Movement
“I follow the joy of physical theatre, immersive, devising and space-based work. Yet, it is not only joy but the desire for meaning, connection and understanding that drives my practice. This is why I do not just study technique but context. Art has always been vital, it is a fundamental part of living and an expression of the spirit. So how do we allow ourselves to develop, to connect and to be more in tune with the world?”
If you are interested in hiring me as a choreographer, please check out my website here and contact me here.
Choreography for every_body?: explore your own body’s movements by breaking down dance into elements and disrupting internal assumptions. Explore space, rhythm, architecture, story, and silence by noticing your own habits, observing others and being given the time, information, attention and group mind to make more. This is horizontal thinking - everything is valid, everything is useful - it’s all just information. Push at our limitations and preconceptions: if you’ve danced for a millennium, take a second to peel back your training, if you “can’t dance” redefine “dance”, if you are not able-bodied, not “dancer-bodied”, not whatever goes for “perfect” nowadays - or if you are. This is for you. This is for us. This is a little utopia where it all has meaning. It’s a little like mindfulness and a lot like radical acceptance - Please come, please share, please disrupt!
The course employs a similar model each time but differs in theme. Each class explores a different chorographical technique. Classes focus on vocabulary sourced from Viewpoints, Suzuki, as well as devising and choreographical language: tempo, shape, architecture, levels and facings, repetition, narrative/ non-narrative, emotion, orders of magnitude, etc.
Course Objective: To become aware of one's habitual patterns and become a more thoughtful mover. It is possible to choreograph and improvise while in a state of flow, to connect the mind and the body into one intelligent being; however, this takes practice. It takes an expanded vocabulary developed through study and experiment. Being self-aware, not self-conscious, this is a workshop that embraces the incredible variability in dancers’ perspectives - their aesthetics, movement abilities, and bodies. Here we embrace our unique selves and delight in learning from peers. This course lays the groundwork for accessing your creative and intelligent mind/body - an inexhaustible and reliable resource.
Choreography for Every_Body
Liz Lerman’s movement exercises help movers spark new ideas, refine old ideas, disrupt patterned thinking and work in synchronicity with head and body. This is a useful technique while choreographing a dance, blocking out a scene or exploring a character’s internal emotional state. This is achieved through movement exercises. One example is “Movement Metaphor.”
Movement metaphor is the engine inside each sentence. There is a verb in there. Find 20 ways to do a motion. So in “Little Red Riding Hood went to visit her grandmother” what is the engine? In your mind you might imagine skipping, or sauntering, smiling. So what is your mouth doing when it’s smiling - it’s pulling side to side - so you could do 20 versions of what is behind that verb.” Explore: magnitude, syncopation, endurance, etc.
There is often a battle between the head and body. We can create an awareness of this struggle, we can reconstruct this bridge. There are multiple ways to describe one’s experience, to define activity, recharacterize and bring meaning. This work encourages participants to find language in as specific a way as possible, to translate imagination into the body, pay attention to one’s derivations and adaptations. If a participant is generally intuitive, they may need to reflect, to shake it up, to do the opposite. Recognize and name one’s patterns so that they can work against them and grow.