Southwest Contact Improvisation Jam
June 12th - 15th, 2026
Tico Time River Resort, Aztec NM
Join us for three days and nights of dancing and camping on the Animas River in northern New Mexico!
Workshops with Gretchen Spiro & Steve Homsher,
Gwen Ritchie, Angela Heyun & Hallie Dalsimer, and Mark Koenig
Morning and evening jams, Underscore, Contemplative Dance Practice
The first annual Southwest Contact Improvisation Jam welcomes experienced dancers and beginners with a committed practice for a deep dive of collective inquiry and exploration. All of our programming will take place in a large, shaded pavilion directly overlooking the river, and we are scheduling a single offering at a time in support of creating a coherent group experience. What magic happens when we’re all ingesting the same material — through shared learning and shared meals? Let’s find out!
Your registration includes tent or car camping and five hot meals (dinner Friday, brunch + dinner Saturday & Sunday), plus a simple breakfast bar, coffee, tea, and snacks (including the morning of departure). Fresh drinking water is available on site. The venue offers indoor toilets and outdoor showers. Additional accommodation options (RV sites, glamping, bungalows) are available and can be booked directly through the venue's website https://ticotimeresort.com/accommodations-pricing/
We are grateful for the embodied wisdom that teachers bring to an event. If you are a CI teacher please make sure to let us know when you register.
Space is limited to about 60 spots. These will sell out, so we encourage you to register early!
REGULAR REGISTRATION (after April 17th)
$495
BIPOC REGISTRATION
$435 - 495
(sliding scale)
*Registration may be transferred to another person
**Your registration is NOT COMPLETE until you have sent payment and received a confirmation email!
Zelle (preferred!) to humxning@gmail.com
Venmo @Hallie-Dals (last four: 4028)
*** Work Exchange is now at capacity ***
We will be offering a small number of discounted WEX positions in exchange for kitchen/meal prep and registration/orientation support. Please indicate your interest when you register and get in touch to discuss possibilities.
For questions reach out at humxning@gmail.com
Schedule:
Friday
1pm arrival
4pm opening circle & welcome warm up with all teachers
6pm dinner
7:30pm guided warm up
8-11pm opening jam
Saturday
7:30 am breakfast bar
8-9am Contemplative Dance Practice & quiet jam
9-11:30am morning session
with Gretchen & Steve11:30am brunch
2-6pm afternoon session
with Gwen, Angela & Hallie6pm dinner
7:30pm guided warm up
8-11pm jam w/ live music
Sunday
7:30 am breakfast bar
8am quiet jam
9-11:30am Underscore
11:30am brunch
1–2pm 1 on 1s
2-3:30 afternoon session 1 with Mark
3:45-5:30pm afternoon session 2
with Gwen, Angela & Hallie5:30pm dinner
7:00pm guided warm up
7:30-11pm closing jam
Monday: 7:30 am: breakfast bar | River time! | Noon departure
Angela Heyun
Angela Heyun creates spaces for moving at the pace of being and feeling, where awareness, connection, and creativity emerge together. She is devoted to the practice of attention—how we come into contact with ourselves and each other. She explores fascination, sincerity, and the ‘world’ of the moment.
Her approach to Contact Improvisation focuses on the relational and collective, primarily influenced by Nita Little and Nancy Stark Smith.
She co-organizes CalCITE (California Contact Improvisation Teachers Exchange) and organizes CI
in Las Vegas.
Angela facilitates worldwide for Contact Beyond Contact, a dance and healing practice for interpersonal growth. CBC integrates aspects of Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement, Passing Through, Qi Gong, Family Constellations, and Taoist philosophy. She also draws inspiration from Tango, Zouk, Butoh, and Tai Chi.
TEACHERS
Hallie Dalsimer
Hallie Dalsimer (e/they/she) is an embodied systems artist working across movement, sound, and collective practice. (Th)eir teaching and performance offerings are rooted in the belief that inhabiting our bodies in real time is a deeply radical and permissionary act, one that we can model for each other as an invitation to both inhabit our own lives more fully and to re-member ourselves as part of a larger collective body.
Hallie has been dancing for over 35 years and teaching and performing a wide variety of improvisational practices regularly since 2010. E was first introduced to Contact Improvisation in 2006 and it has become a focal point of (th)eir practice and teaching over the last four years.
Hallie hails from Santa Fe, NM.
Gretchen Spiro & Steve Homsher
Gretchen Spiro began dancing Contact Improvisation with Nita Little in 1983 and has followed that thread ever since. She has spent over four decades teaching yoga, Gyrotonic, and CI. She holds a BFA in Dance from CalArts and an MA in Dance Therapy from Naropa University. Her work is rooted in the poetic and creative dimensions of CI, and at the edges where artistry intersects with the transpersonal and therapeutic. A former member of TouchMonkey, she founded Tumblebones CI Collective in Boulder in 2002. She was the organizer of the Moab Jam and Festival, and a core organizer of CI36. Gretchen teaches nationally and internationally with her husband, Steve Homsher, sharing a love for the magic and mystery of improvisation. She is also a mother, a lover of water and wild places, and a travel leader. She loves cats and monkeys.
Steve Homsher came to Contact Improvisation 30 years ago through gymnastics, aerial dance, and martial arts. He has studied with many first- and second-generation teachers, with a deep resonance for the work of Chris Aiken, Nita Little, and Nancy Stark Smith. Steve brings bold inventiveness, curiosity, and attention to detail into his dancing and teaching. A full-time professional visual artist, he explores a profound, contemplative practice in painting that shapes the way he moves and guides others. Known for his humor, vivid imagery, and spirited enthusiasm, Steve is a member of the Boulder Lab core, and teaches workshops and at festivals around the world. Steve often teaches alongside his wife, Gretchen Spiro, weaving partnership, artistry, and embodied inquiry into their shared work.
Gwen Ritchie
Gwen Ritchie is a dance artist specializing in contact improvisation, ensemble improvisation, and interdisciplinary collaboration based out of Boulder, Colorado, USA. She has danced and toured internationally in several contemporary dance companies, including her own, LABCO dance, and has had the privilege of teaching at several universities including Slippery Rock University, Chatham University, CU Boulder, and Naropa University.
She currently directs an improvisational performance ensemble called “Lost and Found Dance Ensemble” and teaches in a variety of settings both in and outside of her community.
The cultivation of awareness, presence, and finding freedom in the unknown while co-creating keeps her fascinated and passionate about her research in contact improvisation. Gwen looks forward to continuing to find ways to share that inquiry with others.
Mark Koenig
Having grown up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he competed in and taught gymnastics, Mark Koenig undertook his university education in art and dance at the University of California at Irvine and Santa Cruz, California and at Pau and Paris, France. Mark has been teaching and performing Contact Improvisation dance independently and with LeyZokiParl and LAVA, the two improvisational music and dance performance collectives he cofounded, since 1996 in areas including Northern California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minneapolis, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin. Mark also co-founded GLACIER, the annual Great Lakes Area Contact Improvisation Enthusiasts Retreat, in Willard Wisconsin in 2002, which continues today. He participated in the teachers advisory group of the annual West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival in Berkeley, California from 1998 through 2009. He currently resides in Rio Rancho, New Mexico with his wife Cynthia, and teaches a weekly Contact Improv class at Keshet Center for the Arts in Albuquerque.
