Sustaining your artistic dance practice is a generative class and transfigures Improvisations into Choreography. The class is a clarifying process for understanding the themes or content you as an individual are drawn to or can't help but to literally be moved into your body to talk/express about that thing. In this class we will ask questions,draw landscapes, augment our improvisations and have the option to work solo or in community. We will be improving and creating dance phrases to augment answering the personal fundamental questions of how, why, when, where and for whom you dance. These are questions that can change season to season, year to year. We will open up to the possibility of questions to inspire the body from "fear-frozenness" " overwhelm-frozenness" “alone-frozendness” and into movement investigation and current expression with collective accountability. This class is embodying augmentation, choice-making, and setting choreography or clear improv scores.

Bio Liz(zy) Mulkey is a choreographer, improv dancer, film-maker, teacher, and actress who splits her time between Los Angeles and Maine. Her work as an actress and 15-year rewarding career as a fitness and somatic teacher drew her to artistically investigate how stories are held and echoed through the body, breath, and voice. She presents her original choreography as live performance, film, and photography. Her work has been performed in art galleries, community art-walks, pop-up shows, beaches, parks, shopping centers, studio showings, and more.

In Los Angeles, Liz has presented work at the Strub Theatre Loyola Marymount University, two site-specific pieces at Platform Culver City and The Stockstill Space, multiple times at High Voltage in the Electric Lodge, and Pop-up Show at Muscle Beach Venice. She has danced at Highways Performance Space and Dance Camera West outdoor live performances. Her most recent film, “Yellow,” was just shown in Golden College West Gallery.

Nationally, she has presented at the Tank Theater (NYC), Movement Research (NYC),Green Street Studios (Boston, MA), and The Living Room (Portland, ME). Liz has screened a film at opening 92ndY Mobile Film Fest 2019 (NYC), danced at Brooklyn Prospect Park with choreographer Molly Hess and sculptor Fitzhugh Karol and performed with Alexandra Pirici for Highline Arts NYC.

Liz works to enrich her local and national communities with movement as wellness, performance, and art. She teaches Improv, Choreography, Pilates, and Yoga at the Dance Department of Loyola Marymount University, where she received her B.A in Dance. She has taught at Lion’s Jaw Performance + Dance Festival, Green Street Studios, Brooklyn Summer Street Fest, and The Moving Joint. She contributes to the online teaching platform with pop-up dance practices and wellness classes. This summer she will be at SubCircle Residency in Biddeford, Maine. Connect & More Info at lizmulkey.com

https://www.lizmulkey.com/dance-workshop

Sustaining your artistic dance practice is a generative class and transfigures Improvisations into Choreography. The class is a clarifying process for understanding the themes or content you as an individual are drawn to or can't help but to literally be moved into your body to talk/express about that thing. In this class we will ask questions,draw landscapes, augment our improvisations and have the option to work solo or in community. We will be improving and creating dance phrases to augment answering the personal fundamental questions of how, why, when, where and for whom you dance. These are questions that can change season to season, year to year. We will open up to the possibility of questions to inspire the body from "fear-frozenness" " overwhelm-frozenness" “alone-frozendness” and into movement investigation and current expression with collective accountability. This class is embodying augmentation, choice-making, and setting choreography or clear improv scores.

Bio Liz(zy) Mulkey is a choreographer, improv dancer, film-maker, teacher, and actress who splits her time between Los Angeles and Maine. Her work as an actress and 15-year rewarding career as a fitness and somatic teacher drew her to artistically investigate how stories are held and echoed through the body, breath, and voice. She presents her original choreography as live performance, film, and photography. Her work has been performed in art galleries, community art-walks, pop-up shows, beaches, parks, shopping centers, studio showings, and more.

In Los Angeles, Liz has presented work at the Strub Theatre Loyola Marymount University, two site-specific pieces at Platform Culver City and The Stockstill Space, multiple times at High Voltage in the Electric Lodge, and Pop-up Show at Muscle Beach Venice. She has danced at Highways Performance Space and Dance Camera West outdoor live performances. Her most recent film, “Yellow,” was just shown in Golden College West Gallery.

Nationally, she has presented at the Tank Theater (NYC), Movement Research (NYC),Green Street Studios (Boston, MA), and The Living Room (Portland, ME). Liz has screened a film at opening 92ndY Mobile Film Fest 2019 (NYC), danced at Brooklyn Prospect Park with choreographer Molly Hess and sculptor Fitzhugh Karol and performed with Alexandra Pirici for Highline Arts NYC.

Liz works to enrich her local and national communities with movement as wellness, performance, and art. She teaches Improv, Choreography, Pilates, and Yoga at the Dance Department of Loyola Marymount University, where she received her B.A in Dance. She has taught at Lion’s Jaw Performance + Dance Festival, Green Street Studios, Brooklyn Summer Street Fest, and The Moving Joint. She contributes to the online teaching platform with pop-up dance practices and wellness classes. This summer she will be at SubCircle Residency in Biddeford, Maine. Connect & More Info at lizmulkey.com

https://www.lizmulkey.com/dance-workshop

Payment info you can post

Venmo @LizzyMulkeyPilates or paypal lizzymulkey@gmail.com $10 a class or $25 for all 3 classes

Sustaining your artistic dance practice is a generative class and transfigures Improvisations into Choreography. The class is a clarifying process for understanding the themes or content you as an individual are drawn to or can't help but to literally be moved into your body to talk/express about that thing. In this class we will ask questions,draw landscapes, augment our improvisations and have the option to work solo or in community. We will be improving and creating dance phrases to augment answering the personal fundamental questions of how, why, when, where and for whom you dance. These are questions that can change season to season, year to year. We will open up to the possibility of questions to inspire the body from "fear-frozenness" " overwhelm-frozenness" “alone-frozendness” and into movement investigation and current expression with collective accountability. This class is embodying augmentation, choice-making, and setting choreography or clear improv scores.

Bio Liz(zy) Mulkey is a choreographer, improv dancer, film-maker, teacher, and actress who splits her time between Los Angeles and Maine. Her work as an actress and 15-year rewarding career as a fitness and somatic teacher drew her to artistically investigate how stories are held and echoed through the body, breath, and voice. She presents her original choreography as live performance, film, and photography. Her work has been performed in art galleries, community art-walks, pop-up shows, beaches, parks, shopping centers, studio showings, and more.

In Los Angeles, Liz has presented work at the Strub Theatre Loyola Marymount University, two site-specific pieces at Platform Culver City and The Stockstill Space, multiple times at High Voltage in the Electric Lodge, and Pop-up Show at Muscle Beach Venice. She has danced at Highways Performance Space and Dance Camera West outdoor live performances. Her most recent film, “Yellow,” was just shown in Golden College West Gallery.

Nationally, she has presented at the Tank Theater (NYC), Movement Research (NYC),Green Street Studios (Boston, MA), and The Living Room (Portland, ME). Liz has screened a film at opening 92ndY Mobile Film Fest 2019 (NYC), danced at Brooklyn Prospect Park with choreographer Molly Hess and sculptor Fitzhugh Karol and performed with Alexandra Pirici for Highline Arts NYC.

Liz works to enrich her local and national communities with movement as wellness, performance, and art. She teaches Improv, Choreography, Pilates, and Yoga at the Dance Department of Loyola Marymount University, where she received her B.A in Dance. She has taught at Lion’s Jaw Performance + Dance Festival, Green Street Studios, Brooklyn Summer Street Fest, and The Moving Joint. She contributes to the online teaching platform with pop-up dance practices and wellness classes. This summer she will be at SubCircle Residency in Biddeford, Maine. Connect & More Info at lizmulkey.com

https://www.lizmulkey.com/dance-workshop

Payment info:

Venmo @LizzyMulkeyPilates or paypal lizzymulkey@gmail.com $10 a class or $25 for all 3 classes

The Anatomy of Center introduces the experiential anatomy dance work of Nancy Topf - Topf Technique and Dynamic Anatomy. In this course, we use basic anatomical imagery as an entryway into movement exploration and improvisation to support and empower your everyday movement and creative process. These classes which include guided stretching and self-regulated movement will energize and refresh you midweek. Have some drawing materials handy.

Zoom the class here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89439132999
Passcode: 262113

By donation, $5 suggested. Info in chat.

Melinda Buckwalter is a dance writer and movement researcher, and co-editor of Contact Quarterly, an artist-made and reader-supported nonprofit journal of dance and improvisation, and author of Composing While Dancing: An Improviser’s Companion (University of Wisconsin Press), which explores the improvisational strategies of twenty-six pioneering contemporary dance artists. Melinda has investigated and written about Nancy Topf’s work since the early 1990s, when Nancy’s work launched Melinda into a life study of dance improvisation and curiosity around making dances through it. Over the years Melinda has taught dance in a variety of settings, including anatomy and kinesiology for dancers at Wesleyan and Bates, and for the yoga teacher-training programs. Melinda is a bodyworker and holds an MFA in dance from Bennington College and an MA in dance anthropology from University of Roehampton, London. Currently she is a PhD in dance candidate at the Texas Woman’s University in Denton, TX, for which she is researching dance and how it creates relationship with the environment. Reach her at melinda.buckwalter at gmail.com.

The Anatomy of Center introduces the experiential anatomy dance work of Nancy Topf - Topf Technique and Dynamic Anatomy. In this course, we use basic anatomical imagery as an entryway into movement exploration and improvisation to support and empower your everyday movement and creative process. These classes which include guided stretching and self-regulated movement will energize and refresh you midweek. Have some drawing materials handy.

Zoom the class here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89439132999
Passcode: 262113

By donation, $5 suggested. Info in chat.

Melinda Buckwalter is a dance writer and movement researcher, and co-editor of Contact Quarterly, an artist-made and reader-supported nonprofit journal of dance and improvisation, and author of Composing While Dancing: An Improviser’s Companion (University of Wisconsin Press), which explores the improvisational strategies of twenty-six pioneering contemporary dance artists. Melinda has investigated and written about Nancy Topf’s work since the early 1990s, when Nancy’s work launched Melinda into a life study of dance improvisation and curiosity around making dances through it. Over the years Melinda has taught dance in a variety of settings, including anatomy and kinesiology for dancers at Wesleyan and Bates, and for the yoga teacher-training programs. Melinda is a bodyworker and holds an MFA in dance from Bennington College and an MA in dance anthropology from University of Roehampton, London. Currently she is a PhD in dance candidate at the Texas Woman’s University in Denton, TX, for which she is researching dance and how it creates relationship with the environment. Reach her at melinda.buckwalter at gmail.com.

The Anatomy of Center introduces the experiential anatomy dance work of Nancy Topf - Topf Technique and Dynamic Anatomy. In this course, we use basic anatomical imagery as an entryway into movement exploration and improvisation to support and empower your everyday movement and creative process. These classes which include guided stretching and self-regulated movement will energize and refresh you midweek. Have some drawing materials handy.

Zoom the class here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89439132999
Passcode: 262113

By donation, $5 suggested. Info in chat.

Melinda Buckwalter is a dance writer and movement researcher, and co-editor of Contact Quarterly, an artist-made and reader-supported nonprofit journal of dance and improvisation, and author of Composing While Dancing: An Improviser’s Companion (University of Wisconsin Press), which explores the improvisational strategies of twenty-six pioneering contemporary dance artists. Melinda has investigated and written about Nancy Topf’s work since the early 1990s, when Nancy’s work launched Melinda into a life study of dance improvisation and curiosity around making dances through it. Over the years Melinda has taught dance in a variety of settings, including anatomy and kinesiology for dancers at Wesleyan and Bates, and for the yoga teacher-training programs. Melinda is a bodyworker and holds an MFA in dance from Bennington College and an MA in dance anthropology from University of Roehampton, London. Currently she is a PhD in dance candidate at the Texas Woman’s University in Denton, TX, for which she is researching dance and how it creates relationship with the environment. Reach her at melinda.buckwalter at gmail.com.

The Anatomy of Center introduces the experiential anatomy dance work of Nancy Topf - Topf Technique and Dynamic Anatomy. In this course, we use basic anatomical imagery as an entryway into movement exploration and improvisation to support and empower your everyday movement and creative process. These classes which include guided stretching and self-regulated movement will energize and refresh you midweek. Have some drawing materials handy.

Zoom the class here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89439132999
Passcode: 262113

By donation, $5 suggested. Info in chat.

Melinda Buckwalter is a dance writer and movement researcher, and co-editor of Contact Quarterly, an artist-made and reader-supported nonprofit journal of dance and improvisation, and author of Composing While Dancing: An Improviser’s Companion (University of Wisconsin Press), which explores the improvisational strategies of twenty-six pioneering contemporary dance artists. Melinda has investigated and written about Nancy Topf’s work since the early 1990s, when Nancy’s work launched Melinda into a life study of dance improvisation and curiosity around making dances through it. Over the years Melinda has taught dance in a variety of settings, including anatomy and kinesiology for dancers at Wesleyan and Bates, and for the yoga teacher-training programs. Melinda is a bodyworker and holds an MFA in dance from Bennington College and an MA in dance anthropology from University of Roehampton, London. Currently she is a PhD in dance candidate at the Texas Woman’s University in Denton, TX, for which she is researching dance and how it creates relationship with the environment. Reach her at melinda.buckwalter at gmail.com.

• Sunday, March 8th

• 1-3PM

• Mechanic’s Hall

Moving Target Portland is an all-levels adult contemporary dance class led by different guest choreographers.

$12-20 sliding scale (no one turned away)

SHAINA CANTINO is a dance artist, improviser, movement educator and Licensed Massage Therapist/Craniosacral Therapist based in western Massachusetts and Bath, Maine. She holds an MFA in dance from Smith College and is a graduate of the National Theatre Institute and Kenyon College (BA, Distinction in Dance). Cantino is a recent recipient of a New England Foundation for the Arts’ New England Dance Fund grant for the development of a duet piece, in collaboration with performer Leah Fournier and Oregon-based theater artist Rose Proctor, premiered at the A.P.E. Gallery in Northampton, MA. Cantino’s choreography and performance have been presented at performance venues and universities across the country. Her performance is noted for its understated humor and off-balance physicality. Shaina has taught semester courses in contemporary technique (levels I-V), composition and Contact Improvisation (CI) at Bowdoin College, Colby College, Wesleyan University and Keene State, Mount Holyoke and Smith Colleges, as well as intensive international CI workshops and weekly adult classes at School for Contemporary Dance and Thought (SCDT). Cantino has had the pleasure of collaborating with Aretha Aoki, Chris Aiken, Angie Hauser, Paul Matteson, Nancy Stark Smith, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Michael Figueroa, Joy Davis, Leah Fournier, and Sara Coffin. She has intensively trained with Kirstie Simpson (2018), Sara Shelton Mann and Abby Crain (2018, 2016), Susan Rethorst (2016), Bebe Miller Company (2015), St. Petersburg State Theater Academy (2009), Kathleen Hermesdorf/Sara Shelton Mann/Keith Hennessy (2009), American Conservatory Theater (2008), and Bates Dance Festival (2007).

• Sunday, Feb 9

• 1-3PM

• Mechanic’s Hall

The Dancer is a Haunted House
We will invite the seen and unseen murmurings of past, present, and future to surface in spontaneous dancing, writing, sounding, and speaking—using the principles of automatic writing to structure improvisations that move between language and body mind. We will use our imaginations to extend the boundaries of the self into the unknown so as to be more weathervane than conductor: pointing the direction of the wind, not making the wind happen. We will perform for and with each other. Please bring something to write on and something to write with.

Bio:
Aretha is a choreographer, performer, editor, and occasional curator. She works collaboratively with artists across disciplines to make performances that explore the intersection between dance and other media, while being grounded in a deep physicality—in movement experimentation and research, and in the intuitive logic of the performer. Her current research is an exploration of the body as a medium for the residue of family history. Aretha's work has been presented at various venues throughout New York City, New England, and Canada. The New York Times described her solos as "contemplative and probing." As a performer, she has collaborated with Emily Johnson/Catalyst Dance for over seven years. She has also worked with robbinschilds, Rebecca Serrell Cyr, devynn emory, Vanessa Anspaugh, Heather Kravas, Juliette Mapp, Daria Fain, Maura Donohue, Elizabeth Ward, Martin Lanz, Faye Driscoll, Lisa D’Amour & Katie Pearl, and many others. Her writing has been published in Contact Quarterly, where she was Associate Editor for three years. She was a co-curator of the 2016 Movement Research Spring Festival Hand Written Note(s).

• Saturday, January 25

• 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

• Casco Bay Movers

Intermediate Contemporary Workshop with Jessie Laurita-Spanglet

Saturday, 1/25/20 | 10:30-Noon | $17 or a card punch, $14 college students & seniors
Open to experienced teens and adults

Class Description:
Armed with curiosity and a hunger for movement, students in this class will find opportunities to engage in playful exploration of improvisational structures and movement patterns. We will warm up our bodies and creative spirits, find connections with each other through duet and group structures, and dig into set movement material and phrase work.
Bio:
Jessie Laurita-Spanglet is an active teacher-artist-scholar and a Research Associate in Dance at Bowdoin College. For the past four years, Jessie has worked as a Teaching Fellow and Research Assistant Professor at Wake Forest University, where in addition to her more tradition teaching and creative work, Jessie engaged her local community through teaching IMPROVment—a method of teaching improvisation to movers of all kinds that was developed by Wake Forest Associate Professor Christina Soriano. Jessie's focus on Arts in Health and Creative Aging have led her to work closely with the Dance Exchange in Takoma Park, MD, to teach movement classes to older adults, adults with neurodegenerative diseases, and adults who are blind or visually impaired, and more recently, to serve as an interventionist on the NIH-funded iMOVE study which uses the IMPROVment method to test the effects of improvisational movement on people living with mild cognitive impairment.

Jessie has had teaching and creative engagements at the University of the North Carolina School of the Arts, the University of Virginia, Davis and Elkins College, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Dance Exchange, among others. From 2015-2017, Jessie was an organizing artist for On Site/In Sight, a site-situated dance festival that brought artists to Winston-Salem NC, to dance in parks, on rooftops, and in the streets. Jessie’s latest choreographic work, Scale Models, was a site-specific investigation of the landscape and architecture in and around the Scales Fine Arts Center on the campus of Wake Forest University. During the fall of 2018, and with a grant from Wake Forest's interdisciplinary initiatives center (IPLACe), Jessie collaborated with two architecture professors to create a new course on site-specific dance and choreography.

Since graduating with an MFA in dance from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2014, Jessie has had the pleasure of dancing for Alexandra Beller, Maree ReMalia/merrygogo, Dance Exchange, Mansurdance, Heart Stück Bernie, and PEARSONWIDRIG DANCETHEATRE. Jessie is a Stott-certified Pilates teacher through Balance Pilates in Richmond VA, and holds a BFA in modern dance from the North Carolina School of the Arts.

CLASS DESCRIPTION

Hans’ capoeira classes weave a variety of footwork, kicks, dodges, acrobatics, arm balances, music, and ritual into a community celebration that is challenging, engaging, and rewarding.

Have you met capoeira before? Just in case you haven't: capoeira is a physical, musical, community game; it was originally a martial art developed by african slaves in NE Brasil, and hidden from slave masters as a dance.

In Hans’ classes, those that are new to the game of capoeira learn their basic movement vocabulary: the ginga. Those that have a longer history with capoeira gain insight into improvised, interconnected movements. For all practitioners, novice and seasoned, there is a strong focus on actively learning the conversational play that takes place in the roda (capoeira circle where 2 practitioners “play.'') Also, for all practitioners, there is a strong focus on sharpening a felt sense awareness of the body in space, partially owing to Hans’ multi-decade background with Iyengar-based yoga, and alignment principals.

Musicality is a big part of capoeira and participants in Hans’ classes have the opportunity to learn traditional rhythms and choruses in voice and in body!
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BIO

Hans was boppin before he was born, dancing belly dance with his Mother when she performed 4 months pregnant. Since then music and movement arts have brought him to Latin America and all over the west and east coasts, studying with masters of living arts. For the last 12 years, Hans has been lucky enough to be the student of Mestre Pedro Cruz from Salvador da Bahia, in NE Brasil. Hans has taught capoeira extensively in Portland, OR (including at Reed College), the west coast, and Mexico. In addition to a long history with capoeira, Hans has spent much time honing folkloric, jazz, and classical idioms on multiple string and percussion instruments. Hans holds a degree in jazz studies from Portland State University (Oregon) and has worked with artists and ensembles (including Son de Madera, Laura Rebolloso, Rejoice Diaspora Dance Theater, Radio Jarocho, and others) on the west and east coasts and into Mexico and Brasil.

$12-20 sliding scale
If cost is prohibitive, email studio408dance@gmail.com at least 24 hrs in advance to request a cost that you can afford.

Learn traditional Congolese dance! Dancer Grace Kapinga will share folkloric dance from her home country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This class is open to all levels and will be taught in English, French, and Lingala based on participant needs.

Class/Workshop Description:

I teach classes that vary in structure. You offer desires/suggestions that shape the content and order of the class to bring about a deeply involved, sweaty, midday moment. Class can consist of improvisation (guided or task-based), contact skills, dense phrase material, floor work, and somatic information. Class pace is geared towards pre-professional/professional dancers. My class is designed in real-time to activate and develop intuitive/instinctual decision-making skills, improve recall of long movement phrases and instill a desire to take risks. Through repetition, we interrogate action and sweat. I encourage you to treat choreography as improvisation and improvisation as choreography.

Biography:

Michael Figueroa is a Boston based performance maker, teacher, server and performer. His dances deal with rulebreaking, rote memory, audience participation, and improvisational situations. His work has been commissioned by the Dance Complex, the Mobius Artists Group, Dance Now Boston and Outside the Box Festival. He has taught workshops at College of the Holy Cross, Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, Moving Target (Boston and Portland, ME), and NACHMO Boston. Michael teaches weekly classes (every Tuesday) as a part of Midday Movement Series, a class series founded by Marissa Molinar that takes place at Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre. Most recently, Michael taught two weeks of Access 8 at Gibney Dance in New York and performed in Dance Now at Joe's Pub in collaboration with Alex Davis. Michael holds a BFA in dance from The Boston Conservatory.

This is a SPECIAL event GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY Bates College and Colby College in celebration of Portland Dance Month. Special thanks to Carol Dilley and Annie Kloppenberg!

COST:
FREE for Bates & Colby College students
$5 for all other college students w/ ID
$12-20 sliding scale for everyone else!

CLASS DESCRIPTION

You may already know Kathleen from her previous visit to Moving Target or from multiple years at the Bates Dance Festival. To quote Delanie McDonough, "If you like improvising, pretending to be a ninja, going upside down, and badass dance parties, DONT MISS THIS CLASS!" Check out their website http://www.la-alternativa.us/home.html

GUT Motives [alternative dance techniques]

- An ongoing practice/research investigating corporeality from internal impulse to external expression.
- An intimate/animated arena for physical/creative exploration, deeply informed by live/original music.
- Motivated by interpretations of GUT, including good, general unified theory, viscera, center of gravity, gravitas, courage, instinct, intuition and expressive vulnerability.
- Exploring states/acts of motion/imagination through a hybrid of traditional /contemporary /alternative /intuitive forms.
- Utilizing embodiment/mobility/motivity as ways and means of perception/intuition/action.
- Deepening awareness/understanding of the body with energy work, hands-on experiments, kinesthetic/somatic improvisation, technical modalities and three-dimensional choreography.
- For movers who are curious/serious/adventurous about sensate virtuosity, kinetic efficiency, interactive intelligence and performance-level dancing.


BIO
Kathleen Hermesdorf is an international dance artist, educator and producer based in San Francisco. She directs ALTERNATIVA, with musician Albert Mathias. Hermesdorf has been dancing in the Bay Area since 1991 and teaches, performs, improvises, creates and curates around the world. Her work has been presented in the Bay Area, New York, Seattle, Berlin, Amsterdam, Ballydehob and Dakar, amongst other locations, in commission for universities, companies and independent dancers, and in collaboration with art partners worldwide. She was a member of Bebe Miller Company, Contraband/Sara Shelton Mann and Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, and co-director of Hermesdorf & Wells Dance Company with Scott Wells and Collusion with Stephanie Maher. She is the co-director of PORCH summerschool at Ponderosa in Stolzenhagen, Germany. Hermesdorf brings over 20 years of experience from the field, studio and stage to her work and holds a BFA and an MFA in Dance Performance + Pedagogy.

ALTERNATIVA is an apparatus for deeply integrated contemporary dance and music via collaboration, creation, improvisation, performance, production, curation and education. Active in San Francisco since 1998, the organization supports the creative work of the directors, known for radical dance classes, multi-disciplinary performance projects and visceral musical endeavors delving into the corporeality and ineffability of human conditions, behaviors and other curiosities. Activities engaging an extensive population of artists, audiences and participants include an annual FRESH Festival of Experimental Dance, Performance + Music in San Francisco; ongoing classes and workshops in the Bay Area; and residencies at universities, festivals and studios worldwide. ALTERNATIVA is fiscally sponsored by Dancers’ Group and has received support from the Zellerbach Family Foundation, William + Flora Hewlett Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Fleishhacker Foundation, Dancers’ Group’s Matching Grant and CA$H Grant, CHIME/MJDC, the San Francisco Arts Commission and The Suitcase Fund.
www.la-alternativa.us | www.freshfestival.org

$12-20 sliding scale
If cost is prohibitive, email studio408dance@gmail.com at least 24 hrs in advance to request a cost that you can afford.

CLASS DESCRIPTION

Junichi Fukuda shares his choreographic study based on the concept of defining invisible paths and directions. He leads the workshop focusing on awakening the students' physical and psychological relationalities with space through instructed improvisation.

FUKUDANCE Promotion video: https://vimeo.com/352623783

TEACHER BIO

Junichi Fukuda has been an instrumental dancer to such companies as Ballet Tech/NY, Oakland Ballet, Smuin Ballet/SF, Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, the New York Baroque Dance Company, Buglisi Dance Theatre, Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre, Christopher K. Morgan & Artists, City Ballet of Boston and Peridance Contemporary Dance Company. He has received Emerging Choreographer residency from Bates Dance Festival, CATALYSTS Artist residency from the Dance Complex, and Rehearsal and Retreat Fellowship from Boston Dance Alliance as well as receiving grants from Somerville Arts Council, New England Foundation for the Arts, Boston Cultural Council, Fidelity Charitable Foundation and the Boston Foundation. In 2014, Junichi formed his company “Fukudance” (www.fukudance.com) as a vehicle to continue his artistic journey from dancer to choreographer and director. His works have been presented at 18MASDANZA in Spain, Mexico City's Festival Internacional de Danza Contemporánea de la Ciudad, Dance St. Louis’ Spring to Dance Festival, DanceNow at Joe’s Pub Festival, Provincetown Dance festival and Bates Dance Festival as well as the local festivals in New England region. The Washington Post states Junichi's work as "tasteful proposal" and "a work of easeful harmony." He is a native of Japan where he continues to be involved with the community he has spent his youth as well as on collaborating with the local artists. In recent years, he has appeared in the events in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, Fukuoka, and his hometown Yamaguchi. He holds MFA in Choreography from Jacksonville University.

$12-20 sliding scale
If cost is prohibitive, email studio408dance@gmail.com at least 24 hrs in advance to request a cost that you can afford.

Riley Watts will be leading a dance workshop based on the fundamentals of William Forsythe improvisation and choreography, honing in on the body’s physical strength, coordination, and articulation.

Watts is based in Portland, and his work explores consciousness through movement. He trained at Bangor Ballet and Walnut Hill School for the Arts and received a bachelor’s degree in dance from The Juilliard School in 2007. He has danced across Europe and works as a freelance teacher, choreographer, researcher and performer. Watts is on the faculty at the Bangor Ballet, a member of the advisory committee for the Bates Dance Festival and a dance and performance advisor for Space Gallery. He is the recipient of a Princess Grace Award. 

This event is presented in collaboration with Casco Bay Movers and The Living Room Dance Collective.

$17 AT THE DOOR*
(Contact us if cost is prohibitive)

BIO
Cookie Harrist is a dancer who moved from Maine to San Francisco in 2017. She has performed in works by Joe Goode Performance Group, Sara Shelton Mann, Larry Arrington, Catherine Galasso, LEVYdance, Hana van der Kolk/Asher Woodworth and others. She is a faculty member at the ODC School in San Francisco where she teaches contemporary/release and contact improvisation.

CLASS DESCRIPTION
Cookie's contemporary class is a playful mix of improvisation and choreography. The first half of class is a series of improvisational studies that asks how we create legible meaning through our dancing vocabulary. We explore this question through working with a partner/witness, activating the emotional body and confusing proprioceptive and visual senses to strengthen the inner eye. In the latter portion of class, we lean into a contemporary/lyrical framework and learn choreography to a specific piece of music with a narrative and emotional arc. We play with the expression of the choreography, allowing ourselves to be too much and/or just enough. All experience levels welcome! adults and teens.

*CASH OR CHECK AT THE DOOR. NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED. NO CREDIT CARDS!

CLASS DESCRIPTION
Learn and play with material that Laura is using in a new piece called Private Dancer. Private Dancer is a kind of solo that Laura made in a partially finished house in Tilson, NY in January 2018 and then shared at Bates Dance Festival in Lewiston, ME in July 2018. The movement pattern can be hard to do exactly the same way as someone else does it and that is OK. Laura will ask you to problem solve and make the solo your own while working on your awareness of what you are actually seeing, hearing, and feeling as you do so. Stillness, breath, gaze, and questions of how to be alone together might come up. We'll do a very brief warm up. Please wear what supports modest full-range of motion for your body’s movements.

At 2:30pm we will perform and document what we've created. All are welcome to come in to watch and/or respond via photo, video, drawing, writing, or other mediums.

BIO
Laura K. Nicoll is originally from Mt. Desert Island, Maine and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. After training with American Ballet Theater and Pacific Northwest Ballet, Nicoll joined Pittsburgh Ballet Theater’s corps de ballet where she was also a union representative. With PBT, she performed in a diverse repertoire that included works by George Balanchine, Matjash Mrozewski, Dwight Rhoden, Lynn Taylor-Corbett, and Twyla Tharp. She has an ongoing, decade-long collaboration with new media artist/director Reid Farrington which includes roles as a performer in The Passion Project (2009-2012, 2019) and A Christmas Carol (2011-2012), and as choreographer for Tyson vs. Ali (2014) and CasablancaBox (2017) and BrandoCapote (2019). She has also created several site-specific dance performances between 2015-2018 in collaboration with choreographer Jessica Nicoll performed in a Brooklyn home and The Kraine Theater in the East Village, NYC.

Since May 2017, Laura has been developing solo material in outdoor and indoor spaces, work-shopping it at Bates Dance Festival in Lewiston, Maine, where she was an artist in residence in 2018. She recently participated in Portland Dance Month 2018 with PROMENADE, a 2 hour journey between the Casco Bay Ferry Terminal and Creative Portland.

She co-founded KREILKAMP NICOLL, a performance art company with her brother Rufus Morgan Kreilkamp Nicoll, as a platform to make and share performance, art, and services of all kinds. They are currently working on an evening length work featuring performers, labor and art movement practices, music, text, materials that were familiar to them growing up on an island on the coast of Maine.

In addition to choreographing and performing, Laura has experience in strategic planning, branding, and communications for non-profit arts organizations, individual artists, and projects across all disciplines.

kreilkampnicoll.com
@lauraknicoll

PHOTO:
PROMENADE as part of Portland Dance Month 2018. Photo by Arthur Fink.

VERY CLOSE (TOGETHER)   

Description: 

-Body Part Focus (Warm up)

-Clumpy Unison (Warm Up) 

-Gestural Choreography Learning 

Bio: 

Kelsie is a Portland, ME based Movement Artist, Choreographer and Outdoor Experiential Educator. She graduated from Plymouth State University with a Bachelors in Adventure Education and Dance in May, 2018. She received the 2018 Contemporary Dance Ensemble award for her achievements in choreography. Her most recent major work was a three-part film project based in Lithuania. Kelsie has had the joy of living, dancing and teaching internationally. While in Norway, she taught community dance classes in the village she lived in and was featured in a clothing commercial where she danced in a mossy forest. Feel free to view her website to learn more:  https://kmsrandomdesigns.wixsite.com/movement 

Photo credit: Khand Tenney 

If class cost is prohibitive to you, please email studio408dance@gmail.com at least 24 hours beforehand to request a rate that you can afford.

Class will begin with a simple and feel good follow along warm-up to get to know our bodies and classmates a bit better. From there Nora will begin the introduction of some short movement phrases drawing inspiration from classics a grapevine? perhaps a polka or a waltz? We will then have time to build on these phrases creating a personalized movement vocabulary through a series of improvisation games and provocations. There will be time to layer in thoughts and feelings and by the end of class together we will have created a moment of masterpiece. The music will be good and it will be fun!

BIO
Nora Petroliunas is a 2006 graduate of the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase. She is the artistic director of the Pharmacy Project, a group of friends working together since 2009 to create narrative dance performance pieces for atypical spaces with the help of the Brooklyn Arts Council, and a series of wonderful collaborators and producers. Settings have ranged from dingy and dark Brooklyn Veterans Post 8903 to the ethereal rooftop garden of the Chelsea Hotel. Her work has been presented by Gowanus Art and Production, Dance Now NYC, Triskelion Arts, Be Electric Studios, Little Theatre, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Dixon Place, Links Hall, The Bushwick Starr, LIGO Project, Certamen Internacional de Coreografia in Burgos, Spain as well as the Cape Dance Festival in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Nora was a guest artist at SUNY Purchase for the Spring 2018 semester before relocating to Portland. The Pharmacy Project made their Maine debut in the Fall of 2018 as part of The Moving Body in Space at SPACE. Nora is excited to spread her love of approachable modern dance to a new community. Please visit www.thepharmacyproject.com to see the company in action.

In partnership with Bates Dance Festival, the Living Room presents Moving Target Portland w/ Kimberly Bartosik. MOVING TARGET PORTLAND is an all-levels, contemporary adult dance class. Cost is $12-20 sliding scale (If this is prohibitive, please email studio408dance@gmail.com at least 24 hours beforehand).

Class Description:
NYC-Based Choreographer, performer and educator Kimberly Bartosik leads a rigorous technical/somatic based warm-up followed by sharing movement material from her recent work, I hunger for you.

BIO
Bessie Award-winning performer Kimberly Bartosik creates viscerally provocative choreographic projects that are built upon the development of a virtuosic movement language, rigorous conceptual explorations, and the creation of highly theatricalized environments. Bartosik’s work has been commissioned and presented by BAM Next Wave Festival (2018), Wexner Arts Center, LUMBERYARD Center for Film & Performing Arts (2018), New York Live Arts, 92nd St. Y Fridays @ Noon (2019), American Realness festival, Dance Place, American Dance Festival, Dance Theater Workshop, Gibney Dance, Abrons Art Center, The Yard, MASS MoCA/Jacob’s Pillow, Danspace Project, French Institute Alliance Francaise’s Crossing the Line Festival, Festival Rencontres Chorégraphique Internationales de Seine-Saint Denis (France), Artdanthe Festival (France), BEAT Festival, The Kitchen, La Mama, Mount Tremper Arts, and Movement Research.

She has been in creative residence at New York Live Arts, Live Feed and Studio Series; Marble House Project; NCCAkron; Centre Chorégraphique National-Ballet de Lorraine; LUMBERYARD Contemporary Performing Arts Center; Gibney Dance Center’s DiP Residency, Centre Chorégraphique National de Franche-Comté à Belfort, France (FUSED); Governor’s Island through Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space Program; Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University; Joyce Soho Artist Residency Program; LaGuardia Performing Arts Center; Jacob’s Pillow; Kaatsbaan International Dance Center; Mount Tremper Arts; White Oak Plantation; and Movement Research.

Bartosik was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for 9 years and received a Bessie Award for Artistic Excellence in his work. She received her BFA from North Carolina School of the Arts, and MA in 20th Century Art and Art Criticism from The Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Research of the New School University. She performed in the 2011 restaging of Robert Ashley’s 1967 opera, That Morning Thing, as part of Performa. She was a 2016 Princeton Fellowship Finalist, and has been a guest artist/faculty at Princeton University, The Juilliard School, Rutgers (2019) University of North Carolina School for the Arts, Arizona State University’s Hergberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Purchase College, Colorado College, and University of Buffalo (2019).

Riley Watts will be leading a dance workshop based on the fundamentals of William Forsythe improvisation and choreography, honing in on the body’s physical strength, coordination, and articulation.

Watts is based in Portland, and his work explores consciousness through movement. He trained at Bangor Ballet and Walnut Hill School for the Arts and received a bachelor’s degree in dance from The Juilliard School in 2007. He has danced across Europe and works as a freelance teacher, choreographer, researcher and performer. Watts is on the faculty at the Bangor Ballet, a member of the advisory committee for the Bates Dance Festival and a dance and performance advisor for Space Gallery. He is the recipient of a Princess Grace Award. 

MOVING TARGET PORTLAND is an adult, all-abilities contemporary dance class series with a different visiting teacher that meets at Mechanic's Hall ::most:: Sundays from 1-3pm. Cost is $12-20 sliding scale.

BIO
Vanessa Anspaugh is a choreographer and performance based artist born and raised in Los Angeles, CA amongst a wackadoo family of film and performing artists. After a childhood spent between the ballet studio and acid trips on Venice beach, Anspaugh found her way out of California creating various homes in Ohio, Arizona, New Mexico, West Virginia, Massachusetts and eventually New York. Once in New York, her work has been both commissioned and presented by Danspace Project, Dance Theater Workshop, New York Live Arts, The River to River Festival, BAX, The Sculpture Center, The Hessel Museum of Art, AUNTS, Movement Research, Catch Series,The Kitchen (through Emily Roysdon) Performance Mix at HERE Arts Center, Studio 303 in Montreal, as well as The Cowels Center in Minneapolis, for The Zenon Dance Company. She has had funded creative residencies through DTW Studio Series, Mount Tremper Arts, Kattsbaan International Dance Center, The Mac Dowell Colony, LMCC, BAX, BOFFO Fire Island Performance Residency, and The Bard College Fisher Center. In 2017 her work The End of Men, was a Bessie Award nominee in both the Outstanding Production and Best Sound Design (by Ryan MacDonald) categories. As a performer Anspaugh has worked for Aretha Aoki, Juliette Mapp, Robbinschilds, Faye Driscoll, Taylor Mac, Emily Johnson, Jen Rosenblit among others. She is currently at work on the latest development of her research with a new theatrical dance work entitled, Aggression Confession. Anspaugh is also looking forward to her time as a visiting professor in the Theater Dance Department at Colby College in Maine for the 2018/19 academic year.

DON’T MISS the performance of Vanessa Ansapugh's latest piece The End of Men; an Ode to Ocean at Space Gallery for ONE NIGHT ONLY on February 6 at 7pm.

MOVING TARGET PORTLAND is an all-levels, contemporary adult dance class. Cost is $12-20 sliding scale (If this is prohibitive, please email studio408dance@gmail.com at least 24 hours beforehand).

DESCRIPTION
Afro beats is an upbeat dance style that mixes African dance moves and Hip Hop. Join Portland dancer Veeva Banga for this fun class!

BIO
My name is Veeva Banga and I am from South Sudan. I came to America when I was 5 years old. I started traditionally dancing at a young age. I've practiced a variety of dance styles including hip hop, modern, and Guinean. Its become my mission to share Afro beats dance style with people locally.

MOVING TARGET PORTLAND is an all-levels, contemporary adult dance class. Cost is $12-20 sliding scale (If this is prohibitive, please email studio408dance@gmail.com at least 24 hours beforehand).

CLASS DESCRIPTION
Innovative performance draws from all mediums and requires an interdisciplinary skill set from the makers and their performers. In this class on creative practice, original movement and text-based material are created using a series of titled patterns, and exercises designed to name and deepen self-expression. To gain a neutral and ready body, class will begin with a focus on foot health, precision, and core work designed by fitness pioneer Joseph Pilates. The second part explores motivation, impulse, and pushing past physical limitations. This improvisatory time results in original phrase work, where each person makes their unique choreographic and movement styles.

There will be a timed segment for written composition and drawing, to connect to the creative and interior self. Each person will then be given individual guidance and dramaturgical assignments, leading to the development of an original text and movement piece. There will be an ongoing focus on essential performance qualities, examining what creates choreography that resonates and feels honest to perform.

Please bring a yoga mat, paper, and pen to class!

BIO
Michelle Mola is a choreographer, movement coach, dancer, and actor who has performed with Aszure Barton & Artists, and in Jack Ferver’s Chambre, nominated in 2016 for a Bessie Award for Outstanding Production. Michelle first worked with Mr. Ferver in Rumble Ghost, a "hyper-reality" reinterpretation of the 1982 horror film Poltergeist, performed at P.S. 122 in New York City. Claudia LaRocco of the New York Times described her as “terrifically smart” in a review of the duet Me, Michelle presented by Performa ‘11, performed and co-choreographed with Mr. Ferver. As a choreographer, she has been presented in Montreal at the SpringBoard Danse and Tangente Festival. Michelle was commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble for performance at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, and has also presented work at the Museum of Art and Design, Stella Adler Studio of Acting, 92nd Street Y and The Joyce Soho in New York. As a movement coach and choreographer, Michelle worked with actors and 3D special effects artists in the The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). She studied dance at the North Carolina School of the Arts, University of South Florida, and at The Juilliard School. Upon graduating, she received the Hector Zaraspe Prize for Outstanding Choreography, and the 2008 Annenberg Arts Fellowship for Performance and Choreography.

In partnership with Bates Dance Festival, The Living Room presents Moving Target Portland with Amirah Sackett.

Class Description

Join Amirah in exploring foundational hip hop dance styles including top rockin, breakin, and poppin. Develop a better appreciation and understanding of hip-hop history through the the physical representation of the culture. Please come prepared in clothes you can move in and clean sneakers.

Teacher BIO:
An internationally recognized hip-hop dancer, choreographer, and teacher, Amirah Sackett is widely known for her performance group “We’re Muslim, Don’t Panic”, which reached viral video fame after being featured on POPSUGAR Celebrity, The Huffington Post, AJ+, and Upworthy. Sackett was honored to be a TEDx speaker, guest lecturer at Harvard University, and a cultural diplomat with the U.S. State Department in Bangladesh and Malaysia. She will also perform Feb 5 in Lewiston: https://www.facebook.com/events/1813483082096699/.

MOVING TARGET PORTLAND is an all-levels, contemporary adult dance class hosted by The Living Room Dance Collective, featuring a different visiting guest artist every time. Class cost is $12-20 sliding scale. If cost is prohibitive, please email studio408dance@gmail.com at least 24 hours before class.