Contact: Land • Water • Spirit is a 4-day Contact Improvisation retreat and jam on Hawaiʻi Island devoted to dancing, listening, slowing down, and restoring connection: with our bodies, with one another, with the natural world, and with spirit.

Together we’ll move between land and warm water, structured classes and open jams, physical skill and deep rest. We’ll explore weight, gravity, touch, momentum, listening and play, while allowing the particular landscape and rhythm of Puna to become part of the practice.

This retreat honors the heart of Contact Improvisation: learning through dancing together.

🌍 Land

Contact Improvisation on land forms the physical foundation of the retreat. Through clear, progressive teaching, we’ll explore weight, gravity, structure, momentum, falling, lifting, touch, and the constantly changing conversation between two bodies.

Alongside technique, we’ll use playful scores and group explorations to build trust, spontaneity, and connection, creating pathways from structured learning into the freedom of the jam.

🌊 Water

Warm water invites us into an entirely different relationship with gravity, effort, and one another. Falling becomes suspension. Weight becomes buoyancy. Movement slows down, and listening becomes more subtle.

In small-group sessions, we’ll explore the particular intelligence of moving in water: yielding rather than pushing, allowing ourselves to be supported, and discovering new possibilities for movement, connection, and deep listening within the fluid environment.

🔥 Spirit

Spirit lives in the spaces between doing: in stillness, rest, attention, play, and the experience of being together without needing to accomplish anything.

Contemplative practice, restorative explorations, time in nature, and spacious transitions throughout the retreat invite integration and a return to a more human pace. We make room to listen to what the dance, the body, the land, and one another are revealing.

What to Expect

Contact Improvisation classes

Clear, progressive explorations of weight, gravity, structure, momentum, falling, lifting, touch, and relational listening, with accessible pathways for newer dancers and deeper technical inquiry for experienced practitioners.

Warm Water Contact

Small-group sessions in a body-temperature pool exploring buoyancy, suspension, yielding, support, subtle listening, and the meditative qualities of moving together in warm water.

Play, Scores & Jams

Play-based scores and group explorations build connection, spontaneity, and communal awareness, gradually opening into spacious Contact Improvisation jams.

Morning Practice

Optional yoga and Contemplative Dance Practice offer ways to arrive in the body, settle attention, and begin the day together.

Rest & Integration

Evenings slow the rhythm down. Restorative practices, sound, stillness, and simple forms of togetherness create space to integrate rather than continually adding more.

Lunch + Spacious Breaks

A nourishing lunch is provided each full retreat day, with generous time to eat, rest, wander the gardens, connect, or simply do nothing.

The Land

Our gathering takes place at Sundari Gardens in Kaimū, surrounded by lush tropical gardens, ocean views, open lawns, and the extraordinary volcanic landscape of Puna.

Puna + Sundari Gardens

This retreat takes place at Sundari Gardens in Kaimū, in the Puna district of Hawaiʻi Island, a place where lush tropical growth meets young volcanic land and the ocean is never far away.

Puna has its own rhythm. Life here invites a little more improvisation, a little less hurry, and a closer relationship with the elements. The land itself becomes part of our practice: a place to wander, rest, listen, dance, and reconnect with the natural world between sessions.

Sundari offers beautiful indoor and outdoor gathering spaces, expansive lawns and gardens, and an on-site spa with a sauna, cold plunge, hot tub, and pool. Accommodations are available on-site for participants who want to stay immersed in the retreat environment.

The retreat also sits within Puna’s vibrant movement and dance community. Participants are invited to experience some of the local gatherings that surround our time together, including Wednesday evening Ecstatic Dance at Sundari and Sunday Ecstatic Dance at Kalani (the birthplace of Ecstatic Dance)

Teaching + Facilitation

Shannon Sahaja

Shannon is a somatic educator, Contact Improvisation teacher, movement facilitator, and longtime community organizer with more than twenty years of experience creating spaces for embodied learning, improvisation, and connection.

Her Contact Improvisation teaching combines clear, accessible technical instruction with curiosity, play, and deep attention to the intelligence of the body. She has a particular love for helping newer dancers understand the physics of Contact while creating enough depth and complexity for experienced practitioners to continue discovering.

Her current work weaves together Contact Improvisation, contemplative practice, Experiments in Communal Play, rest, and the cultivation of spaces where people can learn through moving together.

Joao Paulo Pereira: João has been a passionate mover who climbed ladders before he could walk. From capoeira to rock climbing, from contact dancing to free diving, intention and presence have been the bedrock of his movement practices. He has been sharing his embodiment research internationally since 2001, founded his own yoga school (BASA Yoga), and has trained multiple aquatic practitioners, yoga teachers and ayurvedic yoga therapists. His current artistic, therapeutic, and somatic inquiry lies on the intersection of water as medicine, improvised movement, and expanded states of consciousness. Learn more about him at www.basayoga.com

Who This Retreat Is For

Land, Water & Spirit welcomes both newer and experienced Contact Improvisation dancers.

Come if you’re drawn to:

• Developing greater skill and physical intelligence in Contact Improvisation

• Learning through both structured classes and open dancing

• Exploring warm-water movement and relational practice

• Play, improvisation, and communal experimentation

• Slowing down, listening, resting, and integrating

• Spending four days immersed in movement, nature, and community

You don’t need to arrive with a particular level of expertise. Come with curiosity, a willingness to learn, and an interest in discovering what becomes possible when we practice together.

Pricing + Sliding Scale

Land, Water & Spirit is a four-day facilitated Contact Improvisation retreat including land-based classes, small-group warm-water sessions, jams and communal play, contemplative and restorative practices, and lunch each full retreat day.

We offer several pricing tiers to support accessibility while honoring the labor of facilitation, production, and care. Please choose the level that best reflects your circumstances.

Early Bird — $350

A limited number of spaces available for early registration.

Kamaʻāina / Community Access — $350

A lower-cost option to help keep the retreat accessible to Hawaiʻi residents and those for whom the standard rate creates a genuine financial barrier.

Standard — $400

The actual base rate for the four-day retreat.

Sustainer — $450

For those with greater financial flexibility. Your contribution helps support lower-cost registrations and the sustainability of the gathering.

Contributor — $500

For those who are able and inspired to contribute more toward the retreat and its accessibility.

Lunch is included each full retreat day. Accommodations, breakfast, dinner, travel, and admission to surrounding community events are not included.

Space is limited to approximately 40 participants.

No refunds.

Staying Here + Coming From Off-Island

Coming to Puna from off-island takes a little planning, and we want to help make your arrival as easy as possible.

Staying at Sundari Gardens

Accommodations are available on-site at Sundari Gardens, allowing you to stay immersed in the retreat environment and close to all of our activities. On-site accommodations include access to shared kitchen facilities for preparing breakfast, dinner, and other meals.

LINK TO ACCOMMODATIONS coming soon....

Flying In

Hilo International Airport (ITO) is the closest airport and is strongly recommended. Kona International Airport is on the opposite side of the island and requires considerably more travel time to reach Puna.

Transportation

If you are coming from off-island, having access to a car is highly recommended, particularly if you are staying off-site. Puna is rural, and groceries, restaurants, accommodations, and communal activities are spread out.

Participants will receive a more detailed travel guide with local transportation resources, grocery and food options, nearby accommodations, what to bring, and other practical information to help you prepare.

Extending Your Stay

If you can, consider giving yourself a little extra time on Hawaiʻi Island. The retreat is woven into the larger rhythm of Puna’s dance community, and arriving early or staying through Sunday offers opportunities to experience local Ecstatic Dance, beaches, community gatherings, and more.

Daily Rhythm

Each day moves between focused practice, open exploration, nourishment, and rest. The schedule is intentionally spacious, allowing time for the work to deepen without filling every available moment.

Wednesday · Arriving + Playing

We begin in the early afternoon with an opening circle and Experiments in Communal Play: playful scores, movement games, and improvisational structures designed to help us connect, laugh, move, and begin building the group field.

After a spacious break, participants are invited to join Puna’s Wednesday evening Ecstatic Dance.

Thursday + Friday · Land, Water + Practice

7:30–8:30 · Optional Morning Yoga

9:00–10:00 · Contemplative Dance Practice

10:00–1:00 · Contact Improvisation Class

1:00–2:30 · Lunch + Rest

2:30–5:30 · Warm Water Contact / Land-based Play + Jam

5:30 onward · Dinner + Rest

Selected evenings may include gentle restorative offerings such as Nesting & Resting, sound bath, or other practices designed for integration rather than adding more.

Saturday · Integration + Closing

Our final day brings the threads of the retreat together through contemplative practice, Contact Improvisation, the Underscore, time in water and on land, and a closing ritual.

The full schedule and facilitator lineup will be shared closer to the retreat.

Practices + Explorations

Contemplative Dance Practice

Created by Barbara Dilley, Contemplative Dance Practice brings meditation, movement, and witnessing together in a simple structure. Moving between stillness and improvisation, we practice listening inwardly while becoming increasingly aware of the larger group field.

The Underscore

Developed by Contact Improvisation pioneer Nancy Stark Smith, the Underscore is a long-form improvisational structure practiced around the world. It offers a framework for moving between solo exploration, Contact Improvisation, composition, rest, and collective dancing while allowing the group to discover where the dance wants to go.

Nesting + Resting: The Art of Togetherness

An invitation to slow down, unwind, and experience the ease of being together without needing to accomplish anything. Through rest, gentle contact, and attuned presence, we create a restorative environment for settling, receiving, and reconnecting.

Reconnection with the Natural World

A guided contemplative journey through the extraordinary ecosystem of Puna. Through sensory prompts, movement, stillness, and observation, we slow down enough to notice what is already here and allow the land itself to become part of our practice.