classes and workshops
>general info
november 2005
ongoing classes
Contact Improvisation
Charlie Mosey
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 Nov 25
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 Nov 26, Dec 24, Dec 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.
november classes
Doug Elkins
November 1 – 17 T TH 10am – 12pm
Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church
Emphasis in this class will be put on bringing seemingly incongruous materials together. Technique and warm-up exercises will be drawn from a variety of movement styles ranging from ballet and post-modern to street/club styles and martial arts. Phrases in the Elkins idiom will be introduced, emphasizing dynamic physicality and self-expression.Juliette Mapp
October 31 - November 23 M W 10am – 12pm
Movement Research at Eden’s Expressway
see ongoing class description above
Yvonne Meier
November 4, 11, 18, 25 Fri 10am – 12pm
Note: Workshop now being offered as a drop-in class, $13/class
Movement Research at Eden’s Expressway
Emerging from flow, moving from the periphery and some speed games
With a releasing warm-up, we will practice utilizing imagery to transform our bodies to allow them to become an empty vessel for the work to come. Our first endeavor will be the thorough investigating of the universal power of flow. We will observe all the rhythms and qualities that emerge seemingly organically out of flow. With speed-altering games we will recognize patterns, break them down and see what happens if we let a score possess us. Finally, we will work on moving from the periphery, submerging ourselves into the potential world of fancy arm and leg work.
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
$500/3 week workshop
Location: Bob Clifford’s Studio, 17 W. 18th St., 8th Floor (bet 5th & 6th Ave)
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.
Michael Portnoy
Welcome Back, Mickey Mouse
November 28 & 29 (Monday & Tuesday)
10am - 1pm, Danspace Project, $40
Mickey Mouse has been maligned in contemporary dance. I'm referring, of course, to the articulation through movement of the subtleties of music. There is this ridiculous notion that dancing to the music has been done already or happens "uptown", and as a result, not dancing to the music or barely dancing to it, has become a cliché, and many dancers' musical intelligence has atrophied. Rooted in behavioral, theatrical and micro movement, this class focuses on musicality and the development of narrative through what I call "prog-timing" (from progressive rock): the use of unusual time signatures, tempo changes, repetition with complex variation, and stop and start dynamics. We will work with existing musical "riffs" and those generated, internally, by the class. The goal of this work is the development of rigorous unpredictability, intricate mechanisms of surprise. This class is structured as a two-part workshop. Although participants can come for just one, it is not recommended.
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.