Morning Class
Class will begin with systematically readying an alert body and mind for full-out and detailed dancing which we will do in the second part of class. The goal is to help each dancer increase awareness, level of articulation, strength, technical facility and focus. The warm up is simple and straightforward with an emphasis on alignment, physical mechanics, and space for sensation and feedback from our bodies as we work collaboratively to arrive at dancing. Through the practice of doing phrase work with a wide range of physicality and co-ordinations, we hone our skills and apply our training. And with repetition and exploration we educate ourselves and deepen the understanding of the intelligence in our bodies.

Morning Class
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.

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

Morning Class
We�ll look at different ways of approaching �dance technique�� energy systems, physical systems, architectural-object-spatial relationships, contact and non-contact partner and solo improvisations. I take my current somatic, dance, and performance interests and apply them to a movement practice. A maximally informed approach to dancing. A space of respectful, creative permission for everyone�s body. A time to really let things move in all senses of the word� in relationship with and beyond oneself.

Morning Class
The 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.

Morning Class
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 partners 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!

Morning Class
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 cultivating presence inside of the forms. Class often begins with imagery and gentle preparation culled from various body-based somatic modalities that access our awareness of the organs, the skeleton, gravity, and energetic pathways through the architecture of the body and into the space. Class may also include technical exercises, choreographic structures, improvisations, and performance constructs, taking our time to engage with these materials with precision, imagination, and a thorough and informed sense of embodiment.

Morning Class
The class begins with a simple warm-up focusing on the breathing, internal structure, weight and the body�s articulations. Directed exercises give the opportunity to the students to observe and experience their own particularity and range of mobility, to integrate the parts of the body and the use of the floor. A phrase will be provided to be used for individual explorations: to manipulate it, to watch it, to re-interpret or to copy it. This class is the result of personal investigations and is influenced by many years of study and work with Jeremy Nelson, Klein-Mahler technique and other somatic works.

Morning Class
This class will dedicate itself to promoting spatial and corporeal awareness, through clarity and precision. Inviting ourselves to question, welcome, enhance, abandon and rediscover movement patterns, focal points, qualities, personal habits and preferences in order to stay alert in the present moment. Through a gentle warm up, using a series of improvisational but mostly set exercises, we will transition to a pre-conceived phrase to share experiences while encouraging individuality. Let�s perceive �technique� as an invaluable tool that opens doors and allows our bodies to be present in the now.

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.

Klein Technique™ with Barbara Mahler - for movers of all kinds
| | NOTE: Class on Jan 9 2014 will take place at Balance Arts Center 34 West 28th Street. Classes resume at Eden's Expressway on Jan 14. | | We are not just a body or a mind. We are unique individuals with spirit and intelligence. The work we do in class engages a process which facilitates change. Time and space are necessary for integration and growth with an interweaving of theory and practice. In class, the focus is on the pelvis, the keystone of support, and its relationship to the legs, and the earth and its integration into movement. From here we become grounded. We push into the earth for both uprightness and movement. We find our power. With the pelvis on top of the legs, the upper body and spine are free to move with ease and expression. We move from the level of the bone, the deepest and densest tissue in the body, which conducts the most energy and force (gravity). We work on letting go of the outer muscles which hold our bodies and minds in misalignment and misconception, inhibiting our function, creativity, and well-being.

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 all 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 by the individual artist faculty.

Skinner Releasing Technique™ (Introductory level)
SRT facilitates an enhanced awareness of one's own physical self and creative spirit. SRT is an imagery based movement experience which reduced holding and tension while enhancing ease of movement and enhanced healing. By embracing ourselves as intrinsically graceful creatures with deep feeling and genuine expression, we are encouraged to shed our notions of style and aesthetics in favor of a more intense personal discovery. SRT not only makes for a much more clear and concise mover, but that it also leads toward greater compassion and empathy towards the self and others. Think, feel, play.

The Underscore
EVERY 2ND AND 4TH SUNDAY OF THE MONTH. The Underscore is a long-form dance improvisation structure developed by Nancy Stark Smith and practiced worldwide. The form includes contact improvisation and allows for a full spectrum of physical forms and changing states, often including periods of quiet internal activity and other times of higher energy and interactive dancing. The Underscore�s undirected practice affords simultaneously a framework for research, a forum for play, and an opportunity to experience collective improvised composition. Open to all, familiarity with CI and the Underscore suggested. To familiarize new participants, Underscore NYC offers �talk throughs� to introduce the language, glyphs and structures of the Underscore. Stay from start to finish.

Neuromuscular Preparation for Dance
Irene will teach selections of the material choreographed in response to her interaction with professional dancers and dance teachers in the past as well as new material she is creating now. These choreographies can be used as a very efficient warm-up 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.

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 all 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 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.

The Athletics of Intimacy, Improvisations
Classes combine skills and practices of Contact Improvisation, applications of Body-Mind Centering� systems and patterns of development and evolution, and tunings of somatic improvisational approaches in solo, duet (strong emphasis on partnering) and ensemble dancing. I am interested in the very physical, sensorial and imaginative, and in discovering new challenges and risks within our movement, of both body and mind.

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 all 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 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.

Skinner Releasing Master Class
Robert Davidson�master teacher, musician, aerial dance performer and choreographer�has been Head of Movement at the National Theatre Conservatory in Denver since 1997. Prior to that he was director of his own aerial dance company, touring nationally and internationally, and receiving numerous grants and creative fellowships. Throughout his career he has collaborated with many diverse theatre directors and acting teachers on hundreds of classical and experimental projects. His expertise lies in teaching Skinner Releasing Technique, movement improvisation, and aerial dance on low-flying trapezes. A member of Who�s Who for life, he gardens passionately in Denver whenever the weather allows.

Klein Technique™ - Sub for Mahler
SUB FOR BARBARA MAHLER. We are not just a body or a mind. We are unique individuals with spirit and intelligence. The work we do in class engages a process which facilitates change. Time and space are necessary for integration and growth with an interweaving of theory and practice. In class, the focus is on the pelvis, the keystone of support, and its relationship to the legs, and the earth and its integration into movement. From here we become grounded. We push into the earth for both uprightness and movement. We find our power. With the pelvis on top of the legs, the upper body and spine are free to move with ease and expression. We move from the level of the bone, the deepest and densest tissue in the body, which conducts the most energy and force (gravity). We work on letting go of the outer muscles which hold our bodies and minds in misalignment and misconception, inhibiting our function, creativity, and well-being.

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 all 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 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.

Klein Technique™ - Sub for Mahler
We are not just a body or a mind. We are unique individuals with spirit and intelligence. The work we do in class engages a process which facilitates change. Time and space are necessary for integration and growth with an interweaving of theory and practice. In class, the focus is on the pelvis, the keystone of support, and its relationship to the legs, and the earth and its integration into movement. From here we become grounded. We push into the earth for both uprightness and movement. We find our power. With the pelvis on top of the legs, the upper body and spine are free to move with ease and expression. We move from the level of the bone, the deepest and densest tissue in the body, which conducts the most energy and force (gravity). We work on letting go of the outer muscles which hold our bodies and minds in misalignment and misconception, inhibiting our function, creativity, and well-being.

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 all 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 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.