ISSC at Wiener WinterJam 2026
Earlier this year, at the beginning of 2026, the Vienna CoLab of the Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication (ISSC) were invited to share their working research at the 5th WienerWinter Jam, a yearly contact Improvisation weekend event at Pfarre am Akkonplatz, Vienna, Austria.
In this first year of the CoLab, the main basis of practice has been researching the materials laid out in the ISSC manual, applying the research methodology and creating our own scores to see how the quality of our dances and somatic communication is affected.
Within the CoLab having recently been fascinated with the notion of ‘presence as disturbance’, for the WienerWinter Jam we decided to dive into this topic and give the group an opportunity to sample the way in which we conduct our research. We were also interested in taking the opportunity to collect some data from the participants, if they were willing. They were!
The presentation was both in English and German languages led by Lui Springer, Monica Schuberth and myself, Sarah Sea. It consisted of an introduction about the ISSC and Vienna CoLab, a solo movement meditation focusing on the senses, and then working with the questions: what tells me I am present, how do I know I am present, how do I know my partner knows I am present, plus a live demonstration of a metaphor Nita had shared with us previously.
Large bowls of water were installed and people gathered around to release leaves from above, allowing one by one to fall into water to demonstrate a physical action of presence as disturbance. The water was disturbed, it made ripples across the surface. Then we took the resonance into movement as folk explored how all of us create ripples as a collective pond, that is our dance floor and the effect that each one of us might have on the whole through our presence.
As tools of reflection participants were invited to journal and short verbal sharings in small groups. Some reflections we collected:
“Maybe presence is like a colour, you need a 6th or 7th sense to feel/see it. Maybe there are different colours of presence. Maybe presence is like a quality of space, that densifies around conscious, present beings”
“Throughout this session there was focused experience, attention on different “data” if you will,. Bodily sensations, thoughts, seeing, hearing. I experience the focus on these different phenomenon. They all have one thing in common. Awareness. It never stopped,. Even when I was so relaxed that I fell asleep for a moment. There was no interruption of awareness, there is interruption between thinking, hearing, feeling… but awareness never comes to an end.”
“The cool of the ground, nagging impressions, imprinting discomfort - continuous reminder, the cracking of woods, reminding my mind of its presence. Sensations of muscles and tendons, stiffening, longing for attention, longing for movement. Waking up, seeing glimpses, hearing the cracking wood, sensing other bodies.”
Observing the room and watching the movers, we saw at some point a group of people dancing with a concentrated focused quality, it was a group in the middle, a majority. After the final practice, the space seaminglessly opened up to a Jam, to use what they had been researching in the session in an improvised and open setting.
Later that day, we received comments that the work had really influenced how they experienced their dance, and it was valuable to work with principles which evoked a deeper sense of listening and quality. Other reflections heard were that “I’ve done this before, it’s nothing new”.
The work of the CoLab is very much in repeating practices and scores, finding value in discovering what emerges each time and what the scores do, what results they produce.
About Vienna CoLab
The Vienna CoLab formed in 2025, has been working together for just over a year now, the group size has a core of about 10 dancers who are advanced practitioners in somatics and mainly teach or facilitate such classes. We are hosted by the Angewandte - University of Applied Arts in Vienna and meet on the APL dance floor once a month for a four-hour session. We are an average of 4-6 dancers each time.
https://somaticcommunication.comhttps://www.inneroutermoves.com/issc-vienna
Photos byFOTO FLAUSEN – Andreas Brandl