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

This technique class begins with approaching the body with simple, straightforward exercises that allow us to discover and notice the use of clear alignment, clarity of initiation, direction of energy and use of weight and momentum to help find an ease in the moving body. We will open the body to an expansion of possibilities.

Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement Class (CM)
Gentle and specific structured movement explorations constructed around a theme to broaden the understanding of basic biomechanics and self use, addressing different functions (such as turning, weight transfer, flexion, extension, etc.) and the way we coordinate and regulate movement. The class includes studies of muscle, joint and postural relationships in connection to our sense of ability and expanding options. 60 min Awareness Through Movement Class; 30 min Open to questions from students, discussions, possible applications to dance.

This class will start on the floor with a gentle thirty minute Feldenkrais Method�� Awareness Through Movement Lesson (CM) and will explore aspects of the lesson throughout the class such as: transmission of movement/force through the skeleton, a more developed kinesthetic sense as a means of learning and broadening one���s options of self use, functional aspects of coordinated action, more even distribution of effort and overall fuller awareness in action/dancing.

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

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.

Morning Dancing
In this class we will warm up our individual approaches to improvisation as a performance form through various processes influenced by Skinner Releasing��� and Authentic Movement���. We will isolate various improvisational activities such as making transitions, creating locations, sustaining energetic states and other compositional strategies to bring a deeper understanding to our own personal and intrinsic improvisational logic. We will dance for each other a lot.

This class seeks to prepare an articulate, alert and neutral body, ready for precise dancing with intricate coordinations 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.

In this workshop we will use the luxury of three hours together to deepen our investigation of how our individual bodies respond to time, impulse, direction, space and each other. It will be a unique opportunity to expand our awareness of the various forces at play within and outside of our bodies. We will work slowly and deeply. Part of our time will be spent on differentiating small subtle movements that are initiated by the short skeletal muscles (so that the larger external muscles may release) from larger movements that take us through space (for which the shorter, deeper muscles can be released). Working on layers of support and articulation while on the floor will help us expand our dancing into improvisations and phrases.

morning DANCE! Class
This class will be an opportunity to focus on the pleasure of dancing with emphasis on our individual choices in performing and transforming choreography. Class will begin with imagery and gentle preparation culled from various bodywork modalities to find softness, ease and alertness in the body. From there we will spend the bulk of the class exploring set material and guided improvisation, dancing with and for one another while finding various ways to engage with the material on both physical and performative levels. The goal is to further explore our personal research into how we relate to this form, and also to just freaking dance and have fun.

Inhabiting Forms: Tools for Performers
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.

Contemporary Technique
The classes are influenced by Nelson���s 20 years of continuing study in the work of Barbara Mahler and Susan Klein, and by more recent studies in Alexander Technique���, Contact Improvisation and Body-Mind Centering��. The focus of the class is to integrate this investigation and alignment work into a more formally structured dance technique class. We will begin with a warm-up which focuses on our skeletal structure to access the deep supporting muscles of the body, allowing mobility and suppleness in the superficial muscles and emphasizing the connection to and use of the floor. The class builds from simple exercises to phrases of movement that involve moving boldly, covering lots of space, taking chances off balance and finding a strength, specificity and ease in our dancing.

Class will provide a framework within which we can increase anatomic awareness with an approach that is exploratory rather than corrective. Through action and impulse, we will also examine how we make decisions and how thoughts, perceptions and breath support our choices and movement. We will use set movement, phrase work, improvisations, guided explorations and partner work with influences springing from performance and multiple movement modalities, including yoga, the Alexander Technique���, Body-Mind Centering�� and Fitzmaurice Voicework.