Workshop: Contact Dance for Massage Therapists
Date: Monday April 20th 2026
Location: Bristol College of Massage & Bodywork, 109 Guthrie Rd, Clifton, Bristol BS8 3EF
Duration: 6:30 – 8:30pm
Cost: £32 Full Price/£16 BCMB students
To Book: https://www.bristolmassage.co.uk/calendar
If you have any problems navigating the booking system, email jan.lee.uk@gmail.com
About the Teacher
Jan-Ming is a somatic bodywork therapist and dance artist. She is trained in The Pantarei Approach, a one-to-one body-based approach that combines talking therapy with hands-on empathetic touch & movement.
She is informed by her ongoing studies in Daoist internal energy arts, contemporary dance, physical theatre, Afro-Brazilian martial arts Capoeira and music improvisation.
She began her journey with Contact Dance when she was 18, as a way to navigate the complex world of dance and physical touch : using it as a kind of martial art to meet power dynamics and to create choice, connection and communication.
As an artist, she collaborates with communities to facilitate movement performance, empowering people to voice their stories including Hong Kong diaspora, women of global majority, neurodivergent and learning disabled artists.
Her movement workshops are bespokely tailored for communities and organisations including Arnolfini, Ming Strike, CCA Glasgow, Rising Arts Agency, Hijinx Theatre, Eelyn Lee and Moi Tran/Artsadmin.
About Jan-Ming’s approach:
“Thank you for a wonderful session Jan-Ming. …my body feels looser, happier, more fluid and relatively pain free. I also have more energy and vitality and a feeling of spaciousness, clarity and lightness. Your attentive presence and way of deeply listening… in equitable collaboration allows a deep safety to let go of holding patterns likely forged in survival mode. My nervous system and body feel cared for, honoured and more centered. It feels like coming home.” – Sara
About this Workshop:
– This 2 hour workshop explores principles that are directly relevant to massage therapists and practitioners working with physical touch/weight. Please note that, although the workshop is open to everyone with/without a professional massage background, some experience of working with physical touch will definitely support your learning!
– It will teach you to listen to physical sensations relating to breath, gravity and how our bodies change our tissue tone.
– We will connect this reflectively to our emotional experience internally and how we read our client or dance partner.
– We will move between physical and emotional worlds, creating an interactive dialogue between each other. This will introduce possibilities of how to navigate choice, intimacy and boundaries for both practitioner and client (or dance partner).
– Using the framework of dance, you will connect to your whole body awareness and expression, learning experientially how to listen and choose from multiple options of movement or direction, through the language of weight and touch.
– We will spotlight the context of play – through this lens, we can practice how to move between a full range of easy and challenging experiences in both physical and emotional terms. This connects us to a sense of depth and meeting what is happening in the moment between yourself and your client (or dance partner).
What is Contact Dance?
Contact Dance, or Contact Improvisation, began in 1970s with athletic dancers who were influenced by Japanese Aikido martial art and choreographic performance; creating wild experiments falling through gravity with several performers. Nowadays it can look like a slow social partner dance, a fast dynamic wrestle or play fight, or a solo improvised dance of simple movements.
What the workshop includes (depending on time/group) :
Movement exploration alone and with others using physical contact
Exercises for somatic body awareness
Spoken conversation as well as personal writing reflection
How to apply this to your own practice
