Contemporary Dance with jennA RIEGEL

LENGTH: 79 min. LEVEL: Advanced SPACE: Large

Class will begin with floor work, yoga and pilates stretching and strengthening, and improvisation to build warmth, ease us into motion, find agility, and help us arrive more fully present in our bodies. Introductions to one another will be made with a name circle, contact improvisation exercises or interactive warm-up exercises in order to build a sense of trust and community together.

Center standing work will draw upon a combination of release technique and ballet and align, balance, and increase awareness of energetic efficiency and ease. Head/tail exploration and spinal articulation will be integrated into more traditional foot and leg exercises. Across-the-floor phrase-work will oscillate between imagery and task-based veracious improvisational scores and rigorous locomotion, athletic inversions, and ambitious lofting. A culminating phrase will challenge the polarities of movement and investigate both off-balance and centered movement, bound and released, sustained and staccato, momentum-driven and spatially controlled, on the floor and in the air, and sensation-based and shape-based movement.

A friendly, uplifting, nonjudgmental class culture will be attended to by steering clear of the binary of right and wrong and instead directing attention to cause and effect, the action and results of our choices. Personal findings will be encouraged to be shared to expedite learning within our community. Individualism will be honored and upheld even as profound body awareness and ability to replicate outside material is practiced. Enjoyment and fun will be contagious and inevitable!

Music: Glen Fittin 

Dancers: Genna Mattana, Marie Lloyd Paspe, Emma Rumberg, and Amadi Baye Washington

Category: Contemporary