Freedom to MOVE: Dance and Alexander Technique

Freedom to MOVE: 2013

A conference on Dance and the Alexander Technique

developed by Ann Rodiger

presented by Balance Arts Center

May 17-19

***

Presenters:

Joan Arnold

Tom Baird

Rebecca Brooks

Nada Diachenko

Daria Fain

Emily Faulkner

Eva Karczag

Juliette Mapp

Katherine Mitchell

Rebecca Nettl-Fiol

Cynthia Reynolds

Ann Rodiger

Shelley Senter

Jennifer Sielicki

Erin Thompson

Luc Vanier

Deborah Weitzman

                             

Come join us for the third Freedom to Move Dance and Alexander Technique conference.

We will continue to explore how the Alexander Technique supports and complements dance technique and performance.

Movement freedom, ease, and coordination can be enhanced and taught through concepts and principles of Alexander Technique.  The conference provides experiences and exploration of many ways the Alexander Technique can be applied to dance – from tango to composition to research to performance.

You will also have time to share and exchange ideas as we work together.

All the conference presenters have had extensive experience both in teaching the Alexander Technique and in dance. The Alexander Technique has greatly influenced their thinking and approach to movement, how they teach, and how they create work. The variety of workshops speaks to the fundamental all-encompassing nature of the Alexander Technique and how the concepts are permeating many corners of the dance world.
Come join us and explore!

Pearl Studios
500 8th Avenue, 12th Floor (between 35th and 36th Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Full conference schedule HERE
Register HERE
Registration by May 1st: $225
Registration after May 1st $250
Student rates and Single sessions available

Rebecca Brooks on the Alexander Technique [audio]

Rebecca admiring her niece's poise. Photo by Michael Kopald

Since opening my teaching studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in July, I have been thrilled to be able to devote so much of myself to teaching private lessons in the Alexander Technique. If you've come for a lesson, a class, or to just to visit, you know that the studio is a calm and lovely space, a truly uplifting environment. -- Rebecca Brooks

Click here for my interview 

with dance artist 

and Alexander Technique teacher

Rebecca Brooks (29:11)

Rebecca Brooks is a dance artist and Alexander Technique teacher based in New York City. Fundamental to her performance work is a commitment to developing sustainable practices that enhance conscious awareness for the performers and the public alike. Her teaching and art practices are integrally linked. Rebecca is an AmSAT certified Alexander Technique teacher, having graduated in 2009 from Balance Arts Center. She teaches primarily out of her studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She is on faculty at Movement Research, Balance Arts Center, and St. Margaret's House. She has also taught at CLASSCLASSCLASS and the Fieldston School in NYC, and at the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC. Aside from her work as a teacher, she is an active dancer, performer, and choreographer. She is currently dancing with luciana achugar, and other recent performance work includes projects with Marina Abramović, Maria Hassabi, Heather Kravas, Katy Pyle, Susan Rethorst, robbinschilds and Kathy Westwater. Rebecca’s own work has been presented throughout NYC. Co-founder, AUNTS; co-curator, Movement Research Festival Spring 2007: Reverence (Irreverence); Artistic Director, Rockbridge Artist Exchange.

Learn more about Rebecca's Alexander Technique classes and other projects at www.rebeccakelleybrooks.com.

Dance films and performance at Stuyvesant Cove

Dancing in Public 

an outdoor evening of both live and filmed public performance

produced by Dance Films Association and presented by Solar One in Stuyvesant Cove Park’s eco-theater

September 7 at 7pm

Solar1 Green Energy, Arts and Education Center

Stuyvesant Cove Park

23rd Street and FDR Drive, Manhattan

Click here for map and directions.

Free. Donations accepted.

As a part of the Solar One Dance Program, Dancing in Public will begin with a reception featuring live performance created by Rebecca Brooks, with dancers Ursula Eagly and Emily Wexler.  The evening will progress with dynamic screenings of several dance film shorts curated by Jennifer Edwards, Content Creator/Founder of JenEd Productions, and Christy Park, Executive Director of Dance Films Association.  The pieces speak to various interpretations of dance and public space. Moving ‘bodies’ range from construction equipment to school children, and dancing is carried out in spaces ranging from deserts to grocery stores to Grand Central Station. Works by OK GO, JenEd Productions, David Hinton, and Anthony Atanasio – allow something for everyone yet promises to effortlessly carry viewers on a journey through shifting landscapes and genres.  A Q&A with the choreographer and filmmakers will follow the screening.

Wishing upon stars: Rethorst's "Beau Regard"

An apparition out of the past--to be specific, an apparition out of 1989, a year I hold in high regard for my own reasons--Susan Rethorst's Beau Regard drifts in and out of one's conscious awareness. Sculpted partly by the choreographer's episodic whimsy, partly by Carol Mullins' confident, sublime lighting touch, partly by the dashes and splashes of music and a ground of silence, it comes and goes. Mainly its gestures, relationships and narratives inhabit subterranean, subcutaneous and distinctly subconscious space. A delicate and timeless thing, it fits the very notion of Retro(intro)spective, the Rethorst-focused series christened by PLATFORM 2011 curator Melinda Ring.

Its gentle charm softens you up, its clarity of execution makes you trust it even as the language escapes you or, at least, your conscious mind.  The main performances by Vicky Shick, Jodi Melnick, Iréne Hultman Monti, Rebecca Brooks and Noami Fall make of Danspace Project's home, St. Mark's Church sanctuary, a sanctuary indeed, a house of worship of goddesses ancient, classical, Romantic and everyday. I must say I found it a tad unnerving, almost too hushed in its most quiet moments, but I could sense my neighbors listening not just looking, as if forbidden to giggle in church or afraid to miss any exquisite, if esoteric, detail.

When you wish upon a star, you're graced by the women, a spectrum of generations, who perform in this piece. Men eventually appear, too, late in the course of things: Benjamin Ford Asriel, Neil Greenberg and Jon Kinzel, good sports who drew the audience's only chuckles last night and made me wonder what story Rethorst might be telling about the male of the species. Their costumes--tomato-red shirts and slacks with dark blue slacks awkwardly, comically belted and strapped to the front of their lower bodies--suggests an underlying, blunt vitality masked by superficial nobility and authority. The dawning of patriarchy is a goof. Not necessarily Rethorst's idea, though; just a thought from a watcher of symbols and colors.

Beau Regard continues tonight and tomorrow night at 8pm. For more information and ticketing--as well as additional information on the remaining Susan Rethorst: Retro(intro)spective events, click here. 

Danspace Project
Second Avenue at 10th Street, Manhattan
(directions)