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

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

Body-Mind Centering®: Integration and Expression
In this class students will be guided through integrative explorations and creative improvisation rooted in principles from Body-Mind Centering��. This work can be used to address problems in dance technique, psychophysical integration or as a source for creative tools in the choreographic process.

This class will work in depth on developing awareness of alignment patterns to better understand each dancer���s unique movement potential and style. Class will be an opportunity to allow the body and mind to release and become aware of our pre-existing physical limitations in order to find greater movement range. Our warm-up will grow from internal structural and breath images to establish a consciousness in both the minute and grand details of dance. Class will conclude with a combination built to further increase awareness and freedom inside each student���s own 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.

Class is a practice to awaken and challenge the mind/body connection for contemporary dance work. It consists of a ton of improvisation, to encourage learning from yourself and from simple exercises that are drawn from the Alexander Technique���, various ��œrelease��� techniques, developmental movement pattern exploration and bodywork. In our movement practice we will investigate questions of kinetics, performance, presence, focus, individuality and generosity. The goals are to open up energetic pathways in the body and space, activate your inherent physical intelligence, access the movement potential of your whole body, address how your body experiences being seen and get smarter and more irreverent about your dancing body.

Releasing
Through specially designed images, we will enable ourselves to let go of hidden tensions and realign with the natural forces of gravity and counter balance. Through the releasing process, we will learn how to move with more freedom and economy. Spontaneous movement explorations will allow us to creatively integrate these changes in our bodies. The experience of seeing into our bodies will give us a wonderful tool for improvisational dance.

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 Technique��� and Authentic Movement. We will isolate 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 create scores that access our deeper layers of consciousness and challenge our assumptions about how we dance, uncovering both raw and sophisticated compositional patterns. I am curious about how meanings get affixed to particular moments in performance both willfully and not and in our agency to reclaim and reenergize meanings and mistakes in the act of performance. 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.

This will be an opportunity for you to explore and extend your awareness of energy and movement potential, drawing on various internally motivated approaches. I will incorporate principles of the Skinner Releasing Technique���, Authentic Movement, and other movement/energy practices. We will work solo, in duos, and in small groups, integrating the technical and the creative through improvisatory movement studies and hands on partner work. In this class you can play/work at your own speed and find energy for the rest of the day.