Brain Body Connection with Maidelise Rios Medina

Workshop: An Exploration of Latin Rhythm in Contact

In the workshop, we will learn the elements that converge between salsa and contact improvisation, as well as the particularities of each genre. We will learn basic patterns of salsa with movements and lifts of contact improv. To do so, we will work on weight, counterweight and the different ways of moving the point of contact (rolling, sliding and pivoting) combined with salsa steps that include basic turns and transitions. The idea is to learn the fundamentals of both modalities that will help us to perform an improvised dance in which the rhythms and movements of salsa are fused with contact improvisation.

Born in the1984 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Maidelise identifies as social psychologist, professor, artist and dancer. In 2002 she began her academic studies in dance at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus. She has worked as a contemporary dance teacher at the Plié Dancers Academy and the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico (MAPR), and as Salsa teacher at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC), impacting low-income youth, children and seniors. In 2022 at Sagrado Corazón University (USC) she taught the course Dance and Psychology: Introduction to Therapeutic and Psychosocial Methods, and later (2024), the Contact Improvisation (CI) course. Internationally she has facilitated workshops of CI and Salsa at festivals such as the 2nd Contact Improvisation Meeting in Ecuador (2018) and the 1st (2018) and 6th (2024) Contact Cuba Meeting. She co-founded (2014) the project Danza Contacto Puerto Rico (DCPR), a project that seeks to implement and practice CI on the island. Through the project, she frequently offers classes and warm-ups for the contact jams, to teach the community contact improvisation.