Dancing the Invisible runs weekly contemporary classes, contact improvisation jams and weekend intensives for adults in Toronto, Montreal and online across Canada. The value is not in a certificate or a stage credit. It sits in the body, in how you carry weight, breathe under effort and stay present when a duet goes somewhere you did not plan. Here is what that looks like in practice.
Every contemporary session opens on the ground, not at the barre. Rolling through the spine, giving your weight to the floor and finding the small hinges in hips and shoulders teaches the body things standing positions hide. Dancers usually notice the difference in the second half of class, when standing balances stop feeling like a fight.
Release work is often taught as if everyone already knows the vocabulary. We unpack it slowly: where effort is unnecessary, where the skeleton can carry what the muscles keep gripping. Working choreographers lead the sessions, so the technique stays tied to how it is used in actual rehearsal rooms rather than to an abstract ideal.
Falling down and getting back up is a skill, and it is trainable. We practise breath timing alongside weight transfer so that momentum becomes something you ride instead of something that surprises you. This is the part that tends to travel outside the studio, into stairs, crowded rooms and long days on your feet.
Jams and partnering blocks are open to people with no duet experience. The opening circle sets the agreement to say no, and the first duets are slow, quiet and close to the floor. Somatic awareness matters far more here than strength or flexibility, and the practice becomes a shared language rather than a performance.
Improvisation labs are not free-for-alls. Each session has a score, a constraint and a clear end, which is what makes the work legible to the people doing it. You leave with material you can repeat, question or abandon, instead of a vague memory of having moved around for two hours.
Drop into a single session, buy a five-class card, or join a six-week block that ends in an informal showing for friends and local artists. No audition and no performance background are required. The studios we rent have sprung floors, which changes how falls and recoveries feel, and the online sessions carry the same programme for dancers outside Toronto and Montreal.
Questions about which format suits your week, or about the programme areas of floorwork, partnering and structured improvisation, are welcome at info@dancingtheinvisible.com or by phone at 380.293.7628.
Questions about a drop-in, a five-class card or a six-week block all arrive the same way. Write plainly, name the format you are considering, and mention the city or the online option. That is enough for us to answer with something useful rather than a generic reply.
The form on the contact page is the only route in. Nothing is subscribed automatically, and no confirmation email is sent beyond the processing step. If you would rather write directly, use info@dancingtheinvisible.com or call 380.293.7628.
Who we are
Dancing the Invisible grew out of a simple observation: adults who stopped dancing years ago still want to move, and most studios give them nowhere to start.
We are a small dance organisation, not a school with a fixed curriculum and not a company chasing a season. What we run is weekly contemporary classes, contact improvisation jams and weekend intensives for adults, in Toronto, Montreal and online across Canada. The teaching comes from working choreographers, and the rooms are rented studios with sprung floors, which matters more than it sounds when you spend an hour rolling, falling and getting back up.
The programme holds a few things at once: floorwork, release technique, breath and weight transfer, partnering, somatic awareness and structured improvisation. None of it is a ladder you have to climb in order. A dancer can drop into a single session, carry a five-class card across a few weeks, or commit to a six-week block that closes with an informal showing for friends and local artists. There is no audition and no performance background required. What the work asks for is a body that wants to move and the willingness to fall down and get back up, sometimes in the same minute.
We keep groups small enough that a teacher can see how each person gives weight to the floor. Partnering and contact improvisation only make sense when there is room to listen, so we would rather run two sessions than pack one.
Release technique and floorwork are taught as tools, not as a standard to match. Knees, hips and shoulders differ from person to person, and the work adapts to the dancer in the room rather than the other way around.
Our improvisation labs are not free-for-alls. Scores, timings and simple agreements give the work a shape, which is often what lets adults relax enough to actually improvise instead of waiting for a cue.
If you want to know who teaches, how the studios shape the sessions, or what the no-audition approach means week to week, the about page goes into that. The services page lays out the three ways to join.
Reading and practice notes
Three pieces that sit close to what happens in the room: how a class opens on the floor, what a first contact jam actually feels like, and how the three enrolment formats change the kind of attention you can bring. Written by the people who teach the sessions, not by a marketing desk.
Technique
The floor is not a warm-up. It is where weight, breath and listening start. A close look at the opening twenty minutes of a contemporary session, and why beginners often find it easier than standing work.
Read the notePartnering
A first jam is quieter than it looks from the outside. What to expect at a weekend jam in Toronto or Montreal, from the opening circle to the slow duets that come before any lifting.
See the formatsEnrolment
Each format asks for a different kind of attention. A drop-in tests the room, a card lets a theme accumulate, and a six-week block is where improvisation labs and partnering work start to deepen.
Ask about a class