transport and receive weight, how to find stability within large movement, and how to use physical forces rather than resist them. Through this, strength can become less about effort and more about communication, pleasure, and connection.

The course begins with listening to the body: sensing tissues, breath, joints, and subtle physical sensations. And gradually moves toward more complex movement, lifts, trajectories, composition, and dance.

A metaphor for the course is learning to surf or ride a longboard. First, we learn not to fly off the board, but to lean into the movement and trust the support of the wave. Once we become comfortable inside the movement, we can begin to spin.

We will learn to lean on the forces of movement and eventually, to hang rather than stop.

Across ten days, we will explore: softness and strength; gravity, weight, and support; body tone and listening to tissues; joints, compression, expansion, and counterbalance; wrapping onto support and finding new trajectories; rolling points and pathways into the unknown; inertia and the pendulum; lifts and how to weave them into dance; composition and integration.

This course is for people who want to dedicate meaningful time to Contact Improvisation and develop greater bodily intelligence, physical skill, and sensitivity through sustained practice. Virtuosity requires investment: time, effort, patience, and desire.

Four hours a day is a substantial practice. The mornings will be dedicated to the course, leaving the afternoons and evenings for rest, integration, the sea, and the palms.

Schedule

Every day 10:00 – 14:00. 9 April: body tone, listening to tissues, breath, and bodily perception. 10 April: joint bodywork, expansion and compression, trunk, pulling patterns, counterbalances. 11 April: gears, wrapping onto support, counterbalance. 12 April: bodywork, rolling points, pathways into the unknown, not-knowing. 13 April: inertia, pendulum, supporting what is. 14 April: exhale, doing nothing. 15 April: day off / jam day for the KPG community. 16 April: composition and dance. 17–19 April: integration.

Price for the whole program

Early Bird 17.000 THB (until 1st March). Regular Bird 19.000 THB (until 1st April). Late Bird 21.000 THB (until 9th April). Only 1st part (9-14 April): early bird 12.000 THB, then 14.000 THB. Only 2nd part (16-19 April): early bird 7.000 THB, then 8.000 THB.

The course is designed as a whole, and the whole process is important to us. We warmly welcome participants who want to join only the final four days, but in that case we ask that you have several years of Contact Improvisation practice behind you and come ready to join a process that is already underway.

After registration you will receive payment information. Accommodation is not included and most bungalows are a small scooter ride away.