Class will give us an opportunity to access our fullest potential through movement. We’ll work on listening to our own unique movement propensities, while using the collective energy of everyone present to expand our possibilities even further. We’ll use frameworks where our bodies are our teachers and combine this with information from numerous somatic/energetic modalities and performance practices. In doing so, we’ll build a palette of resources to maintain a creative, aesthetic, and sustainable movement practice. The class format includes guided improvisations as well as simple exercises and imagery, ending with an application of these ideas to choreographed phrase work.

In class, we will tune our physical awareness through an experiential approach to moving. Merging both choreographic structures and improvisational modalities, we will be guided by the notion of investigation to look for an entry point where a dancer’s interpretation merges with choreographic direction. In practice, we will begin on the floor and make space to honor our bodies’ unique progressions while gently moving towards embracing our full range of motion. We will examine concepts such as skeletal support, easeful joints, falling and momentum, and sequential movement. Class will continually be guided by an artistry and philosophy honoring individuality, embracing room for failure, and a constant questioning of our choices.

Technique / EXERCISES IN COMPOSITION
This class is designed to access multiple threads at once such as greater range of motion and articulation, isolated and momentum-driven movement forms, rhythmic and kinesthetic intelligence, sense of scale, ascent and descent, injury prevention, alignment, personal and musical expression, and dancing that supports a balanced square orientation over a vertical axis while traversing through space, and shifting off center, in a mode that reflects a play between athleticism, performance, and a particular disposition.

Using the morning technique class structure as a model, this class will focus on dance as a physical, conceptual and experiential practice, with an emphasis on the cultivation of presence inside of the forms. Class will begin with imagery and gentle preparation adapted from varied somatic practices, such Qi Gong and Alexander Technique, and will expand into technical exercises, choreographic structures, improvisations and performance constructs, exploring ways to engage with the material through precise and imaginative means.

Using improvisational and set warm-ups we will focus on the volume and weight inside the body and its relationship to the floor. Exercises that bring awareness to the sternum and pelvic floor encourage the feeling of release in the limbs from those places of support, allowing us to fall and suspend off-center. Using these physical tools inside technical patterns and phrase material, we will work towards a more grounded and direct approach to movement.

Working from the body's innate intelligence, class will start with simple awareness and coordination exercises designed to organically organize the body and prepare us for more technical movement. We will work on remembering and re-wiring pathways and explore alternative solutions to our habitual patterns. Class will build in physical intensity, culminating in a chance to put our experiments to the test in phrase work that is vigorous and challenging--a chance to sweat and move fully!

This morning class starts with a Feldenkrais Method approach: the floor work consists of gentle, yet active, explorations of self-perception, identifying habitual and alternative patterns of movement . Then we will do a simple warm up in standing with transitions in and out the floor. The work material plays with multidirectional, voluminous dancing, sensing potential pathways and manifesting through them with deliberate and spontaneous action.

This class encourages students to increase their movement possibilities and take risks in dancing by maximizing the benefits of the warmed-up body. The warm-up moves smoothly from floor to standing with a strong focus on anatomy to strengthen connections of correct alignment with an increase of fluidity in the joints. Dancers will develop an understanding of the connections between their body and the floor and will learn how to use momentum and breath to explore physically full dancing with the least amount of muscular tension. During phrase work, dancers will learn how to incorporate information from the warm-up to execute more complicated sequences, and attention will be paid to controlling the use of breath to maintain a strong center from which one can explode into the space.

We will take the time to investigate different states of physical awareness by using a three-fold structure. We will begin with a guided improvisation to observe the body and its natural movements through awareness of breath, weight, tension and release, taking time to notice the body’s qualitative presence moment-by-moment. We will follow by dancing within technical forms to support our range and work as dancers. We will conclude with a phrase that integrates concepts of weight, lightness, initiation and intention. The merging of the unconscious life of movement through observation and improvisation and the conscious attention to physical direction is part of the energizing practice we will explore in each class.

In class, we will tune our physical awareness through an experiential approach to moving. Merging both choreographic structures and improvisational modalities, we will be guided by the notion of investigation to look for an entry point where a dancer’s interpretation merges with choreographic direction. In practice, we will begin on the floor and make space to honor our bodies’ unique progressions while gently moving towards embracing our full range of motion. We will examine concepts such as skeletal support, easeful joints, falling and momentum, and sequential movement. Class will continually be guided by an artistry and philosophy honoring individuality, embracing room for failure, and a constant questioning of our choices.

Flying Low
This class focuses mainly on the dancer's relationship with the floor. The class utilizes simple movement patterns that involve breathing, speed and the release of energy throughout the body in order to activate the relationship between the center and the joints, moving in and out of the ground more efficiently by maintaining a centered state. There is a focus on the skeletal structure that will help improve the dancer's physical perception and alertness. The class includes partnering work and movement phrases, which explore the primary laws of physics: cohesion and expansion. These classes are made possible by a collaboration between Movement Research and MAPP International Productions, producers of the first U.S.tour of David Zambrano's work. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Class starts with across the floor rhythmic gaits that investigate independence in the body. Stacking sequential rhythmic patterns build on cardio and core work that emphasizes a feminine-derived energy where conical movement attaches to the base of the spine and radiates up through the core and out to the extremities. Center floor exercises focus on skeletal-muscular motion; rotations, isolations, and weight shifts explore a more grounded approach. The incorporation of a more crisp sensibility to an urban approach that partner-up with African, postmodern, Butoh, funk and blues sensibilities. The goal: to break down inhibitions, fine tune modern techniques yet, approach dance with a sense of abandonment!

Beauty, awkwardness, form, strength, weakness. Intended to be both laboratory and class, we will delve into the design of the body and its potential within a given moment. Through open practices, stretch and placement, technique studies, and movement phrases, habits will be discovered, challenged, and seen through a new lens. A concentration on the forces through the legs will lead to finding the range in separate body parts and ways to use your weight into the floor. My hope is for you to feel present and challenged and to leave class with a few answers and many more questions.

Old school technique class with new school questions. This is a warm-up for being a contemporary dance artist whatever that means. Real techniques, invented techniques, practicing presence, practicing hope, “releasing�, sweating, thinking, feeling, moving for no reason and finding out how. Exercises are boring but strangely important. Phrases are patriarchal but can be fun. Smart movers make good art. I am the teacher and I will do what I can.

This class seeks to prepare an articulate, alert and neutral body, ready for precise dancing with intricate co-ordinations that we will work on together. There is a simple, straightforward, continuous warm-up that relies on the use of release, alignment, momentum, weight and strength. Clarity, simplicity of movement, attention to detail and concentration will be our goal.

Ballet for Contemporary Dancers
As a veteran of the American Ballet Theatre, Janet Panetta also has a broad experience of contemporary dance forms. She has trained dancers in many of the major American companies such as American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, as well as many European companies such as ROSAS and Pina Bausch. Ms. Panetta is also available for private classes and coaching.

Alexander Technique
Alexander Technique looks at the way we carry out our intentions. Often we use a process that is habitual, unconscious and counterproductive. The technique offers a practice of staying open and alert in the moment, observing our familiar tensions and choosing to move without them. Beginning with the assumption that we are perfectly designed for movement and balance, we engage our mind to undo layers of interference, creating opportunity for change.

Contact Improvisation
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 artist faculty.

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.

A Re-Education – Klein Technique as Taught by Barbara Mahler
This ongoing class is grounded in the explorations and studies of the body, at rest and in motion. It is an approach to movement re-education which has been in development since 1972. Class provides the technical and conceptual underpinnings to support all styles of movement and aesthetic viewpoints. The purpose of class is to re-educate one's body with an interweaving of theory and practice on a physical, experiential and organic level. The result is clarity, sureness of movement and a new level of understanding the innate intelligence of one’s body. In order to move most efficiently, it is necessary to let go of the muscles that fix the body into a set and locked configuration and hold us back from moving. When the bones are aligned, we become connected and powerful, efficient and strong. The aim is also to lessen the possibility of injury by bringing a deep knowing of one’s body into their moving practice. The class is open to all levels, dancers and non-dancers alike.

Contact Improvisation
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 artist faculty.

Alexander Technique
Alexander Technique looks at the way we carry out our intentions. Often we use a process that is habitual, unconscious and counterproductive. The technique offers a practice of staying open and alert in the moment, observing our familiar tensions and choosing to move without them. Beginning with the assumption that we are perfectly designed for movement and balance, we engage our mind to undo layers of interference, creating opportunity for change.

Irene will teach selections of the material choreographed in response to her interaction with professional dancers and dance teachers since 1990 as well as new material she is creating now. These choreographies can be used as very efficient warm-ups for dance as well as a musculo-skeletal conditioning program, neuro-muscular fine-tuning, and mental preparation for the greater awareness and expansiveness required of us all as creative performing artists.

Contact Improvisation
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 artist faculty.

Alexander Technique
Alexander Technique looks at the way we carry out our intentions. Often we use a process that is habitual, unconscious and counterproductive. The technique offers a practice of staying open and alert in the moment, observing our familiar tensions and choosing to move without them. Beginning with the assumption that we are perfectly designed for movement and balance, we engage our mind to undo layers of interference, creating opportunity for change.

Enormous Eyes: Sculpting Dance in Real Time
Class begins with a SRT-based process of discovery which enables one to unveil their own mechanical logic, intuitive awareness, and personal imagistic realities within directional releasing and autonomy of the breath. Participants select Sculpting Tools and Hidden Agendas. Movement-oriented improvisations are introduced and explored. Once these improvisational constructs seem well embodied, the students are invited to apply their Sculpting Tools and Hidden Agendas so as to evolve and morph their ever-shifting environment in surprising ways. By nurturing alternative modes of perception, we transform a seemingly chaotic environment into a spontaneously re-choreographed situation based on myriad formal and aesthetic possibilities. We share a process of establishing and then kindly smashing a dance.

Alexander Technique
Alexander Technique looks at the way we carry out our intentions. Often we use a process that is habitual, unconscious and counterproductive. The technique offers a practice of staying open and alert in the moment, observing our familiar tensions and choosing to move without them. Beginning with the assumption that we are perfectly designed for movement and balance, we engage our mind to undo layers of interference, creating opportunity for change.

Contact Improvisation
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 artist faculty.

Contact Improvisation
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 artist faculty.

Alexander Technique
Alexander Technique looks at the way we carry out our intentions. Often we use a process that is habitual, unconscious and counterproductive. The technique offers a practice of staying open and alert in the moment, observing our familiar tensions and choosing to move without them. Beginning with the assumption that we are perfectly designed for movement and balance, we engage our mind to undo layers of interference, creating opportunity for change.