classes and workshops
>general info
december 2005
ongoing classes
Contact Improvisation
Jen Abrams
Wednesdays 6:45-9:30pm
Simone Forti 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 people of all levels of movement experience, are informed variously by the individual teaching artists.
RoseAnne Spradlin
September 8 – December 22 TH 1 – 3pm
No class on Nov 24
Movement Research at Eden’s Expressway
Body-Mind Centering®: Integration and Expression
In this class students will be guided through integrative explorations and creative improvisation rooted in principles from Body-Mind Centering®. This work can be used to address problems in dance technique, psycho-physical integration or as a source for creative tools in the choreographic process.Barbara Mahler
September 6 – January 26 T TH 10am – 12pm
No class on Nov 24
Movement Research at Eden’s Expressway
Please note that classes Jan 3 – 26 will take place at Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church
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.
Juliette Mapp
September 6 – December 27 T F 6 – 8pm
No class on December 27
Please note: This month, Juliette will also be subbing Jeanine Durning's classes on Dec 12, 14, 16, 19 and 23 from 10am - 12pm at Movement Research at Eden's Expressway
Movement Research at Eden’s Expressway
This class will work in depth on developing awareness of alignment patterns to better understand each dancer’s unique movement potential and style. Class will be an opportunity to allow the body and mind to release and become aware of our pre-existing physical limitations in order to find greater movement range. Our warm-up will grow from internal structural and breath images to establish a consciousness in both the minute and grand details of dance. Class will conclude with a combination built to further increase awareness and freedom inside each student’s own dancing.K.J. Holmes
September 10 – January 28 SAT 11am – 1pm
No class on Dec 24, 31
Movement Research at Eden’s Expressway
The Athletics of Intimacy, Improvisations
Classes combine skills and practices of Contact Improvisation, applications of Body-Mind Centering® and tutoring of somatic improvisational approaches in solo, duet (strong emphasis on partnering) and ensemble dancing. I am interested in the very physical, the very sensorial and the very imaginative, and in discovering new challenges and risks within our movement.
Daria Faïn
Location: 241 Bedford Ave. (bet N 3rd & 4th)
September 5 – December 12 Mon 10am – 12pm
Chi Gong into movement
This is a technical class using Chi Gong principles to undertake the basics of a potent and healthy approach to movement grounded in exercises that draw in internal forces.Daria Faïn
Location: 241 Bedford Ave. (bet N 3rd & 4th)
September 6 – December 13 Tues 6 – 8 pm
Introductory Seminars in Chi Gong
A weekly seminar with a rotating schedule of topics. This class acts as both an introduction to and practicing forum for Chi Gong fundamentals.Daria Faïn
Location: 241 Bedford Ave. (bet N 3rd & 4th)
September 7 – December 14 Wed 10am – 12pm
Spontaneous Chi Gong/improvisation
Using Taoist principles that connect organs, senses and emotions, Daria Fain leads an exploration into the complex layers of our being. The activated internal forces are at play.
december classes
Michelle Boulé
December 6 – 22 T TH 10am – 12pm
Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church
How can we continually open the body and mind for experience and expression and make choices from there? We will explore this question as a group through improvisation and set movement, while bringing awareness to our patterns and desires. Michelle’s teaching is influenced by the Alexander Technique™, Body-Mind Centering®, improvisation, developmental studies and healing practices.Jeanine Durning
$500/3 week workshop Location: Bob Clifford’s Studio, 17 W. 18th St., 8th Floor (bet 5th & 6th Ave)
December 12 – 23 M, W, F 10am – 12pm
Due to injury, Jeanine will not be teaching. Juliette Mapp will sub for her on Dec 12, 14, 16, 19 and 23. Vicky Shick will sub on Dec 21.
Movement Research at Eden’s Expressway
Class is designed to prepare ourselves through awareness and to increase the functional knowledge of our bodies so that we may move with more efficiency, specificity and focus. Particular attention is paid to the initiations of movement as a means of directing, sequencing, locomoting and surprising our bodies through space. Improvisational explorations based on simple, functional approaches to movement will be incorporated as a way to challenge our preconceived choices and our perceptions of our limitations. Attention to detail will be explored through set material as the individual comes into his/her own way of seeing, translating and experiencing movement. Through phrase material, extending the boundaries of technique will be explored through a balance of physicality, perception, intention, expression and interpretation.
satellite (off-site) workshops
Susan Rethorst
November 28, December 5, 12 M 10am – 2pm
November 29, December 6, 13 T 9am – 12pm
November 30, December 7, 14 W 9am – 1pm
December 1, 8, 15 TH 2pm – 6pm
$350/2 week workshop
Composition
Teaching from the point of view that making is an endless quest with ever shifting ground, Rethorst encourages an attitude of fueling work with one's questions, not regarding plans or themes as pre-requisites. Her interest is in the nature of movement and its communication, how it operates as phenomena. She presents composition exercises that propose ways of perceiving and proceeding that engage these ideas, at the same time creating situations in which each student can locate her/his aesthetic and goals in the larger picture of dance's many mini cultures. She gives students the ability to recognize and access states necessary to making work; intuition, perception, cognition, interiority, emotional distance, spontaneity, pleasure, will, reflection, humor.
mr festival 2005 classes and workshops>
Movement Research Festival 2005: Open Source
(November 27 – December 18)
This year’s three-week festival includes a dynamic array of classes and workshops:
Scott Smith
Movement Materials
November 28 - December 2 (Monday - Friday)
3:30 - 5:30pm
Movement Research at Eden's Expressway $13 per class
The work proposes initiation and release of movement and rest, in relationship with mass, gravity, momentum, falling and recovery, encouraging thorough and experiential movement research. The material utilizes skeletal imaging and initiations, with particular focus given to the pelvis and spine as root and limb for extending dimensionally towards space. The classes encourage sensation, responsibility and the use of the dancer’s own form, in relationship to motion and the physical world.
K.J. Holmes
In Transition
December 5 & 7 (Monday & Wednesday)
10am - 12pm, Movement Research at Eden's Expressway, $13 per class
In order to do somatic work, you have to suspend one system of belief for another, even momentarily, to understand what strengths lie in our experience and what else we can include as embodiment. Glandular states are the micro expression of the earliest pattern in evolution, vibration, which underlies the macro movement of our dance. We will be in the transitions.
Ishmael Houston-Jones
The Dancing of Politics: The possibility of socially relevant art?
November 30 - December 2 (Wednesday - Friday)
10am - 1pm, Danspace Project, $60 In recent years I’ve served on selection panels for several organizations that offer either financial support or performance opportunities to young dancers. I am struck by how few of the works I see have anything at all to do with the world beyond that of the choreographers creating them. I have no problem with personal reflection or with work that is contemplative, but it would seem that in these times of war, and terror, and the eroding of personal liberties, some work would address these issues, no matter how obliquely. In this workshop, through both discussions and solo and group exercises, we will explore the possibility of creating movement and text-based work that is both artistically rigorous and socially relevant.
Mary Overlie
Invisible Dances
Five sessions: December 3 & 4 (Saturday & Sunday), 4-6:30pm, Chez Bushwick
December 6 - 8 (Tuesday - Thursday), 6:30 - 9pm, Outdoor Locations and Chez Bushwick, $80 The goal of this weeklong workshop is to be invisible. It requires a commitment to trying this task, and to the possibility of achieving it. The concept, history and two forms of the Invisible Dance will be taught in the studio and then tested on the streets. This will be developed throughout the week, rain or shine. The workshop will both begin and end with studio sessions at Chez Bushwick and will provide several days in between for work in outdoor locations, to be announced.Mimi Goese
How To Be Powerful On Stage No Matter What You Do
December 10 & 11 (Saturday & Sunday)
2 - 6pm, Movement Research at Eden's Expressway, $70 In order to grow, you must take risks. In order to be strong, you must become comfortable with yourself and your limitations - and then build on them. This workshop will study each individual's interests and needs in movement, theater and/or performance. We will use many methods such as "instant performance", creating risks in a supportive environment and stripping and rebuilding the artistic ego. It is important to find one's true impetus for being a performer. I am committed to an artistic perspective in life. How about you?Pearl Ubungen
Bardo
December 13 - 16, (Tuesday - Friday)
2 - 5pm, Body Language, $75 Free Public Showing December 17 at 11am (be available until 1pm)
Working from a base of contemplative practice and in collaboration with NYC-based martial artist Sensei Richard Amos, choreographer/cultural activist Ubungen's workshop and performance project Bardo will culminate in a series of outdoor bardo dances in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, mid-day, on Saturday, December 17th. Riffing off the structure of an ancient kata called "senka", Ubungen and Amos will blur/slur the form that translates "literally" to a row of flowers. Integrated into the process will be investigation of the immediate landscape/community, unfolding the ways in which the bardo dances can find a sense of place. Ubungen will work directly with Tibetan meditation master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s writings on death/rebirth and the bardo experience to build continuity and a heightened awareness of the space of now.Pauline Oliveros
Deep Listening
December 17 (Saturday)
2 - 6pm, Movement Research at Eden's Expressway, $70 Deep Listening® is a process that is informed by expanding into a larger range of audible forms. We will use the practice of Deep Listening for improvisation, creativity and movement. All are welcome to participate.