The warm-up focuses on our skeletal structure to access the deep supporting muscles of the body. We will work particularly with our connection to and use of the floor, and apply this information to phrases of movement that involve moving boldly, covering lots of space, taking chances off balance and finding a strength and ease in our 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.

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.

Class is designed to prepare ourselves through awareness and to increase the functional knowledge of our bodies so that we may move with more efficiency, specificity and focus. Particular attention is paid to the initiations of movement as a means of directing, sequencing, locomoting and surprising our bodies through space. Improvisational explorations based on simple, functional approaches to movement will be incorporated as a way to challenge our preconceived choices and our perceptions of our limitations. 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 technique will be explored through a balance of physicality, perception, intention, expression and interpretation.

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 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, psycho-physical 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 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 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
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.

Performance Technique
Concepts of body architecture, locomotion through space, and body centering are explored. The focus is centered on O’Connor’s dance language, which incorporates ballet, modern, ethnic and historical forms, both real and invented, combined with his unique system for phrase structures derived from a physical stream of consciousness. This system is characterized by an exaggerated density of steps, extreme tempo change, and inorganic sequencing transformed into logic. O’Connor concentrates on developing the dancer’s ability to interpret the abstraction put forth by a choreographer. His belief that the performer is not a tool, but a peer in the creation of dance informs his teaching as he encourages the student to aspire beyond the kinetic experience to artistry.

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.

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 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.

Emphasis in this class will be put on bringing seemingly incongruous materials together. Technique and warm-up exercises will be drawn from a variety of movement styles ranging from ballet and post-modern to street/club styles and martial arts. Phrases in the Elkins idiom will be introduced, emphasizing dynamic physicality and self-expression.

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 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.

How can we continually open the body and mind for experience and expression and make choices from there? We will explore this question as a group through improvisation and set movement, while bringing awareness to our patterns and desires. Michelle’s teaching is influenced by the Alexander Technique™, Body-Mind Centering®, improvisation, developmental studies and healing practices.

Class is designed to prepare ourselves through awareness and to increase the functional knowledge of our bodies so that we may move with more efficiency, specificity and focus. Particular attention is paid to the initiations of movement as a means of directing, sequencing, locomoting and surprising our bodies through space. Improvisational explorations based on simple, functional approaches to movement will be incorporated as a way to challenge our preconceived choices and our perceptions of our limitations. 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 technique will be explored through a balance of physicality, perception, intention, expression and interpretation.