Cycles are being completed and the wheel keeps turning… curious, renewed, naturally in movement.
To celebrate 10 years of the festival, we decided to change our name, stating with more clarity and maturity what we propose and why we came: Contact in Natura! After all these years, we continue to meet here, a place that generously offers us this real contact with deep nature, including everything: the human and non-human beings that inhabit it, the different landscapes, all the elements, the climate, the emotions… And it is to this experience that we invite you!
Contact in Natura will take us on a powerful journey from the mountains to the sea of Bahia, towards an encounter with the nature of movement and opening a space to truly listen to the essential. An intriguing dive into human interactions, in a precious experience n the valley of diamonds.
The festival is divided into three stages: Vale do Capão, Vale do Pati and Moreré.
You can sign up to participate in all stages or choose just some of them.
Contact studies and practices: Classes, intensives and jams in Vale do Capão
We will start this year doing what nourishes our souls! Meeting interesting people with the same focus: movement. Classes, intensives, space for labs, practices and jams, as well as a dancing walk to the waterfall – something that cannot be missed in a place as beautiful as the town of Caeté-Açú, also known as Vale do Capão, the most cosmopolitan small village in the world!
We will be enjoying the entire infrastructure of the super charming Pousada do Capão. It includes a wonderful studio with wooden floor, the Batista River with a natural pool, a multi-sports court, a sauna, a hot pool, several lawn areas surrounded by nature, and all with an inspiring view. There we will share classes, intensives, jams, laboratories, sensory exploration trails and moments of exchange and coexistence.
The journey continues in the second week, with a dive into an even wilder nature, co-creating with the land, its reliefs, its waters and its inhabitants. Being present at every step, we will walk and reveal our true authentic movement in natura, without artifice.
Waterfalls, plateaus, viewpoints and trails will be our space for movement. In a genuine connection with this landscape, we will traverse and be shaped by the Chapada Diamantina National Park, experiencing and contemplating the unique magic of the Vale do Pati.
To celebrate our 10th anniversary, we’re going to go a little longer, with a delicious post-festival, to close this edition on a high note! We’ll leave the the mountains all the way to the sea, anchoring in the warm waters of Moreré. There we will immerse ourselves in a transformative experience, letting ourselves be carried away by the movement of nature to connect with our amphibian essence, through dance and aquatic therapies, as well as other liquid movements.
This meeting is designed to discover and explore the 7 Basic Movement Patterns, through aquatic dance, contact improvisation, breathing, apnea, as well as aquatic practices sessions in pairs based on somatic methodologies, honoring the aquatic roots of our evolutionary movement.
We will investigate these practices by promoting safe spaces, from the playful to the therapeutic, to explore the inner depths of our body systems in movement and connect with the stillness, fluidity and healing power of the aquatic world.
Hugh is a Dancer & movement educator specialising in Floorwork & Contact Improvisation. Beginning his training in breakdance as a teen he went on to train at Northern School of Contemporary Dance, graduating in 2008. Since then he has worked with companies such as 2Faced Dance, Tom Dale, STAN Won’t Dance, and Wim Vandekeybus/Ultima Vez. He developed his teaching practice gradually throughout his performance career, and presently movement education is his primary focus. He teaches internationally offering his work at movements festivals and organising his own events. Presently, what interests Hugh most about teaching and facilitating movement is how to create and hold spaces for other people to find a deeper connection to themselves through playful exploration. Whether it is improvisation, contact Improvisation, or a choreographed dance class, the focus and intention lies in finding the joy and power of a movement practice connected to presence, awareness and breath.
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Thomas is a somatic coach and educator, with a focus on pleasure, sensuality and sexuality. He sees himself as a researcher in perpetual motion. His path has led him to live several years in Latin America, to teach yoga, to advise social entrepreneurs, to practice meditation extensively, to live in permaculture communities, to dive into the practice of dance, to become passionate about somatic practices and the nervous system...
Contact-improvisation has changed his life, and continues to do so. He loves this practice and this community so much. He is a cis-gender, white, heterosexual male. More about his work here: www.thomasrocourt.com
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Andrea is a researcher of movement and somatics, trained in Naturopathy, Contemporary Dance, and Aquatic Therapies. Now focused on somatic education and embryology, she also manages festivals, immersions, and training in Contact Improvisation, somatics, and aquatic experiences. She has been teaching Contact Improvisation since 2013, the year she began Liquid Flow, which has since evolved into Contact and Flow, a festival she now co-organizes. She also co-organizes the Tierra y Agua Festival in Tepoztlán, Mexico, and facilitates movement training in water, called Somatl. Her other passions include painting, printmaking, and hand-poke tattooing.
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Karen is a dancer dedicated to researching Somatic Movement, Contact Improvisation, and Evolutionary Aquatic Movement. She holds a degree in Dance from UDLAP and is a Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist certified by the Body Mind Movement® School in Mexico/Brazil. She is also a certified facilitator of the Janzu Aquatic Therapy technique. Since 2011, Karen has organized and participated in various dance, improvisation, and somatic events in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Argentina, New Zealand, and the United States. Karen is one of the co-creators and directors of the Encuerpar Festival and is currently a co-producer of the Contact and Flow Festival in Mexico. Her work focuses on discovering states of presence to tune into the nuances of sensation, perception, and proprioception. She has an interest in amplifying the potential for amphibious understanding through the exploration of human developmental movement patterns on land and in water.
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Giulia is a facilitator for somatic movement, ecosomatic ritual and deep feminine embodiment. She studied Traditional Mexican Medicine with Maya-Tzotzil curandera Sofía Hernández and has attended various trainings, quests and initiations with indigenous elders from Central and South America. For the last three years, Giulia has hosted transformational retreats and guided people worldwide on the journey of soul initiation. She has been researching and practicing Contact Improvisation since 2018. Over the years, her interest has brought her to explore BMC, Axis Syllabus, butoh, and to travel the world to study. Her current interest and research focus lies in the field of ecosomatics, weaving the human body back into its original tapestry, the Body of the Earth.
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Julia is graduated in Performing Arts (Rio de Janeiro/Brazil). Developed
several works as a performer, filmmaker and organizer of art events. Since 2001 has been researching Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement, View Points and Butoh. She offered CI classes and collaborated with festivals in Brazil, Italy, India, Argentina, Germany, Poland, Albania and Spain. She is developing her own method, the ContactThai. Organizer of Contact in Natura CI Festival, since 2012. Organizer of several retreats, workshops and artistic residencies at her own studio Inspiral Space of Culture and Consciousness, in Chapada Diamantina (Bahia/Brazil).
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… full information coming soon
with the programming in each of the Stages
The packages below include all activities and food during each stage.
Accommodation and transportation must be paid separately.
You can choose to participate in one, two, or all Stages.
In the this case, the Complete Package has a more convenient price.
10th to 17th January 2025
8 days, including all activities and meals
(without accommodation)
Early bird until 31/10: R$ 1930
(Approximately € 320)
After 01/11: R$ 2120
(Approximately € 350)
20th to 26th January 2025
7 days, including all activities, meals and guide
(without accommodation)
Early bird until 31/10: R$ 2350
(Approximately € 390)
After 01/11: R$ 2550
(Approximately € 420)
1st to 7th February 2025
7 days, including classes,
jams, labs and food (without accommodation or transport)
Early bird until 31/10: R$ 1930
(Approximately € 320)
After 01/11: R$ 2120
(Approximately € 350)
10th January to 7th February 2025
29 days including all activities,
and food during the stages
(without accommodation or transport)
Early bird until 31/10: R$ 5540
(Approximately € 900)
After 01/11: R$ 5970
(Approximately € 970)
R$ 50 (camping per night)
Night from R$ 130*
(bedroom with double bed)
From R$ 50 (camping per night)
Night from R$ 100 (shared bedroom)
*During the Vale do Pati stage, the Festival’s production team recommends accommodation in a room to reduce the weight of the trek.
R$ 50 (camping per night)
Night from R$ 200*
(bedroom with double bed)
* You can contact our organization team to see if there are other people looking for a roommate to share the costs. +55 75 99842 1657
To get to this blessed place called Bahia, you have to take a plane to Salvador da Bahia (SSA).
If you are coming for stages I and II (Capão and Pati), there are 2 options:
– The cheapest option is to take the bus from Salvador to Palmeiras and from there a van to Vale do Capão .The 8am and 11pm buses arrive at times when you can easily find public transport that takes you directly to Capão.
– The other option is to take another flight from Salvador to Lençóis (LEC) and then from the airport take a taxi to Vale do Capão.
If you’re only coming for stage III (Moreré), we suggest you take the bus from Salvador to Valença and from there take a speedboat to Boipeba, then a quad bike taxi or the collective tractor to Moreré.
The speedboats leave at 7.20am, 9am, 10am, 12pm, 2pm and 4pm.
Playful practice & explorative inquiry of Contact Improvisation.
My approach to movement practice is both: technical and experiential – concentrating on building up a functional understanding of underlying physical principles and structures of Contact Improvisation whilst also widening the trust to one’s instincts, impulses and intuition.
The principal themes behind the work are organic, fluid and functional movement, tuning and sensitivity to listening through the body & deepening the awareness of the body in movement and in connection to other bodies. Material alternates between contact and solo tasks, and exercises that connect the group as a whole, creating an open, safe and exciting environment to explore.
Connecting to the land through embodied practice.
Attending the various ways we can engage and connect with our environment, calling upon different qualities of attention and observation when in nature. Ones that can be found in shifting the focus away from the often dominant mind and into our felt senses and the body’s inherent knowledge. From simple walking exercises, partner-work and gentle bodywork, to finding a sit spot and playing with ideas of soft fascination and deep time. These sessions will seek out ways we can ‘be with’ rather than ‘upon’ the land and how this state can ripple out to the ways we can live and dance alongside each other in life.
Workshop with focus on the physicality of the delivery of weight, confidence, micro fallings and fallings; and what this implies on a human level. Taking the falling as the motor of movement to start in the direction of the flyght. Go through the basic principles (weight, counterbalance, enter and leave the floor, to listen…) to expand the body’s capabilities in unconventional situations, opening up spaces for play and alertness without resistance. From somatic explorations and movement patterns, we will share tools of martial arts and experiential anatomy. We will create spaces of attention where everything is resolved with the detachment, where impulse becomes an entry for a dance. And so through collective learning we find a space for improvisation.
An immersion to rediscover the origins of our amphibious being, moving in water and on land, and allowing ourselves to be guided by them. We will explore the body and movement through somatic methodologies, Contact Improvisation, and certain aquatic techniques to embody the wisdom of Moreré’s warm waters. By creating safe spaces, we will delve into the aquatic experience from both a therapeutic and playful dance perspective, primarily working with human movement development patterns. These patterns develop in our fetal state, within the liquid environment of our mothers’ wombs, and connect us to the movements of certain sea creatures that inspire our creations, dances, and explorations, both on land and in water.
An immersion to rediscover the origins of our amphibious being, moving in water and on land, and allowing ourselves to be guided by them. We will explore the body and movement through somatic methodologies, Contact Improvisation, and certain aquatic techniques to embody the wisdom of Moreré’s warm waters. By creating safe spaces, we will delve into the aquatic experience from both a therapeutic and playful dance perspective, primarily working with human movement development patterns. These patterns develop in our fetal state, within the liquid environment of our mothers’ wombs, and connect us to the movements of certain sea creatures that inspire our creations, dances, and explorations, both on land and in water.
In the western world, we live in critical times of disconnection between humans and nature. This fracture creates a deep inner void and I believe it is one of the main reasons for the rapid decline in global mental health. It is urgent and vital to find ways to recondition our bodies and souls to remember that we are nature. Ecosomatic rituals help us restore our original belonging to the web of nature. From this state of expanded awareness, we can begin to integrate our existence into the larger field of Earth and recognise ourselves as one of nature’s many creative expressions. How do we breath, move, and relate as a body that remembers its natural belonging?