How do we train for a political body – one that is responsive, resistant, and resilient? How do we engage our citizenship as dancers? Bridging the divide between political action and somatic instruction, this class draws on practices informed by Contact Improvisation and Body-Mind Centering to explore how intentional physical training can provide an embodied ground for our activism. We will learn to move together in a way that is safe and connected, but still allows for the intensity of anger and resistance. Rather than neutralizing our bodies and our identities, we will learn how to engage our feelings and our politics without getting stuck in self-righteousness. This workshop is open to everybody but will require that participants dance, sing, write and move together.
Danielle Ross is a Portland-based choreographer and performer, where she co-curates the poetry/dance/video series Pure Surface, is on the board of the Creative Music Guild and is a founding member of FRONT, a newspaper dedicated to contemporary dance. She most recently created her solo, It’s Like This Out There, It’s Like This in Here, which has been performed in LA, Lincoln, NE and Minneapolis, and which is always in progress. In 2017, she will begin working on a new ensemble work, Apparatus and will continue working with choreographer Linda Austin on her latest project, a world, a world. Ross's work has been supported by the Precipice Fund (PICA), the Regional Arts and Culture Council, the Oregon Arts Commission and via a residency at Studio 2 in Portland.
Video link https://vimeo.com/
frontpaper.org, http://www.puresurface.info/,
- KBOO