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select a month sept 06 oct 06 nov 06 dec 06 jan 07 feb 07 mar 07 apr 07 may 07 jun 07 february 2007 february workshops Masterclass with Vincent Mantsoe   February 19   M   1 – 3pm  $15 Movement Research at Eden's Expressway Workshop limited to 20 students with strong dance background Vincent Mantsoe has developed a powerfully ritualistic cross-cultural dance form that integrates African movement, ritual and music with global contemporary dance forms. He is a master performer and is highly skilled in sharing this unique style with others. Mantsoe's workshops focus on spirituality, which is at the core of his creative process. Workshops address the process of translating ritual into performance and creating a deeper connection with one's own inner energy through incorporating the following principles and techniques: breathing techniques; creation and connection to one's personal rhythms; use of one's "Personal Legend" (the body, spirit, mind, soul); and exploring different dynamics of movement found in African dance. 651 ARTS, Danspace Project and Movement Research collectively offer this master class to our combined constituents of professional dancers. This engagement is made possible, in part, by a grant from Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Programs. february classes Jennifer Monson January 29 – March 2   MON WED FRI   10am – 12pm Yvonne Meier teaches Friday February 9 Movement Research at Eden's Expressway In this class we will warm up our individual approaches to improvisation as a performance form through various processes influenced by Skinner Releasing Technique™ and Authentic Movement™. We will isolate improvisational activities such as making transitions, creating locations, sustaining energetic states and other compositional strategies to bring a deeper understanding to our own personal and intrinsic improvisational logic. We will create scores that access our deeper layers of consciousness and challenge our assumptions about how we dance, uncovering both raw and sophisticated compositional patterns. I am curious about how meanings get affixed to particular moments in performance both willfully and not and in our agency to reclaim and reenergize meanings and mistakes in the act of performance. We will dance for each other a lot.   Gwen Welliver January 30 – March 1   TUE THU   10am – 12pm Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church This warm-up and movement class will develop from simple skeletal mobility sequences to full-out movement forms. Emphasis will be placed on the joints, examining how their range of motion relates to alignment, support, weight and articulation. The class will culminate in phrase work and traveling sequences. ongoing classes 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 February 3 - K.J. Holmes February 10 - Daria Fain February 17 - Jennifer Monson February 24 - 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 January 9 – March 1 TUE THU 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 Jordan Fuchs teaches for the month of February. 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.