THE WORK
35 People dancing, learning, teaching and creating together. One week of hard work from 15-21st November, ending in Fenix Festival 21-23rd November.
We will be all working on three main subjects:
Dance Technique: investigate and deepen our balfolk knowledge.
Balfolk promotion: organising is not easy, doing it sustainable is even harder. Let's share some useful knowledge
Pedagogy: sharing and exploring pedagogical approaches with our artistic coordinators.
During the residency we will see at least 6 Dance exploration workshops with collaborative labs, 3 balfolk promotion workshops, plus 6 pillars of Balfolk (pedagogy-oriented) and 6 Balfolk out of the box and movement workshops. Moreover, we will be building 3 cooperative workshops that will take place during the Fenix Festival from the 21nd to the 23th of November.
Every contribution is valuable, opinions are precious, feelings are worth telling.
We will explore the techniques of our favorite dances, go through all the details, try some mixed and ideas, crazy stuff. We will also explore how to teach, explain to each other where do we teach from, where do we want to go, and try different approaches through laboratories. We will spend some time to think about how events are, what are their fragilities, which new models can we make work.
And, of course, we will dance. A lot. And we will have fun. A lot.
LANGUAGE DISCLAIMER: The Residency will be only in English. The Fénix Festival will be in English and Spanish.
SCHEDULE
The schedule will be (almost) every day:
08:00-08:30h
08:30-09:15h
09:30-11:00h
11:00-11:30h
11:30-13:00h
13:15-14:00h
14:15-15:15h
16:00-17:30h
17:30-17:45h
17:45-19:00h
19:00-19:30h
20:00-21:00h
21:30-00:00h
- Warm up
- Breakfast
- Pillars of Balfolk (Pierre Chesneau)
- Snack
- Dance Workshop (Residents)
- Feedback and Lab
- Lunchtime
- Something different every day
- Snack
- Balfolk out of the box (Catarina Ascensao)
- Stretching
- Dinner
- Bal/ Party hard/ Bedtime...
ARTISTIC COORDINATION
Pic by Michel Robert
Pierre has been immersed in folk dance for over 25 years, attending major festivals and contributing as a pedagogue. From 21 to 31, he taught full-time across Europe, including at Frisse Folk, later expanding his expertise and pedagogy with Argentine tango.
Now focusing on other creative endeavors, he occasionally returns to teaching, including at Cenizas, where he will share the foundations of his Integral Folk Method. Through introductory workshops, he will provide essential tools for movement, analysis, and self-pedagogy, helping dancers deepen their connection to folk and traditional dances.
His method is built on four key pillars:
1. Musical Placement: Exploring rhythm, melody, and timing for expressive dance.
2. Physical Organization: Refining movement efficiency and body awareness.
3. Connections: Enhancing partner communication and spatial interaction.
4. Cultural Analysis: Understanding dance identity, function, and style.
Pierre’s approach emphasizes movement fundamentals, musicality, and social context, offering dancers tools to grow and engage with tradition.
Catarina Ascensão
Today, she lives her life as a mother, a dancer, a teacher, an event organiser, a doula and a space holder.
Graduated in Contemporary Dance and Choreography, during 10 years she was a resident teacher, dancer and choreographer in several schools and theatre/dance companies. Along with her artistic path, she develops a parallel path through holistic healing, focused on the merging of the movement with subtle touch.
She discovered folk dance and music as a teenager and has been one of her immersion worlds until today.
She co-created Resitrad - Dionysos à Ciel Ouvert, collaborated with several teachers and musicians, participated and teached in several events in Europe and Asia.
The body, its expression and the relationship between beings, are her main focus of research. She feels at her place when holding the space for others to dance and create. She deeply believes in a natural balance of things. She loves to laugh while dancing and to observe the music of people moving together.
Francesco and María are balfolk teachers and producers. Located in Madrid, they organise loads of events, workshops and stuff.
Among other events they organise the Bailando Entre Montañas festival and Cenizas.
As folk dancers and teachers, they’ve specialised in couple dances, studying their most intimate features and exploring the possibilities from fusions with other dances. Their approach, based on creativity, active listening and roles switching, has been recognised in these years with workshops in many balfolk festivals in all Europe (they still miss some country, though).
They’ve also participated as teachers in other balfolk residencies such as Folktemporary, Resitrad or Sustainabal and they wish to bring the spirit of these encounters into this new gathering.
