Philosophy: Facilitating Movement Expression
I have been teaching creative contemporary dance for over three decades. At all levels, I apply the principles of grounding energy, shifting weight, extending and releasing, and developing our agility. Ranging from fascia exercises to floor work, to swift rhythmic phrases—of lengthening, reaching, rotating and rebounding through space—we work on and with our senses of musicality, precision, and efficiency. Through structured improvisation, I encourage participants to expand and integrate physical, dynamic range. I vary exercises to enable participants to interpret in class, together, explore personal stimulus, and learn from each other.
In my advanced contemporary dance class, I start with gentle warm-up explorations informed by a release technique base. I encourage dancers to find stability and flexibility through bodily connection, engaging the core and warming up the back body through somatic-informed exploration. We move to relationships to space, exploring homo- and contra- lateral coordination, length/ expansion and carving through space. Bringing in rhythm, movement-scale becomes the focus with explorations of the timing of an elevation, rebound extension, whole body weight-shift. Participants are invited and guided to develop ways to connect somatic information with the physicality of energetically moving through space, encouraging ease, flow, and athleticism.
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Approaching technique as a way to prepare for creative practice, this class also fosters exploration of quality of movement and a sense of connection to one's surroundings and to each other, consciously reinforcing grounding and re-grounding as a process. Awareness of sound and rhythm are integral elements in my approach to movement exploration.
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In my experience, guided improvisations allow for diversity of expression, ensuring participants can stay alert to developing new awareness and insight from and around the technical exercises. My objective is to foster a positive environment for challenge and self-development, while providing a fulfilling and inclusive shared experience.
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I teach creative movement to seniors and in these classes I draw on my eclectic dance training to offer a class that is all about the joy of different types of movement and movement's ability to rejuvenate, invigorate, exhaust, reveal and contain our energy. I want to express here that across my classes the joy of developing nuances of expression in movement is the essence of my teaching.
As a movement teacher, while I care about how you dance, I care more that you care and can take pride in how you move!
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