Past Class Facilitators, Themes, Questions (partial listing)
Sam Stone - I Heart Dance Class Cherie Hill - Action + Reaction + Flow. What stimulates us to act? How do we react? When we move & respond how we can keep our initial response and let it flow? Bianca Cabrera - Duet as Solo Practice. A tactile reminder that we are never alone. What is always around us - bodies, space, floor, ideas makes our 'solos' richer when we remember it. Odessa Perez - The smartest part of me: What my body is trying to tell me. Alex Crow - Movement experience/exploration through the chakra system. How do we move when we are listening to the fabric that makes up our mental/emotional/physical selves, and how can we find moments of connection/compassion through the act of witnessing? Nuria Bowart- Elastic recoil, resonant frequency, tension and rhythm. Zach Pine - Techniques and Genres: Sharing and Integration. What are the dance traditions and specific techniques that most strongly inform each of us when we move in our current movement personalities? When we share and then practice new genres, techniques, or movement vocabularies, what are good methods for sharing, and then how do we best combine and integrate this new movement knowledge into each of our pre-existing movement personalities? Paola Steablein - Authentic Movement. Frederic Holzwarth - Listening in Contact Improvisation. We will challenge the concept of listening in CI as being a talent and will investigate looking upon it as a skill and in which soil this is rooted. We will explore 4 of the 5 underlying mental states and mechanical principles I propose – and those that you bring – that might nourish the quality of listening. Kwic Time - Carnaval: samba, samba reggae, west African, Zulu boot dance. Zach Pine - Make a Rhythm / Ride a Rhythm. Frederic Holzwarth - Effort / Less Effort in Contact Improvisation. Odessa Perez - Performance, Process, and the Healing Art of Being Seen. What of our inner process do we want to show or be witnessed in? It could be something simple - a question we are grappling with, or a curiosity we have. It could be something deeper - exploring an emotion or memory. What happens when we embody and perform a piece of our story to share with others? What information do we receive, from ourselves, and from the audience, in the performative transmission? Haley Wilson - Body Talk: Finding deeper embodiment. How does your body talk to you? How do you follow it's language? What areas feel isolated and disconnected and how can you integrate them back in? Odessa Perez - Empathy and Contact Improvisation. How can we use contact improvisation to cultivate a deeper sense of kinesthetic knowing, and expand our empathic sense? How can a deep understanding of our own frequency aid us when engaging others in the dance? Emily Kuenstler - Flock of Dancers. Mary Alice Frye - Dance Potluck. Rosemary Hannon - Lead/Lag. Using the sequential pull of falling masses to feel delightful movement possibilities. Haley Wilson - Body Talk: Finding Deeper Embodiment Cherie Hill - Undulation: What are the effects- internally & visually- of an undulation? Why are undulations significant to African and African Diaspora dance forms/styles? Zach Pine - Beyond the Point of Contact to Zones of Contact. Mary Alice Frye - Dance Potluck. Cyrena Giordano - Creation Journeys. Zoe Donnellycolt - Group Mind. Cherie Hill - Internal and External Movement. Cyrena Giordano - Mimicking and Miming. Somatic Potluck: Each of us brings a fresh somatic practice, technique, or exercise; we decide as group how to sequence and time them for class, and then we enjoy! Zach Pine - Time and Timing: What makes it tick, how it feels, and how it looks. Zoe Donnellycolt - Exploring leading and following, and flocking, tied to emergent improvisation as researched by Susan Sgorbati. Haley Wilson - Off Axis Movement and Momentum: We will investigate different ways of negotiating our weight while be off axis and how mixing momentum with being off axis can lead to new movement pathways and a broader range of expressive capacity. Morgan True - Beginnings and Endings: How do we know when the dance has begun/ended? When are we dancing / not dancing? Can we make it clear to ourselves as well as to the audience? Can we begin without ending first? Maria Chenut - Objects and the Body: A group exploration where we will investigate our relationship with a variety of familiar and strange objects. We will feel how they can become extensions of ourselves, partners that transform us and our movement. Mary Alice Frye - Trust-Synchronicity-Gather-Change-React to Feedback: We will start on our own paths, overlap, make duets, make them larger, add on, show the group, add the group, and use the domino effect for full on large score! Potluck Night: Each participant brought "ingredients", which we organized, tossed and seasoned together into a sweaty group medley. Cherie Hill - Contemporary Dance with African influences: We will explore the body in relation to space, time and energy emphasizing African roots. Rosemary Hannon - Streaming: Lots of short movement motifs to stream across the floor and initiate inquiry. Kwic Time - RMS (Rhythm & Movement Swim): Come together to *D.A.N.C.E.* Develop Anyone's Natural Cultural Experience. It can be fun doing things solo ...and it's even more fun when we combine our energy. Zach Pine - Ride the Rhythms: Time to get funky, lyrical, syncopated, and ballabile. Diving deep into rhythm, and how music supports and inspires our dancing. Haley Wilson - Continuum: Using breath and sound with a wave motion in the body to stimulate the internal fluid and de-densify the tissue. Morgan True and Sam Stone: "familiar=strange, inside=out" Zach Pine: Look, Say, Sensation, Feelings: When we dance, how does it look, what does it say, what sensations are caused, what feelings are aroused in ourselves, in our partners in movement, and in our audiences? |
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Class is for everyone. somatic. experience. crossbreeding/intersection. interdisciplinary. grounded in real time. non-hierarchical. structured format. with 1 leader/facilitator/guide. proposing not imposing. improv. context is the individuals surrounding. PP interaction. moments of ‘harvesting’ co creative process. teacher comes in with unanswered question. get what you need. giver of class is offering to the group. bringing a proposal based on the context of who is there. movement based arts. different approaches are cool. aiding in collectively contrasting our own experiences. Peer Practices blows apart the teacher-student dynamic by working as peers and satisfying the adult mover’s desire for autonomy! Each week meet a new facilitator proposing a structured format laced with questions that we together will interact, exchange and research. History Peer Practices was founded by Sam Stone and Roche Janken in the summer of 2013 in SF, with mentorship from Kathleen Hermesdorf. In the Fall of 2013, Peer Practices East Bay began at the WEB in Oakland. In the Fall of 2014, we moved to Jeffery Bihr Studio in Oakland. In the Summer of 2015, we presented a twice-a-week intensive (with drop ins) at the Finnish Kaleva Hall in Berkeley. |
Facilitator Guidelines
Are you interested in being a facilitator at Peer Practices? See the guidelines below, and then contact us at [email protected]
We are so excited to learn from you! Peer Practice is a little different than the traditional hierarchy that comes with certain teacher-student dynamics, so here are a few guidelines to help us keep united in the Peer realm.
1) you are brilliant. we all want to support you. there is no ‘right way’ to teach or lead a class so please enjoy yourself. the content should be movement based but is entirely up to you.
2) we suggest teachers come in with an unanswered question they are curious about to help motivate an interactive group experience. ex.) what are safe parameters for the arms? or is hands on an effective approach for learning? or Does this certain technique translate well for different backgrounded movers?
3) Peer Practices is about PEER INTERACTION. please feel free to propose moments of talking to each other, hands on, eyes on, ears on! we are trying to engage our intelligence by giving opportunities to ask for help.
4) because of #3, we in the end, do not need teachers to ‘give corrections.’ suggestions are different than corrections… think about it… ;)
5) heads up! your peers will all have different backgrounds and experiences, we love this and hope you do too! prepare to shift your plans and improvise to fit the needs of the people before you.
6) bring at least two of your own people. We will help advertise the class, but it is really up to you to spread the word.
7) We require that you attend at least one peer practice class before teaching. it is our only strict rule so that we avoid favoritism and privilege.