Technique
Using the luxury of five continuous days of dancing together, we will take the time to investigate different states of awareness. Each class will be three-fold, beginning with a guided improvisation to inspire the imagination to expand into the unique life of different parts of the body, followed by dancing within technical forms to support our range and work as dancers, and concluding with a phrase that integrates concepts of weight, lightness, initiation and intention. The technical forms and phrase will be specifically structured to build our knowledge of individual physical patterns that may be blocking us from deepening the use of ourselves as artists. In the process of learning a phrase, we can observe how we retain Ò€œsetÒ€ material. The merging of the unconscious life of movement through improvisation and conscious attention to the physical imagination is part of the energizing practice we will explore in each class.

Horizons
Learn a warm-up choreography designed to enhance visual focus, hand-eye coordination, articulation of hands and feet, freedom of the spine, and the dancer's own phrasing. In addition this sequence can be used as a physical and mental preparation for performance.

There Are No Stepbrothers in Dance
I think the statement Ò€œthere are no stepbrothers in danceÒ€ is a paraphrase of something Balanchine said. His point was that one could only say so much in a dance, and yet what a dance can convey is particular and specific to the medium. In this workshop, we will look at the limitations and strengths of the medium in order to become more exact in our choreographic choices and in order to elicit more clarity from the contexts of meaning we create. Bring 3-10 minutes of a complete choreographic work to be presented live either with you as a solo performer or invite your performers. We will also work on developing some specific tools through compositional exercises. Be prepared to also read, talk, debate, listen, and imagine aloud.

An Eco-poetic Approach to Dance Improvisation and Performance
In this movement workshop we will explore awareness and intention through the development of perceptual acuity in relationship to our inner and outer landscapes. We will examine the delicate relationships between our poetic imagination and our sensory systems. The basis of my approach is that composition and performance are ecologically rooted acts. Our imagination grows from where and how we exist. Movement, story, image and gesture are imbedded in the relationships that are evolving all around us. Come ready to dance, perceive, perform and imagine.

Improvisation as Potential Shamanism
Five days of contemplative embodiment, intensive breathwork, fake healing, endurance shaking, post-contact, disco and séance, all in the attempt to invigorate improvisation practice for dancers, choreographers, and performance makers. Shamanism, in a general usage, refers to the ritual/spiritual practices of working with forces and energies, unseen and poetic, of transforming space and time to shift meaning and perspective, of communicating with the dead or not-human. Contemporary improvisation and performance practices often engages the same intentions. LetÒ€ℒs dance in the borderlands of anti-systemic knowledge, magic, real and fiction, contagion and exchange, and various states of presence. Dance class is a ritual, potentially.

Touch Move Talk Write: open studio practices
This workshop focuses on generating new practices through touching, moving, talking, and writing. We will shape each practice with simple rules and apply different sequences and durations, giving equal time to all four aspects. By pushing the notion of practice to extremes, one begins to understand assumptions about style, body, self, technique, unspoken rules, expertise, etc. etc... The aim is to proliferate unexpected results, to try many things quickly, and to foment revolution. Please donÒ€ℒt come without a notebook and a pen.

Improvisational Ò€œScoresÒ€
In this workshop we will investigate my improvisational technique which I call Ò€œScores.Ò€ Ò€œScoresÒ€ are essentially words, containing images, that we will learn to possess our bodies from head to toe. Ò€œScoresÒ€ can be physical, emotional, psychological or spiritual. Some Ò€œScoresÒ€ will possess different body parts. Some Ò€œScores,Ò€ which I call Ò€œno-no scores,Ò€ explore socially-unaccepted content. We will allow these Ò€œno-no scoresÒ€ to travel through the subconscious revealing to us our true opinions about them. We will utilize Releasing Technique in the warm ups revealing to us the capability to fill our Ò€œemptyÒ€ bodies with images. Authentic movement, as a warm up, will guide us through powerful qualities.

technique |tekˈnēk|
noun a way of carrying out a particular task, esp. the execution or performance of an artistic work or a scientific procedure. Ò€’ skill or ability in a particular field : he has excellent technique | [in sing. ] Ò€’ a skillful or efficient way of doing or achieving something This class will approach "technique" by redefining notions of strength and virtuosity, valuing subtlety and utilizing mindfulness and self-observation as physical practices. We'll awaken the brain and the body, learn by expansion rather than concentration, rigorously attend to the present and learn precise, task-oriented, simple and complex movement phrases.

INEFFABLE INTANGIBLE SENSATIONAL
This workshop looks at some of the ways in which Miguel Gutierrez approaches a practice of movement and improvisation in his work. Working from the proposition that dance is a mode of perceptual inquiry, and working against the idea of dance as a non-verbal "language," students will be led through a series of movement explorations that prioritize sensation, non-rational action, and that trigger automatic, unprepared physical response. Some of the questions that guide this workshop are: What does movement "do" and how does it operate as a framework for complicated, nuanced, embodied meaning?