Guest Artist Biographies and their Classes:
NYC CIgroup & 100Grand announce
Ongoing Weekly Class in CONTACT
MONDAYS 10-12 $12
Study the principles of Contact that is in high demand
among contemporary dance companies all over the world.
Sensation building, center connection & finding the safe edge of
risk. Featuring a new teacher each month.
TIM O’DONNELL Mondays in April & May 10am-noon $12
Through attentive and dynamic listening we can find balance in falling, redirecting and soaring. It is this balance in listening that allows us to risk the unknown more fully in our dancing. With care and attention we will pose and explore questions, ideas and concepts, working through exercises and scores that will hone our skills as movers and thinkers.
Tim O’Donnell has been studying teaching and performing CI for over 12 years. His exploration in the form is strongly rooted in a deep physical listening and a sense of adventure. His classes range from the gentle and subtle to the acrobatic and fluidly athletic. He holds an MFA in Dance and has been a bodyworker since 1991. Currently he is teaching and performing in NYC where he resides.
CHRIS MASTERS Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday May 7, 8, 9 10am-noon $12
In my technique class, we will spend two hours together investigating and experimenting with the body. With an aperture open to the limitless potential inside each of us, we work through both traditional and non-traditional movement patterns luxuriating in our curiosities, testing our own hypotheses, and hopefully, finding some truth. The vocabulary makes strong reference to principles of Laban and Bartenieff, elements of classical ballet and release technique, and lots and lots of wiggling. In a warm environment, we free ourselves to take risk, value both our talents and our restrictions, and celebrate being part of a community. The class stacks upon itself, and culminates in a lengthy phrase that is friendly to the mind and feels great on the body. You will sweat, a lot.
Chris Masters completed an MFA in Choreography at The University of Iowa where he was recipient of the Iowa Arts Fellowship. Masters began his teaching career at The University of Michigan – Ann Arbor at the young age of 21. Between his time in academia and the professional stage, Masters has performed the work of Martha Clarke, Jeff Rebudal, Colleen Thomas, Stephanie Liapis, Jana Hicks, Keith Thompson, Doug Elkins, and Jan Erkert, among others. In addition to performance, Chris continues to make his own work, serving as Artistic Director of Mack Avenue Dance Company from 2006-2010, and currently as an independent artist under the name ChrisMastersDance. His work has been presented in New York at Galapagos Art Space, Irondale Center, Judson Memorial Church, and 100 Grand, in Detroit at Detroit Opera House, Boll Theatre, and 555 Gallery, as well as at The University of Michigan, Albion College, Wayne State University, and The University of Iowa.
KATE VINCEK Wednesday, Thursday May 1 & 2 10am-noon $12
My class will be a fun, enriching exploration of how the body becomes a catalyst for expression. We will begin with a gentle warm up, including guided floor work and elements of yoga along with technique based movement phrases to gradually ready the body. My movement phrases are fluidly patterned, mixed with surprising dynamics and moments for luxuriating. Class will eventually build up to a repertory phrase incorporating bits and pieces of my choreography with ChrisMastersDance and other recent work. Ultimately, it will be a feel good, cumulative two hours with ample opportunity for sharing. Come dance!
Kate Vincek received her BFA in Dance from Wayne State University in Detroit in 2010. She is currently dancing as a member of ChrisMastersDance, as well as John J Zullo Dance. Kate has performed extensively throughout her college and professional career in works by Chris Masters, Nicholas Leichter, John Zullo, Faye Driscoll, Jan Van Dyke, Julie Johnson, Jeff Rebudal, Ali Woerner, and Lauren Adams. Kate choreographed the work Shrill which was presented at the ACDFA National Conference in Washington D.C. Her dancing has taken her all over the globe, including her most recent trip in 2012 to the Spoleto Festival in Italy with John Zullo Dance. Kate is currently teaching, choreographing, and dancing in NYC.
ERYN ROSENTHAL Tuesday, Thursday May 21 & 23 10am-noon $12
Buoyant Wait (a.k.a. Contact Improvisation for Contemporary Dancers) In this class, we will build our intuitive reflexes and physical listening skills within the “Gravity Lab” of contact, while finding room for buoyancy and play in our relationships. We’ll explore elements common to both Contact Improvisation and Contemporary Dance, focusing our investigation on the relationship between timing, momentum and weight.
Eryn Rosenthal is an active member of Contact Improvisation circles in New York and Massachusetts, and has taught CI at La Universidad Carlos III, Oakland University, the University of Michigan, and elsewhere. She has studied contact, improvisation, composition and contemporary dance with Elena Córdoba, Afrika Navarro, Kirstie Simson, Ray Chung, Bill T. Jones, Nancy Stark Smith, Reggie Wilson, Chris Aiken and many others in Spain and the U.S. since 1998. Her classes investigate joy, safety, and freedom as a reflective, reflexive, continual learning adventure.
Eryn is also an active choreographer/playwright, and has won multiple awards for her work in performance including an Open Society Institute President’s Grant to South Africa and a Fulbright fellowship to Spain. Her current work is very invested in site-specific performance and collaborative process. Eryn’s ongoing performance series The Doors Project premiered last fall in Barcelona and Madrid, and she has since been performing and developing work with architects, artists, and activists in Madrid, NYC, Detroit, Buenos Aires and Cape Town. The Doors Project was recently honored with an invitation to literally “open the doors” for the grand opening of First Street Green Art Park in NYC, where the Guggenheim Lab was last fall. Eryn is also the creator and curator of Play the Space, a multidisciplinary performance series in and around First Street Green. www.erynrosenthal.com
KENDRA PORTIER Wednesday May 22 10am-noon $12
Class is physical and is largely a sensation-based articulation of form via improvisation and heavily nuanced, set material. I believe we are all uniquely grand beings and I am interested in how we can cultivate the permission to revel in our own decadence, eccentricity, and beauty. How can we feed our joy for movement and dispel our judgement? How can we sweat our histories and nurture the confidence to present them? How does the legacy of our technique(s) serve as a skeleton, which we fatten with quality, experience and dedication?
I want to explore via little physics and loud ways…
I want to trust our physical and creative capacities…
I want us to be reminded why we must dance… because we gotta.
Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Kendra Portier was born and raised commune style. She trained and performed with BalletMet and later recieved a B.F.A. in dance from the Ohio State University. Since relocating to NYC she has had the fortune of working with brilliant beings such as Lisa Race/Scott Cohen, Jennifer Nugent, White Road Dance Media, 5′4″, Hoi Polloi, Nicole Wolcott Dance, and in collaborations with Launch Movement Experiment. In 2008, Kendra created and implemented “dancepants”, a donation-based community dance program dedicated to experimental pedagogies in support of Brooklyn-based dance space, Triskelion Arts. She has been a guest artist and presented work at a variety of colleges, universities, dance spaces, rooftops, and festivals newly under the moniker BandPortier. Currently, Kendra is on faculty at Dance New Amsterdam and is performing with Vanessa Justice Dance, MVWorks, Michael and the Go-Getters, Annie Kloppenberg Dance, Alexandra Beller Dances and David Dorfman Dance. Additional information can be found at http://www.kendraportier.com.
MEGAN BASCOM Tuesday, Thursday May 28 & 30 10am-noon $12
Class is a time to be playful, articulate, amazed by yourself and others, and reminded of your passion for movement. We will begin with a progression of continuous and cumulative patterns focusing on our strength, alignment, rotations and depth of sensation. I am fascinated with weight, momentum, torque, and individual nuance and the intricate play between these states. We will travel together through the low, middle and high space: transitioning in and out of the floor, moving forward, sideways, upside down and backwards. Find satisfaction in the wild and hungry “space eating” moments as well as the moments of balance or pause when all our years of technique prove worthwhile and a continuous stronghold, which we continue to shape. Phrase work is full and physical, involving propulsion, redirection and a curiosity of focus.
Megan is a Florida native and holds a BA with Honors in Dance Studies, focusing on dance injury and prevention, from the University of South Florida. Her earlier years consisted of apprenticing and performing for Dance Alive National Ballet. Megan currently dances with white road Dance Media/Marisa Gruneberg, with whom she is a founding member, and with Kendra Portier||BANDportier. She has also had the pleasure of performing in the works of Tara Burns Dance, Jeanne Travers, Michael Foley, Kelly Drummond Cawthon, Danny Buraczeski, Moving Current Dance Collective, Doug Varone, and others. Megan is the Artistic Director of Megan Bascom & Dancers, a NYC based company that has been produced by The Rover SoHo and by Triskelion Arts as part of the Split Bill Series and presented at The Clemento Soto Vélez Center, Green Space, WAX Works, Amalgamate Artist Series, Movement Research, HATCH, and at the Built on Stilts Festival (Oak Bluffs, MA). She is a modern guest artist at Dance New Amsterdam and Dancepants Brooklyn, teaches Pilates around the greater NY area and most recently finished co-authority a book on movement and learning that will be published by Kaplan in 2013. This coming June, Megan Bascom & Dancers will perform an outdoor verstion of their latest work, STAKE, at FIGMENT, an annual participatory arts event on Governors Island in New York Harbor. Additional information is available at www.meganbascom.com.
BARBARA MAHLER
Ongoing Fridays 10-12 $12
A slow dance technique class specifically geared towards the integration of newly learned patterns of movement and thought. Class is based on the essential principles of the body and mind in movement, based on the work of Susan Klein and myself, and my many years of research and teaching. The goal of class is to bridge the gap between the slow and focused in depth work done in the stretch/ placement classes and moving and dancing. It utilizes and explains, through movement, the importance of the pelvis in relationship to efficiency and clarity of movement and then weaves together all of the important connections in the body. These connections facilitate clarity, articulation, and coordination, for powerful and rich moving. Each class begins with a thorough, barre based warm-up, and ends with a phrase to bring all the parts of the class brought together to create the whole. It is recommended, but not a requirement, that students have had some experience with Klein Technique or with Barbara Mahler.
An ongoing faculty member of Movement Research, is a certified teacher of and major contributor to Klein Technique. She has taught classes for 28 years plus, teaching a generation of performers. She is s a widely respected movement educator, choreographer, performer, and body worker and has traveled extensively. She has received commissions, grants, and research residencies, including the Sage Cowles Land Grant, from the University of Wisconsin, Madison; the Skolen for Moderne Dance, Denmark; The Harkness Center, NYC (92 Street Y and Hunter College); New Dance (MPLS); Meet the Composer; The Cultural Foundations of Chile, and Canada; Dance Alliansen, and Dance International Programme,Sweden; among othersBarbara was a Movement Research artist in residence for the 2000-01 and the 2006-08 season,, a movement consultant at Hunter College, NYC, and a recent graduate from the MFA program at the University Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her choreography draws upon the intricate and infinite possibilities of the textures of time, space and the (her) body to create dances, which subtly reveal characters, emotions and stories.They are spare and articulate, intimate and non-linear narratives. Barbara’s choreography is consistent with her teaching vision and work, exploring the endless possibilities that the body can reveal. As well she is a certified practitioner and Senior Teacher of Zero Balancing,a hands on healing modality. http://www.barbaramahler.net
