classes and workshops
>general info



may 2007


may classes
Michelle Boulé
May 1 – 31   T TH   10am – 12pm  
Levi Gonzalez will teach on May 29
Danspace Project
Class will provide a framework within which we can increase anatomic awareness with an approach that is exploratory rather than corrective. Through action and impulse, we will also examine how we make decisions and how thoughts, perceptions, and breath support our choices and movement. We will use set movement, phrase work, improvisations, guided explorations, and partner work with influences springing from performance and multiple movement modalities, including yoga, the Alexander Technique™, Body-Mind Centering®, and Fitzmaurice Voicework.

John Jasperse
May 7 – June 1   M W F   10am – 12pm
No class on May 28
Movement Research at Eden’s Expressway
The class will begin with a warm-up focusing on anatomy, drawn from both traditional and contemporary techniques, the goal of which is to align and re-pattern the energy flow in the body in order to find support from the floor and our connection into space. Movement material from Jasperse’s work will be taught concentrating on using our weight with the force of gravity to dance fully and clearly.

ongoing classes
Juliette Mapp
March 17, April 21, May 19, June 2, June 16
SAT   4:30 – 7:30 pm
$20 per class
Movement Research at Eden's Expressway
Using the luxury of three hours of dancing together, we will take the time to investigate different states of awareness. Each class will be three-fold, beginning with a guided improvisation to inspire the imagination to expand into the unique life of different parts of the body, followed by dancing within technical forms to support our range and work as dancers, and concluding with a phrase that integrates concepts of weight, lightness, initiation and intention. The technical forms and phrase will be specifically structured to build our knowledge of individual physical patterns that may be blocking us from deepening the use of our selves as artists. In the process of learning a phrase, we can observe how we retain “set” material. The merging of the unconscious life of movement through improvisation and conscious attention to the physical imagination is part of the energizing practice we will explore in each class.

Systems and Developments of Dance Improvisation:
an ongoing investigation
taught by Daria Fain, K.J. Holmes or Jennifer Monson.
January 6 – June 30 SAT 11am – 1pm
May 5 - K.J. Holmes
May 12 - Daria Fain
May 19 - K.J. Holmes
May 26 - Jennifer Monson
Movement Research at Eden's Expressway
In these classes, students will explore somatic approaches to fine-tuning the body as an instrument and source for dance improvisations based on the eclectic and extensive experience of the three teachers. Investigations will vary each week depending on the teacher and may include: awareness and perceptual play; time and spatial elements of instant composition; experiential anatomy through Body-Mind Centering® and the Alexander Technique™; and skills and practices of Contact Improvisation, martial arts forms and Chi Kung. All three teachers share interests in empowering the individual in relationship to self, others and the environment and in discovering new challenges and risks within movement and performance.

Barbara Mahler
January 2 – July 19 TUE THU 10am – 12pm
Movement Research at Eden's Expressway
The purpose of this class is to re-educate the dancer’s body, interweaving theory and practice on a physical and organic level. From this comes the potential for students to discover a range of intelligence in their dancing, as well as to help them discover and develop their own choreographic vision. Initially inspired by the work of pioneer kinesiologist Dorothy Vislcoky, and then continuing for upwards of 20 years with Susan Klein, Barbara Mahler has learned to see, feel and teach each person/body individually to help their body function at its highest level of efficiency and function.

Daria Fain
March 5 - June 27 MON WED 10am – 12pm
Body Language, 241 Bedford Avenue #7 (bet N 3rd & 4th), Brooklyn
The Affect of Perception on Performance: An ongoing experiment in creating means to apprehend language as performers
This forum is addressed to participants in the performing arts who are interested in experiential and theoretical research in perception. It proposes a mind/body practice based on movement and internal “activation” of energy using Chinese energetics as a basic principal to develop sensory perception. By heightening sensory perception, the experience of one’s activity becomes multidimensional. The sessions will offer open improvisational situations and structures that integrate the senses, organs, body systems, emotions and directions in space. This work will immerse the student in an intra/extra-corporeal journey.

Contact Improvisation

Jen Abrams teaches for the month of May.
February 7 – July 25 WED 6:45 – 9:10pm
Cathy Weis Studio
Contact Improvisation is a partnering dance form. Skills such as rolling, releasing, giving and supporting weight, expanding range of spatial concentration, lifting, catching and falling help one move with and through gravity, share weight in motion and use momentum and flow in physical contact. These weekly classes, open to adults of all levels of movement experience, are informed variously by the individual teaching artists.

workshops
Yvonne Meier
Beginning Level: April 17 & 24, May 1, 8 & 15  
TUES   6 – 8pm
Intermediate Level: May 22 & 29, June 5  
TUES   6 – 8pm
Students must take the Beginning level classes first in order to participate in the Intermediate level.
Eden’s Expressway  
Beginning Level $75, Intermediate Level $45, Both levels $110
Releasing
Through specially designed images, we will enable ourselves to let go of hidden tensions and realign with the natural forces of gravity and counter balance. Through the releasing process, we will learn how to move with more freedom and economy. Spontaneous movement explorations will allow us to creatively integrate these changes in our bodies. The experience of seeing into our bodies will give us a wonderful tool for improvisational dance. The Intermediate level classes are a clear continuation of the Beginning level classes. In order to deepen the releasing process, new imagery will be given and old images will grow in complexity.