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WIGGLE ROOM WORKSHOP Dance, Physical Theater and Emergent Realms of Expression Dance Dance from a connection of the body to the earth, planes in space, other dancers and forms. Explore a dynamic range of intelligent movement based on breath, extension and release, activating energy centers, filling shape from the inside, rhythmic play, images, physical contact with the floor and other dancers. Experience feeling states, gestures and personal impulses arising in the shape of the dance. Integrate tools from Leralee Whittle's artistic process, Nita Little's "Mind in Motion" , Chi Kung, Contact Improvisation, Modern Dance, Senegalese Dance and Post Modern dance. Deepen into your own style of dance improvisation composition and learn tools from others. Develop more of who you are as a dancer. Physical Theatre Utilize sources of information in you and around you so you can be in real relationship to time, space and others. Understand how to remain authentic while making choices that shape character. Live the character with more dimension -Align the Body, Mind, Vision and Message of the character. Discover powerful entries into your unique way of communicating with an ephemeral language. Track character perspectives so the work evolves and you can relive it in performance. Emergent Realms of Expression These are the mysterious realms where art shapes ritual and ritual shapes art spontaneously. The work is determined by how individuals in the group "show up" and where the group is willing to go. What are we willing to allow to be communicated? What do we allow ourselves to perceive? How much do we cling to our identities as artists or to our personas on various fronts? Have we traded in a commitment to art for a style that fits neatly into a subculture of artists? How comfortable have we become in joining the groupies of safe, measured and cool techniques? Is their intimacy in your work? How committed and present will you let yourself be? How mysterious will you let the work be? CONTACT IMPROVISATION CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS 2007 Improvisers are encouraged to transcend CI movement vocabulary by tuning into sensibilities that arise in the active relationship/s being experienced in the dance. Gesture, abstract shapes, feeling states or characterization arise in an authentic way when personal impulses are activated. Dances generate a new language when we expand the dance to include unknown aspects of ourselves, experiential states of being and deeper listening. Instruction emphasizes a creative approach to Contact Improvisation. Improvisers are given tools for dancing from different aspects of themselves. By accesssing different kinds of embodiment, dances become varied and full and the realms in which one improvises are artistic, interesting and natural. We go through a continuum of exercises to first release holding of our bodies and minds to make room for creating. We contact ourselves in relationship to ground/earth and space/the field. We can surrender to the dance more easily when we contact home. At this level of trust and connection to ourselves and our environment, the brain can release concepts of CI and social identity. Then we can activate many sources of information in the body, thereby becoming a more receptive network to sources of information outside the body. We can be more present in time and allow the dance to be created while simultaneously making choices from more levels of the dance. Leralee Whittle’s approach to CI and teaching is greatly influenced by learning from and working 10 years with Nita Little, one of the pioneers of CI along with Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith and few others. |
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