Friday, December 27, 2013

Portland Winter Workshops

We are in the home stretch of the holidays and though I usually start to feel a downward pull on my psyche as we veer into the uninterrupted grayness not brightened by twinkling christmas lights, mindless shopping and presents, right now I feel done with it.  I'm ready for 2014. 


I'm teaching three days of classes in PDX for those that have had enough already and want to get back into studio/body/creative space.  Today on my walk through town, I was thinking about a simple score called "Composing the Room," and stopped to watch the goats perform it.

In February, I'll be back with Adam to teach our special two day dance film workshop (info below).   Sign up in advance so we can make some good, number-appropriate lesson plans!





 SPECIAL WORKSHOPS at Conduit in PDX
Dec 27 - 29 | 11am - 1pm
TECHNIQUE + SCORES


ABOUT THE SERIES
Technique + Scores is a daily practice that feeds the desire for physical rigor and spontaneous composition and improvisation.  The first half of the class will focus on technical and physical exercises that warm up and explore the capacity for endurance, athleticism, mindfulness, and specificity in our bodies.  In the second half of class we will introduce compositional scores for groups that bring integrate imagination, sensation, relationship, and and hone our craft as performers and creators.
 
February 8 & 9, 2014 | 12 - 5pm
PERCEPTUAL RIFT: Looking and Listening in Dance Cinema 
Perceptual Rift is a special one-time workshop that Adam and I will be holding in August.  We will share some of our key creative practices by making a film or films together as a group over the course of two days. It will take place both at Velocity Dance Center and at the Northwest Film Forum. 

The goal of this course is to heighten your perception of place while working in two mediums, cinema and dance. It is geared towards both filmmakers and dancers, or artists interested in exploring this observational practice.

Info & Registration

 More description:
The ideas that form our practice is similar to a perceptual rift, which the artist Vik Muniz has described as what occurs when two "seemingly contentious media," such as photography and drawing, are blended in such a way that the perceiver feels vision itself."

In these moments  the media we're working with transform from our individual media (dance and cinema) and become  the physical place and the perceiver's moment in that place. The rift that is created is actually a new space, opened up, a crack in our hardened, accustomed ways of seeing,
into which the new experience flows.

The workshop is an offering of tools that might help you open up that rift in your practice;  cinematic, choreographic or otherwise, allowing you to expand how you participate with these mediums, and use them to further your own senses.

More specifically it will include working with observational scores, movement scores, discussions of framing and edits, practice in making short films and editing them.  Bring your recording devices; audio, video, written. If you don't have one we can pair you with someone who does

Thursday, December 19, 2013

some good dance jams

I just finished my second session of teaching Intro to Dance and got a request for my playlist.  Because I obsess about having the right music, I very much appreciate this.  Here is the playlist I've been working off of for my beginning modern and intro classes.  cheers! 


Monday, December 02, 2013

RADAR in Brooklyn | Classes in SoHo


We are in NY and at this point I'm still walking around thinking how much I love this city.  Tons of awesome stuff going on as usual.  I'm excited to check MR's La Song Ya fest. (Favorite panel title: "We Came To This City To Shit on a Stage").

Here is what Adam and I are up to this week:

f i l m

 
We're screening dance films at Spectacle on Wednesday night as part of our RADAR: exchanges in dance film frequencies traveling series.  This time the exchange is Seattle -- New York and the line up is amazing. 

Embedded by Marissa Rae Niederhauser
Merely Mouthpiece by Adam Sekuler
Serpentine by Jessica Hester & Stephanie Wuertz
Nemo by Rob Tyler, Adrienne Leverette & Fred Nemo
Study For A Cruxifixion by Randy Sterling Hunter
Excerpt “Rite of Spring” by Kathy Rose
Nightinigale by Jacob Rosen, Kate Wallich
Say by Reggie Watts, Amy O’Neal, Gabriel Bienczycki
Behind The Front Lines by Katie Fleming
Humming Birds by Tracy Rector
1922 by Shannon Stewart, Adam Sekuler & Daniel Mimura

R S V P on the facespace

c l a s s e s 

 

I'm teaching at 100 Grand in SoHo

Dec 4 - 6 (wed - fri)
10am - 12pm. 


E V E R Y T H I N G: A morning physical practice for training, performing, surviving, and reveling in contemporary dance (aka your morning technique class)

Int/adv level for students & performing artists

This is a morning warm up that explores rigorous and playful approaches to physicality, body organization, spatial navigation, and set and improvised technical exercises that move us toward connection and freedom.  Gyrokinesis, release technique, gaga, Forsythe/Pite improvisation, CounterTechnique, workout fads, qigong, and somatic partnering exercises may all be incorporated.