Contakids – Physical play and dance for parents and children 2-5 years old
Jitsa Konstantoudaki
20.07 18:00 – 19:30 & 21.07 11:00 – 12:30
For information and registrations email to: [email protected]
What is Contakids
Contakids is a method that brings parent and child together in the most playful way!
Using physical contact as a key tool and through play and dance, it cultivates a deeper non-verbal form of communication between parent and child.
Through specific physical exercises, parents and children build self-confidence, strengthen their connection and understanding of each other, and cultivate a different kind of trusting relationship.
Children expand their mobility skills, learn to use their bodies in a safe and enjoyable way, and activate their own physical survival mechanisms. Through practice they become aware of their own limits and learn to function as independent and self-reliant beings.
History – Evolution
The inspirer of the method is the Israeli dancer and teacher, Itay Yatuv, who naturally and spontaneously started dancing Contact Improvisation with his daughter, who was only 2 years old. From then on, he worked and developed the method, which he calls Contakids, based on several fundamental techniques of Contact Improvisation, which he has been practicing for 10 years. This new method involves combined interactive games and physical exercises for parents and children 2-5 years old.
What we do
In this class we work in the most playful and enjoyable way for the parent and child, with a sense of weight, with movement principles of pulling and pushing, rolling and falling, as well as kinesthetic instructions that allow us to free dance eventually, and how parent and child can interact in a more physically active way.
Who it’s for
Contakids is aimed at children from 2 to 5 years old and their parents, or other caregivers and relatives with whom they are comfortable physically interacting. It is open to participation with both parents or one parent with two children.
How it works – Basic principles
At Contakids we allow the child to learn through experience and failure. Through fall-inducing exercises, creating non-stationary physical surface bases, children learn to fall. They learn how to be responsible for their own physical survival, as well as how to use their bodies functionally and effectively. At the same time, the goal for the parent is to notice when to intervene, and when the child is really at risk of getting hurt, thus exploring the boundaries of both parent and child.
Through the exercises we also encourage the child to learn to hold on to the parent, thus making the child more active and sensorially present. In this way, the ability to feel physical stimuli and derive information through touch is developed. Thus, by avoiding using their hands and holding the child, parents are also better able to perceive and sense what position or situation the child is in and can respond accordingly.
Finally, through free dance between parent and child we develop an equal relationship by proposing a kinetic dialogue where both are physically conversing, proposing, choosing and listening to each other together.
Gitsa Konstantoudaki was born and raised in Chania. She studied Civil Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens. She is trained in contemporary dance, physical theatre and Contact Improvisation. She works as a teacher of Contact Improvisation and organizes events and workshops in the field of dance, improvisation and performance in Athens, while at the same time conducts personal therapeutic sessions with the Bowen Technique somatic method.
With her love for children and her interest in creative physical engagement with them, she fulfilled the Contakids training and conducts weekly classes and workshops for children and parents. Her goal is to develop and spread this in Greece, completing the network of teachers in 35 countries around the world.
For information and registrations email to: [email protected]
20 July | 18:00 – 19:30
21 July | 11:00 – 12:30
Jitsa Konstantoudaki | Contakids – Physical play and dance for parents and children 2-5 years old
