Winter Dance Intensive 2015
Mari Osanai [January 4 & 7-11] & Amy Raymond [January 11 & 12]
Presented by Mills Dance Department, project agora and inkBoat.
Mari Osanai workshop: Noguchi Gymnastics
Mari Osanai’s workshop focuses on Noguchi Taiso (gymnastics) combined with the influences of her early training in Tai Chi, western dance methods, traditional folk dance in Aomori, Japan (her birthplace), and the connection between one’s thoughts and sensation of weight. Osanai’s approach to movement research and exploration begins with a heightened awareness of gravity’s influence on the body and the body’s connection with the center of the earth. Exercises in the workshop train the body to embrace its weight and heighten its sensitivity to move from its most relaxed and receptive state. Starting with images, such as washing the body with water, air, sunlight, workshop participants will discover the body’s vital energies rooted in its inherent hydrodynamics. Movement and form result as participants ingest imagery inside their bodies and allow the changes to shift the body’s interior.
Amy Raymond workshop: The Merging of Opposites
Amy Raymond, former soloist of Dutch National Ballet and William Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt will be teaching a workshop based on her professional experience as a dancer, teacher and choreographer. The workshop will be particularly focused on combining oppositional qualities and experiences from her work as a member of Ballet Frankfurt and her recent experiences with Budo Master, Akira Hino. Through the interplay of opposites the group will be encouraged to listen to what is happening, and become a player in an emergent form that shifts between the dynamics of self assertion and group connection. Through varying experiences participants will be encouraged to follow what wants to be created, hopefully opening ourselves to participating in ways that goes beyond what we think we can do…..
Photos by (Mari) Janne Shaw and (Amy) Andy Mogg