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

We will be constantly investigating weight shifting, energy intent and pathways, initiations and the sequence of events that happen, eye focus, and pelvic and leg support in relation to the torso and arms. I hope awareness from these places will help us better understand how these affect the performance quality of our movements.

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.

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.

INHABITING FORMS: Tools for Performers
This class will be an investigation in locating presence within choreographic and/or performative forms. 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 investigate choreographic structures, improvisations and performance constructs with special attention on finding various ways to engage with the material with honesty, precision and absorption. Discussion, activity and thoughtfulness will be encouraged.

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

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.

This three hour 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.

This warm-up and movement class will develop from simple skeletal mobility sequences to full-out movement forms. Emphasis will be placed on the joints, examining how their range of motion relates to alignment, support, weight and articulation. The class will culminate in phrase work and traveling sequences.

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 is designed to increase the functional knowledge of our bodies through intent and awareness so that we may move with more specificity, focus, multiplicity and possibility. Particular attention is paid to the initiations of movement as a means of directing, sequencing, locomoting and surprising our bodies through space. Improvisational explorations and etudes based on simple, functional approaches to movement will be incorporated. Attention to detail will be explored through set material as the individual comes into his/her own way of seeing, translating and experiencing movement. Through phrase material, extending the boundaries of perceived technique will be explored through a balance of physicality, intention, expression, interpretation and necessary questioning.

Movement Body
In this morning class we will explore and extend our awareness of energy and movement potential, drawing on internally motivated approaches such as Skinner Releasing Techniqueâ„¢, Authentic Movementâ„¢, and other movement/energy practices. We will work solo and in duos, integrating the technical, thinking, and creative processes, through hands-on work and improvisatory movement studies, ranging from vigorous to restorative.

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 Techniqueâ„¢ and Authentic Movementâ„¢. 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.