Shawl-Anderson Dance Center

ADULT PROGRAM

WINTER DANCE 2021

An exciting workshop weekend for the advanced or professional modern dancer wanting an immersive
experience with a wide range of teaching artists and topics. Offered as a fully sliding scale experience for 2021.

DECEMBER 28-JANUARY 3

off-screen improv practice guided by Molly Heller

JANUARY 2-3

Two days of Somatic Practices &
Contemporary Technique

all sliding scale registration

PRICING

Winter Dance 2021 is offered on a fully sliding scale basis - pay what you wish; please note that all workshop enrollments are non-refundable.

Love Letters | $0-35

7 days asynchronous 12/28-1/3 +
wrap up meeting on 1/3, 6-7pm PST

Saturday Session | $0-50

3 classes Sat 1/2

Sunday Session | $0-50

3 classes Sun 1/3

Improv Jam | $0-20

Sun 1/3

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

To sign up:

Go to the SADC homepage and sign into your Online Portal account (or create a new account)
Click on Register for Workshops
In the cart, click on Workshop/Master Class; the drop-down menu appears on the left.

You will have 6 options for registration:

Full access to all 4 components of Winter Dance 2021
Love Letters: An Improvisational Practice only
Both Saturday & Sunday Sessions
Saturday Sessions only
Sunday Sessions only
Improv Jam only

Questions? Contact Artistic Director Jill Randall at jill@shawl-anderson.org

Workshop Descriptions

CLASS DESCRIPTIONS

ARTIST BIOS

Bio

LOVE LETTERS

Molly Heller

Molly Heller is a Salt Lake City-based artist and a Visiting Artist at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center. Over the course of 7 days, Molly will lead us through an improvisational practice off screen, seeking out movement experiences and explorations in our homes. Tapping into the visual and aural, Molly will provide the group with one movement prompt a day. These will come in the form of emails, photos, text messages, and voice memos. Get ready to tinker, improvise, make short phrases, and enliven your dancer hearts and spaces. You will get to play with the prompts on your own time, asynchronously. Molly wants us to try out: things to do for yourself, movement to create and share in your neighborhood, invisible and visible artistic practices. The group will gather on Zoom on Sunday, January 3rd at 6pm PST to reflect on the experiment and experience of the week. No final products will be made; Love Letters is about the journey. Find out more about Molly at her website and read more about her improvisational practice here at the Life as a Modern Dancer blog.

Bio

ADVANCED MODERN

Rogelio Lopez

Rogelio's class has an emphasis on alignment of the skeletal structure and the freedom that alignment allows for expansive and dynamic movement. Emphasis is placed on the movement and articulation of the torso and how material is threaded through the center of the body to the extremities. There is a lot of repetition of material and re-enforcement of conceptual ideas with a focus on breath, dynamics, and athleticism. The skeletal structure is not separated from the muscularity of the movement but both work together to generate the ability to ride momentum and falling as a means of traveling.

7:30-9p

Katie Bio

SHARPEN+EXPAND PHRASEWORK

Katie Florez & Raissa Simpson

Once warmed up from Rogelio's session beforehand, dive into a Phrasework session with choreographers Katie Florez (Fullstop Dance) and Raissa Simpson (PUSH Dance). Each will lead 30 minutes, teaching a phrase. The goal of "Sharpen+Expand" is to play with our online learning skills - seeing, embodying, "making our own," picking up movement quickly, and agilely playing with choreography in our spaces.

Raissa Bio

FELDENKRAIS

Belinda He

The Feldenkrais Method explores the biological and cultural aspects of movement, posture and learning, and how our habits can constrain us to a small portion of our potential. It uses a process of organic learning, movement, and sensing to free us from habitual patterns and allow for new patterns of thinking, moving and feeling to emerge.

Bio

YOGA

Nadia Oka

Let's start the morning off with an expansive yoga class with dancer Nadia Oka. Nadia is also a certified Laban Movement Analysis practitioner and brings in the LMA language as a lens for exploring yoga poses.

Bio

ADVANCED MODERN

Andrew Merrell

Andrew Merrell’s advanced modern technique class is based in a Post-Post (maybe another Post) Modern Dance aesthetic. His class is an experiment in surrendering to gravity, flowing through and tipping off points of balance, and chasing the addictive ecstasy of movement sensation.

Bio

LMA 101

Christy Funsch

The language of Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) is foundational to contemporary dance, and it is also a great word bank during these online times as a frame for describing movement and asking questions. Teaching artist Christy Funsch will lead a 60-minute exploration to teach and re-discover the LMA basics of Body, Effort, Shape, and Space as well as how LMA theory is embodied in Bartenieff Fundamentals.

Bio

IMPROV JAM

Molly Heller & Michael Wall

Artists Michael Wall and Molly Heller were not able to visit SADC in 2020, but they will be popping into our living rooms to ring in the new year, in true dancer fashion. Let's have a 60 minute improv jam! Michael Wall will play live, and Molly will lead the prompts for the session. Magic+whimsy+curiosity+joy. Check out Michael's music at soundformovement.com.

Michael Bio

Molly Bio

Teaching Artists

KATHRYN FLOREZ

Kathryn Florez is the Artistic Director of Fullstop Dance, a project-based contemporary dance company she founded in SF in 2015. Fullstop is a repertory company that has commissioned work from international artists, in addition to performing Florez's work, and regularly hosts out-of-town artists for open workshops for the Bay Area dance community. Florez's work has been presented at ODC Theater, Palace of Fine Arts, Cowell Theater, Dance Mission Theater and more, and her choreography and teaching have been commissioned by The Merde Project (SF), TWObigsteps (Vancouver), SALT Dance's Link Program (SLC), and ODC's Hot Spot (SF). Over the years, Florez has worked professionally with David Herrera Performance Company, Amy Foley, Amy Seiwert, Robert Moses, ZiRu Dance, and others.

CHRISTY FUNSCH

Christy Funsch (MFA, CMA) is a dance maker, educator, and performer. She has directed Funsch Dance for the past 18 years, and her latest project for the company is a 12 hour performance installation (EPOCH) premiering in September 2021. She has taught and performed throughout the U.S. and is currently a Visiting Artist at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania.

BELINDA HE

Belinda He is a dance artist and Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner who received her MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College. She incorporates her studies of the Feldenkrais Method® and various aspects of functional anatomy and biomechanics into an ever-evolving personal physical practice in order to synthesize her physical, intellectual and creative energies. Since relocating to the Bay Area from New York City, where she was on faculty at the Feldenkrais Institute of New York, she maintains a private Feldenkrais practice in San Francisco, where she works with humans and dancers of all stripes.

MOLY HELLER

Molly Heller is the director of Heartland, a multi-disciplinary collective based in Salt Lake City, with collaborators in dance, visual arts, and music. She is also an Assistant Professor in the School of Dance at the University of Utah. Molly currently dances with Joanna Kotze, Katie Faulkner, and Arletta Anderson.

ROGELIO LOPEZ

Rogelio Lopez is an educator, dancer, choreographer, and lighting, scenic,and costume designer. Currently he serves as the Director of the MFA in Dance at Saint Mary's College. He is also the director of Rogelio Lopez & Dancers, and he is thrilled to be part of this Winter Dance Workshop.

ANDREW MERRELL

Andrew Merrell has been a dance artist in the SF Bay Area for 10 years, dancing for many other local artists and creating his own work. He does not believe in dogmatic dance, hierarchical dance, and he can't (and does not presume) to tell you the right way to dance. His only agenda is to queer dance as much as possible and be inspired by your moving body.

NADIA OKA

Nadia Oka blends Hatha and Vinyasa styles to create classes which are based on the sensing of body, breath and alignment to bring awareness to the kinesthetic and anatomical relationships between each movement in order to discover new relationships within the body. Her classes are deeply informed by the concepts found in Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals.

RAISSA SIMPSON

Raissa Simpson is an African American/Pilipino choreographer and artistic director of the San Francisco-based PUSH Dance Company. Her multidisciplinary dances are at the intersection of complex racial and cultural identities and centers around discourse on the complex experiences of racialized bodies. A graduate of SUNY Purchase with an MFA from UC Davis, Simpson had an extensive performance career with Robert Moses’ Kin and Joanna Haigood’s Zaccho Dance Theatre. Her choreography has been presented by Joyce SoHo, Aspen Fringe Festival, Dance St. Louis, Ferst Center, Los Angeles Women’s Theater Festival and Black Choreographers Festival. www.pushdance.org

MICHAEL WALL

Michael Wall is an internationally recognized composer, performer and educator who offers a comprehensive online library of music for dance students, teachers and choreographers. You can find all of his music at www.soundFORMovement.com.