class descriptions
Big Rig Dance Collective
CONTEMPORARY/MODERN TECHNIQUE
Classes weave release technique and improvisation with rigorous and experimental phrase work to investigate artistic choices and test movement range. Focus on alignment, risk, reach, and gravity. Meets twice.
CONTACT IMPROVISATION
Skill-building exercises for functional and dynamic partnering exchanges. All skill levels.
BODYWORK & FLOORWORK - Amanda Jackson
Class begins with Vedic Thai Bodywork partnering exercises to aid in muscle release and create ease in joints. Motivated by the floor, class progresses with focus on momentum, spiral, disorientation, and visual clarity through solo body phrase work.
FITNESS FOR BALLET - Crysta Caulkins-Clouse
Utilizing exercises from Progressing Ballet Technique and Stroller Barre, this class targets specific muscles groups needed for rotation, core/alignment, port de bra, and leg movements on one leg using a variety of equipment intended to enhance deep muscle engagement and development. Participants should bring one large fit/stability/balance ball (see sizing description below), 8-9” fusion ball, and 9’ thera-band style resistance band. Participants may partner to share equipment as needed.
Fitball Sizing Description:
Make sure Fitball is aired fully for best results. When sitting on top of the fitball, a good fit is a 90 degree angle at the hips and knee joints.
Under 4’8″ – 45 cm ball
4’8” to 5’3” – 55 cm ball
5’4” to 5’10” – 65 cm ball
5’10 to 6’4 – 75cm ball
CONTEMPORARY/MODERN TECHNIQUE
Classes weave release technique and improvisation with rigorous and experimental phrase work to investigate artistic choices and test movement range. Focus on alignment, risk, reach, and gravity. Meets twice.
CONTACT IMPROVISATION
Skill-building exercises for functional and dynamic partnering exchanges. All skill levels.
BODYWORK & FLOORWORK - Amanda Jackson
Class begins with Vedic Thai Bodywork partnering exercises to aid in muscle release and create ease in joints. Motivated by the floor, class progresses with focus on momentum, spiral, disorientation, and visual clarity through solo body phrase work.
FITNESS FOR BALLET - Crysta Caulkins-Clouse
Utilizing exercises from Progressing Ballet Technique and Stroller Barre, this class targets specific muscles groups needed for rotation, core/alignment, port de bra, and leg movements on one leg using a variety of equipment intended to enhance deep muscle engagement and development. Participants should bring one large fit/stability/balance ball (see sizing description below), 8-9” fusion ball, and 9’ thera-band style resistance band. Participants may partner to share equipment as needed.
Fitball Sizing Description:
Make sure Fitball is aired fully for best results. When sitting on top of the fitball, a good fit is a 90 degree angle at the hips and knee joints.
Under 4’8″ – 45 cm ball
4’8” to 5’3” – 55 cm ball
5’4” to 5’10” – 65 cm ball
5’10 to 6’4 – 75cm ball
Elisa De La Rosa
REPERTORY
Students will learn and perform repertory from Elisa’s recent MFA project, Tortillas y Lagrimas (Tortillas and Tears). Inspired by Elisa’s experience as a Mexican-American Latina woman in the United States, this dance work tracks her family heritage through immigration experiences and relates to a larger Mexican-American experience in the US.
DANCE IMPROVISATION FOR ENSEMBLE/PERFORMANCE WORK
Explore dance improvisation as a soloist, duet, and small group for ensemble performance work. In this session participants will collaborate through improvisation strucutures. This session will end with a showing, sharing, performnace.
REPERTORY
Students will learn and perform repertory from Elisa’s recent MFA project, Tortillas y Lagrimas (Tortillas and Tears). Inspired by Elisa’s experience as a Mexican-American Latina woman in the United States, this dance work tracks her family heritage through immigration experiences and relates to a larger Mexican-American experience in the US.
DANCE IMPROVISATION FOR ENSEMBLE/PERFORMANCE WORK
Explore dance improvisation as a soloist, duet, and small group for ensemble performance work. In this session participants will collaborate through improvisation strucutures. This session will end with a showing, sharing, performnace.
Sarah Matzke
BREATH: THE EPHEMERAL METRONOME
The body prioritizes oxygen over any other process. Yet, while many of us dance we forget to simply breathe. This class is designed to deepen personal and collective movement through a focus on inhalation and exhalation- the exchange between environment and the ephemeral body.
EMBODIED COGNITION: FROM SPACE TO PLACE TO HOME
A pursuit to form kinesthetic comprehension of the body as it forms an epistemology of a space. Our class will engage in a movement practice immersed in phenomenology to understand sensory-motor processing, consciousness and the role of spatial memory/patterning.
BREATH: THE EPHEMERAL METRONOME
The body prioritizes oxygen over any other process. Yet, while many of us dance we forget to simply breathe. This class is designed to deepen personal and collective movement through a focus on inhalation and exhalation- the exchange between environment and the ephemeral body.
EMBODIED COGNITION: FROM SPACE TO PLACE TO HOME
A pursuit to form kinesthetic comprehension of the body as it forms an epistemology of a space. Our class will engage in a movement practice immersed in phenomenology to understand sensory-motor processing, consciousness and the role of spatial memory/patterning.
Jennifer Mabus
CONTEMPORARY TECHNIQUE
Mabus’ technique class is grounded in the wisdom of classical modern dance traditions, while expanding on these ideas to meet the needs and curiosities of the contemporary dancer. The class will begin with floor, standing and improvisational movement material that will research the actions of the center and spine in relationship to the limbs. We will expand upon this research with traveling material that will aim to increase the dancer’s physicality and technical abilities. The class will conclude with a phrase that will allow the dancers to make aesthetic and expressive choices.
LISTENING AND RESPONDING
In this improvisation class, we will research what it means to listen: starting with the self and the body and then developing these ideas into listening the space and to others. What kind of individual movement response does this create? From this place of listening, we will begin to research what it means to consider and to respond in collaboration with others. How does this create a conversation? Can this conversation become a conceptual and holistic improvised composition? We will explore these ideas individually, in pairs, and collectively.
CONTEMPORARY TECHNIQUE
Mabus’ technique class is grounded in the wisdom of classical modern dance traditions, while expanding on these ideas to meet the needs and curiosities of the contemporary dancer. The class will begin with floor, standing and improvisational movement material that will research the actions of the center and spine in relationship to the limbs. We will expand upon this research with traveling material that will aim to increase the dancer’s physicality and technical abilities. The class will conclude with a phrase that will allow the dancers to make aesthetic and expressive choices.
LISTENING AND RESPONDING
In this improvisation class, we will research what it means to listen: starting with the self and the body and then developing these ideas into listening the space and to others. What kind of individual movement response does this create? From this place of listening, we will begin to research what it means to consider and to respond in collaboration with others. How does this create a conversation? Can this conversation become a conceptual and holistic improvised composition? We will explore these ideas individually, in pairs, and collectively.
