« Au bout du monde 2025 » Contact improvisation festival
with Antoine Ragot, Astrid Lejeune, Catherine Kych & Stéphanie Auberville
From July 26th to August 1st 2025 in Plouguerneau, France
This year we’re moving to Plouguerneau, in northern Finistère. The coast there is magnificent! We’ll be staying at the Kroaz Kenan sports complex. The nearest beach (Créac’h an Avel) is a 20-minute walk away. The Grèves Blanches campsite (by the beach) is a 40-minute walk away. But above all, there’s a bus that links the practice room, the various beaches and campsites, as well as Brest train station.
The format changes, shifting towards the beginning of the day, leaving the afternoons and evenings free to invent together! We start the day in style with a contact improvisation jam, where we start and finish together, so as to be carried along by our presence and our woven attentions. After a picnic lunch, we’ll move on to workshops in pairs, where we’ll encounter the worlds of the guest teachers. Late afternoons and evenings are left free to take advantage of the joys of Brittany’s coastline in summer (beaches, walks, lazing around, picnics at sunset, etc.) or to offer outdoor activities. The studio will also be accessible in the late afternoon, should you wish to extend your dive.
Here’s how our days will look like:
10:00 am – 1:00 pm – Jam: The jam is a free space dedicated to the practice of contact improvisation. We start and finish together, so as to be carried along by our presence and our woven attentions. It is not possible to participate only partially. Punctuality and commitment are required for the whole 3 hours.
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm: Lunch (self-managed)
2:30 pm – 5:00 pm – Workshop: Each day, a pair of teachers will suggest a subject to explore, in line with the week’s theme. This is a guided time.
5:00 pm – 5:30 pm – Circle: This is a time for sharing and looking back on the workshop, as well as for passing on information from the teaching team to the group, and between participants for end-of-day proposals, for example.
5.45 pm – 7.15 pm – Open Studio: This is additional free practice time for those who wish. This can take different forms each day, from a focused jam to a somatic exploration or other proposal. This open studio time will be facilitated by one of us.
– A few details –
- Day of arrival // Saturday July 26th
3:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Welcome at the studio. If you need to do a little shopping, the village is nearby.
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm: Arrival jam with a suggested jam entry to get us started together.
6:00 pm – 6:30 pm: Opening and welcome circle – part 1 (on Sunday morning, a second circle time will take place. Further information will be given there).
Note: For participants staying at a campsite on the coast or near Lilia, bus 920 stops at the “jean tanguy” stop at 6:44pm, next to the venue. The next bus leaves at 8.45pm.
- Sunday July 27
9:30 am – 10:00 am: Opening and welcome circle – part 2
- Departure day // Friday, August 1
The day proceeds as in previous days, except for the open workshop, which will not take place.
5:30 pm : End of the day
5:30 pm – 6 pm : Collective tidy-up and clean-up
6:00 pm : Evening and shared meal for those who wish (beach picnic or other).
Note: Accommodation and meals are self-managed.
> Text of intention : (… to come)
> Teaching team :
Antoine Ragot, originally from Poitiers, currently lives in Berlin.
He is recognized for his rigorous and passionate approach within the Axis Syllabus©, of which he is a certifying representative.
He has been teaching contact improvisation for over 15 years, a practice he discovered alongside Claire Filmon in the Slovak mountains in 2005, an unforgettable encounter that changed the course of his life.
Antoine actively contributes to the creation and organization of various events around dance, movement research and contact improvisation. He is a regular contributor to workshops and festivals across Europe. In winter 2023, he will be initiating the SuperJam in Berlin, an annual event dedicated to contact improvisation enthusiasts.
Antoine is also a certified Rolfing® practitioner.
In 2014, he co-founded the annual Movement Artisans movement education program at LAKE Studios Berlin.
© Maryline Jacques
A movers and shakers with a hybrid background, Astrid Le Jeune [FR] co-founded Cie Du Haut with her sister in 2015: a joyful space for research-creation in which they like to take dance to places where it’s not expected, blurring the boundaries between danced gesture and everyday life. For the past fifteen years, she has been involved in the practice of improvisation, particularly Contact Improvisation (I. Üski, M. Gaudeau, S. Auberville, N. Stark Smith, N. Little…), which has changed her relationship with the body and movement, reshaping them from the perspective of relationship and touch. Since 2017, Astrid has been training in somatic practices (D. U. de Pratique d’Éducation Somatique in Lyon 2018/ Labo du F.A.R. in Paris 2019 / training in S.P.P (fasciatherapy) in Clermont Ferrand 2022). Curious about martial practices, its sensitive and chaotic spaces of brawl as much as its emotional resonances, she has been initiating herself into Systema since 2020.
Catherine Kych has been dancing for nearly thirty-five years now. Classical dance is her common thread, but as keeping searching spaces of freedom, play and sharing, she plunged into contact improvisation in 2007. She got enthusiastic about this non-normative practice, which offered the possibility of meeting ‘others’ – first through touch and movement, and then through words – and building and unbuilding the world with them.
As she moved forward, she acquired a range of tools to deepen her dance and support practices : a training course in « Dance and Movement Therapy » (using, in particular, the tools of « perceptive psychopedagogy » and fasciatherapy developed by Danis Bois), a University Degree (D.U.) in « Dance and Somatic Education » from Paris VIII, and a training course in « Explicitation Interview », which turned out to be the tool she needed to help dancers put their experience into words. Since then, she has been an active member of GREX (www.grex2.com), the research group on explicitation founded by Pierre Vermersch. Her practical and theoretical knowledge of attention – particularly in meditative practices – has more recently been supplemented by a University Degree (D.U.) in « Medicine, meditation and neurosciences » from the University of Strasbourg. Most recently, Catherine has been trained in Ericksonian hypnosis, in an attempt to gain a better understanding of the links between imagination, perception, language and relationships, and the way in which they influence the mechanisms of creation, learning and change.
Stéphanie Auberville, improviser and choreographer based in Brussels.
She has been involved in the practice of improvisation since the early 90s. She has been influenced by the teaching of artists such as Lisa Nelson, Deborah Hay, Simone Forti and Nancy Stark Smith. In 2002, she met Nita Little and became her assistant from 2005 to 2009. She has been teaching CI and improvisation since 2003, in the form of weekly classes (in Paris from 2004 to 2012) and workshops. She has been invited to teach in Metz, Tours, Marseille, at the Grenoble Festival, the Rennes Festival, the Freiburg Festival, in San Francisco at the WCCIF, in Budapest, Paris, Brussels at the Tic Tac Art Center and as part of the Bachelier Danse Interprétation program in Charleroi and at the Conservatoire supérieur de Bruxelles. Since ’95, she has organized workshops with Nita Little (from 2004 to 2011), Frey Faust from 1995 to 1999, Ralf Jaroschinski in 2011 and 2012, research labs, jams at Tic Tac Art Center (2019 to 2025) and meetings (BIP: Bruxelles invite Paris, PIB: Paris invite Bruxelles). Her teaching is based on working with perceptions, and often takes the form of research that she shares with participants.
> Practical information
INFORMATIONS PRATIQUES Plouguerneau 2025 Français_ anglais -2
The bus that links Brest (the station we recommend you arrive at), the various seaside campsites and the practice hall is the 920. Here are its timetables : horaire ete 2025 – ligne 920
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Facebook page: https://fb.me/e/2YHRHEvuM
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Registration form: https://forms.gle/aMTTTwV5YQymzrg67
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Information: stage.ete.lolm@gmail.com
> Prices: – Until June 26, 2025: 220€ normal rate / 240€ support rate (to support reduced rates) / 200€ reduced rate – From June 26, 2025: single rate at 240€.
> Cancellation policy: In the event of cancellation up to June 26, 2025, half the amount paid will be refunded. In the event of cancellation after June 26, 2025, no refund will be made.
> Location (marked with a red dot on the map) : Complexe Sportif de Kroaz Kenan , 134 Kroaz Kenan, 29880 Plouguerneau, FRANCE Point GPS
crédit photo : Maryline Jacques & Sarah Chauliaguet