Modern Things 4
With the studio as our laboratory, this course will integrate modern and contemporary dance traditions, somatic frameworks, and ensemble methodologies to explore dynamic and expansive movement practices in individual and group body. Starting and closing each session in a circle, we will turn in toward one another in breath, reflection, and accumulating phrase work to ground the communal nature of our work with focused attention to our own shifting bodies, objectives, and felt experiences as distinct. In the spaces between, we will spiral into and across the floor, mobilize our hips and spines, flow through circuitous pathways, and occasionally test the simultaneous grounding and release of Horton technique elements—emphasizing sensation and conceptual processing (in mind/body) rather than rote mimicry or obligatory adherence to form. Likewise, phrase work will serve as points of entry, rather than fixed standards to which we must conform without question. Through these and other experiments, we will clarify points of initiation in our bodies, engage breath, and revel in our bodies’ strength, softness, and expressivity.
