Partnering...

Some partner work :)

Ballet II

Contemporary Dance VIII

Dancer: Nora Meldere

Contemporary Dance VIII

Dance Pedagogy

TASK: create a 5 min exercise with knowledge of contemporary dance for beginners of 13-15 years old.

As I have never had the opportunity to teach adolescents before, I decided to go for improvisation in partners:) It explores the weight.

1. Face each other, feet comfortably balanced, arms forward and slightly bent with palms resting against partner's palms. Take turns passively leaning forward into your partner's palms, allowing him to support your weight. Try to develop a trust in passively giving your body weight and receiving your partner's body weight.
2. Do the same and try to balance yourself with one leg forward and one leg backward.
3. With feet comfortably together and knees bent, hold hands at the wrist and lean back away from each other. Play with moving up and down, sideways.

Leading and following

Facing each other with only fingertips touching, take turns alowly moving, with one partner doing a free pattern of movement and the other following. Explore all the space...

Contemporary Dance VIII (Release)

Contemporary VIII is based on Release Technique and information from other techniques such as Limon, Laban, Yoga and Pilates. The course focuses on deepening the knowledge about Release technique, such as gaining speed through letting go of muscular tension and developing movement patterns into more complex combinations with varying speeds and dynamics. The students will intensify the search for connections in the body and connect movement to the breath of the body in order to enlarge the range of dynamic changes. A focus will be on personal approach to movement through improvisation and research as well as on the execution of more complicated movement patterns using the combination of floowork and travelling through vertical positions.

Learning outcomes:

• trust gravity whilst sustaining strong in the center of the body
• let breath travel and expand the movement
• stabilize the basic body positions even in complicated combinations
• let energy travel and connect movement without being imprecise
• release without being weak
• apply coordination and precision in difficult patterns
• develop a personal approach

Contemporary Dance VIII