CLASS DESCRIPTIONS WEEKEND #1

Ballet with Douglas Becker
This class proposes ballet in 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 combinations are constructed to rigorously support the study of technique as studio practice, accentuating thinking musically, somatic awareness and attention to the multiple perspectives of dynamics alongside varied spatial concerns.

Contemporary with Jacob Storer
In this contemporary technique class there will be an anatomical approach based on weight transfer to access coordinations within the body to move with uninhibited ease. Focusing on moving with dynamic alignment and physical integrity, students will be encouraged to engage both individually and collectively to investigate different tools of awareness and sensation.

Music Analysis with Mattijs van Damme
During this workshop, the aim is to set up a deep listening practice and to trigger a profound feeling for graphic music notation, which gains personal value and facilitates communication and understanding of diverse musical phenomena and experiences. We focus on works that nourish listeners and dancers, compositions that sharpen the ear and mind, by such composers as Ph. de Vitry, J.S. Bach, Th. De Mey, A. Webern, G. Ligeti, and others.

Contemporary with Laura Aris
A Play Full Body class overviews some fundamental aspects of contemporary dance, such as weight transfer, use of space, breathing, speed, qualities and textures. Furthermore, we will look at the intentions behind the movement. Guided improvisations and specific technical exercises will be the work's starting point. Participants will play with their vocabulary within defined but changing contexts to experiment and observe specific bodily mechanisms and mental processes while dancing. Opening the doors of perception, we will search for those creative impulses that, once released, offer opportunities for new technical and performative achievements.

Yoga with Niloufar Shahisavandi
This class will give everybody the opportunity to review the base of different asanas and their important actions. The aim is to help you to discover a deeper physical and mental understanding of the asanas and their effects on body, mind and soul.

Composition and Improvisation with Michaël Pomero
This workshop proposes a group exploration of Relational dancing. Through improvisation protocols and choreographic procedures, we will investigate how our own intuition and agency can nourish the collective intelligence of the group. How can dancing together become a way of building trust through interdependence, mutual support, and complementarity?

CLASS DESCRIPTIONS WEEKEND #2

Contemporary with Jason Respilieux
In this class attention will be given to our methods of perception. Through improvisational exercises, instant composition and phrase work, we will investigate how to access and navigate our sensations in parallel to our functional, mechanical and anatomical bodies. The class develops slowly to prepare the body, the mind, and your whole being to move more consciously. It aims to investigate your personal expression within a shared space of exploration within a clear evolutive frame of work.

Yoga with Stéphane Bourhis
The teaching of Yoga following the BKS Iyengar methodology is based in depth practice of yoga postures and pranayama (art of breathing), with rigorously, intensity and precision of the body alignments. During the class we gradually explore the outer and the inner geometry of the body in different groups of postures and movements.

Repertoire with Clinton Stringer
During this workshop we start by learning the basic phrase underlying the repertory work of Anne-Teresa De Keersmaeker. We will try to understand the basic principles of it and dig into the vocabulary with a great emphasis on details and musicality.

Contemporary with Laura Hicks
This class offers a basic introduction to the foundational principals that support a practice of contact improvisation as a contemporary technique. Contact improvisation is an improvisational dance form that evolved out of, and is strongly linked to postmodern dance, biomechanics, and Somatic awareness methods. Approached as such, the class does not focus on set pathways for partnering, but instead offers a focus on tools for tuning our attention towards sensation and the present moment, while offering a research space to explore how we organize our bodies for efficient, but improvised exchanges of touch and
weight with a partner.

Theatre with Kuno Bakker
The workshop will give you a taste of the theatre classes taught at PARTS during the first and second years. It playfully explores how to work with text, how to use your body and voice to play with words and meaning, and how to approach a text from content, but also from rhythm and musicality. It is an invitation to find freedom and joy in theatre.