PRE-INTERMEDIATE PROGRAMME - WEEK 3

Ballet class with Douglas Becker

I propose ballet class as a collaborative setting where new information and knowledge about the moving body, in relationship to form and history, happen in the moment. Barre and center are constructed to rigorously support the study of technique as studio practice, accentuating somatic awareness and attention to the multiple perspectives of dynamics alongside varied spatial concerns.

We will work on developing an agile relationship between the head, neck, shoulders, arms and legs while considering the art of ballet in the present-day, historically, as a system, and as "changeable architecture", Attention is given to interior mechanics driven by counterpoint. Throughout the class consideration of musicality gives insight into the various understandings of tempi, interacting rhythms, melody and theme. Combinations and phrase work change depending on both age and desire within the group. We will move, together, to know.

Douglas Becker (US)

Douglas Becker based in Brussels Belgium is a freelance choreographer and educator at work for over four decades at the intersection of ballet and contemporary dance. His areas of research engage with teaching, learning, knowledge sharing and investigation of new forms and new ways of thinking about practice and performance in dance. A former dancer with the Joffrey Ballet New York, The National Ballet of Canada, The Dallas Ballet, and a principal artist with The Frankfurt Ballet under the direction of William Forsythe of which he has reconstructed numerous works worldwide by the choreographer for professional companies, festivals, and institutions. In ballet he studied extensively with Maggie Black, Rudolph Nureyev, Erik Bruhn, Melissa Hayden, David Howard, Marjorie Mussman, and Fleming Flindt, consequently embodying an expansive knowledge of ballet, composition, repertoire and improvisation. His own choreography has been featured on the stages of Belgium’s Royal Flemish Theatre, Switzerland’s Grand Theatre de Genève, and the Choreographic Centers of Grenoble and Nancy in France, and he has been visiting faculty for the national conservatories of Paris and Lyon, P.A.R.T.S. School Brussels (since 1997), New York University, and The University of California Irvine among many others. Douglas Becker is, since 2010, visiting master lecturer/resident artist at The University of the Arts Philadelphia where his responsibilities include teaching, staging, mentoring and advising both at the BFA level and in the schools recently launched MFA, and he is a curator/coordinator of the UArts school of dance January European touring and residency program.

Hatha yoga with Hugo Mega

Hatha yoga is seen as one of the most traditional styles of yoga. This ancient practice focuses on balance, bringing the Yin and Yang, the Sun (Ha) and the Moon (Tha) together into the body. This slower paced, static practice focuses on building a strong foundation and understanding each posture. In this class you will explore the benefits of Pranayama, breathing exercises as a new relation to abdominal and lumbar support. When teaching this style Hugo emphasizes breath awareness while developing your alignment and building a safe practice.

Hugo Mega (PT)

Hugo Mega is a Portuguese yogi, artist, dreamer, and life coach based in Brussels, Belgium. Hugo’s passion for movement & artistic endeavors are the pulse of his life. He dedicated his undergraduate studies to exploring his body’s physical capacities through dance and circus. After finishing his circus studies, yoga enters center stage of his explorative focus. What starts as a nice way to stay in shape, becomes a passion. This changes his life and his perspective on the body. Yoga becomes a lifestyle and in 2014 he starts teaching at Yyoga in Brussels. This urban sanctuary becomes his second home, where he is a core member of the family. When teaching Yoga Hugo is passionate about alignment and anatomy, exploring new ways to connect to the body focusing on awareness and injury prevention. He desires now to support you on your journey of perspective, sharing with you the great practices that support him throughout his journey.

Rosas repertoire - Drumming with Taka Shamoto

Drumming is undoubtedly one of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s most fascinating choreographic works: a dazzling dance set to a powerful score for percussion by the American minimalist Steve Reich. In her choreography, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker preserves the spirit of the score and at the same time enriches it: just as in the music, the complexity of the choreography arises out of a single phrase of movement to which endless variations in time and space are applied. It is only when the drums fall silent and the bodies come to a standstill that the spectator realizes what he has witnessed: a stunning journey, a wave of pure dance and pure sound, a vortex of life energy.

Taka Shamoto (JP)

Taka Shamoto was born in 1975 in Sendai, Japan. At the age of three, she started dancing at the Sendai City Ballet School. For the next ten years, she was taught by Masako Ono. At sixteen, she entered the Balletschule der Hamburgischen Staatsoper John Neumeier in Germany, an education in which classical technique and composition work played a key role. After her three-year education in Hamburg, Taka Shamoto focused on contemporary dance. In 1995 she joined the contemporary dance school P.A.R.T.S. and joined Rosas two years later. She danced in the revivals of Woud and Achterland and contributed to the creation of Just Before, Drumming, I said I, In Real Time, Rain, April me, Bitches Brew / Tacoma Narrows and Kassandra, and the revival of Mozart / Concert Arias. In 2007 she collaborated with Grace Ellen Barkey & Needcompany for The Porcelain Project. In 2010 she performed in Jan Decorte’s Tanzung. Currently she is performing in Avdal and Shinozaki’s projects Field Works-office, Borrowed Landscape, nothing’s for something and as if nothing has been spinning around for something to remember.