Conferences
For more information click the links below or scroll down the page:
Freedom to Play and Sing: 2013
Freedom to MOVE: 2013
The Conference on Dancing and the Alexander Technique
Location:
Pearl Studios NYC
500 8th Ave., New York, NY 10018
May 17-19, 2013
Come join us for the third Freedom to Move Dance and Alexander Technique conference.
We will continue to explore how the Alexander Technique supports and complements dance technique and performance.
Movement freedom, ease, and coordination can be enhanced and taught through concepts and principles of Alexander Technique. The conference provides experiences and exploration of many ways the Alexander Technique can be applied to dance – from tango to composition to research to performance.
You will also have time to share and exchange ideas as we work together.
All the conference presenters have had extensive experience both in teaching the Alexander Technique and in dance. The Alexander Technique has greatly influenced their thinking and approach to movement, how they teach, and how they create work. The variety of workshops speaks to the fundamental all-encompassing nature of the Alexander Technique and how the concepts are permeating many corners of the dance world.
Come join us and explore!
Fees:
Full Professional Conference Fee before May 1st: $225; After May 1st: $250
Full Student Conference Fee before May 1st: $160; after May 1st: $180
There are single workshop rates available too.
REGISTER: HERE
FRIDAY May 17th
6:30 pm: Registration Opens
6:45 -7:15 pm: Introduction to The Alexander Technique
7:00-8:30 pm: Introductions, Activities, and Social Gathering
SATURDAY May 18th
9:00-11:00 am: SESSION 1
A. Facilitating Hip Joint Freedom
Nada Diachenko
B. Freedom to Plie
Erin Thompson
C. Exploring the Missing Link, Part 1
Luc Vanier and Rebecca Nettl-Fiol
D. Grounding the Up
Eva Karczag
11:15 am - 1:15 pm: SESSION 2
A. Organism That Body!
Daria Fain
B. Sound Exploration With Movement
Deborah Weitzman
C. Altered States (to 1 pm)
Rebecca Brooks
1:15-2:30 pm: LUNCH
2:30-4:30 pm: SESSION 3
A. Presence and Possibility: The Alexander Technique as a Preparation to Dance
Juliette Mapp
B. Exploring the Missing Link, Part 2
Luc Vanier and Rebecca Nettl-Fiol
C. Tango as Improvisation
Katherine Mitchell
4:30-5:00 pm: Break
5:00-6:30 pm: Informal Performance/Discussion
SUNDAY May 19th
9:00-11:00 am: SESSION 5
A. Illuminating Your Postures: Yoga & the Alexander Technique
Joan Arnold
B. Body, Balance and Breath
Jennifer Sielicki
C. Alexander Technique and Improvisation: Letting the Dance Dance You
Emily Faulkner
D. Using the Alexander Technique to Explore Modern Dance Movements and Vice Versa
Cynthia Reynolds
11:00 am-12:00 pm: BRUNCH
12:00-2:00 pm: SESSION 6
A. Open Improv (to 1:30)
B. Making Contact/Taking Weight
Ann Rodiger
C. Pointe Work and Pas de Deux in Classical Ballet: Exploring Movement Extremes with the Alexander Technique
Tom Baird
D. Spatial Support: The Eyes and the Distal Ends
Shelley Senter
2:15-2:45 pm: Ending Discussion
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS:
Facilitating Hip Joint Freedom by Nada Diachenko
We will focus on a variety of methods to free the hip joints with the purpose of gaining greater articulation and freedom of moving the torso on the legs and the legs on the torso, fluid leg action, and ease in weight transference. Through individual and partner movement explorations, participants will experience a variety of approaches to assist them in teaching Alexander Technique or any dance/movement technique/style and to discover a deeper awareness of the illiofemoral joints. Movement activities will include application to standing, sitting, walking, going to and away from the floor, semi supine, and specific dance or other movement material (based on participant interest).
Nada Diachenko’s 43 year career as a dancer, choreographer, educator, and somatic specialist includes 20 years in NYC as a soloist and master teacher with the Erick Hawkins Dance Co .and artistic director, choreographer and performer with her own company (1970’s and 80’s). She is a professor of dance at the University of Colorado and Assistant Director of the Alexander Technique Denver teacher training course. She certified in 1999 at the Alexander Technique Institute Boulder, Colorado and has studied numerous somatic practices along with certification as a muscular therapist in the Benjamin System of Muscular Therapy. She teaches privately, conducts national and international workshops including AT and dance in the Czech Republic, Costa Rica, and Brazil, and directs the Somatic Track and the Wellness Program in the U of CO. dance MFA program. Most recently she conducted a day long intensive workshop on AT at the conference of the American Association for Orthopedic Medicine, presented at the2009 and 2012 AmSAT AGM, and her book review of The Alexander Technique and Dance: The Missing Link was published in the AmSAT Journal.
Freedom to Plie by Erin Thompson
Based on her experience as a student and teacher of the Alexander Technique, and influenced by her work with Barbara Mahler and the Klein Technique, Erin Thompson has developed practical ways of teaching postural freedom and support and integrating it into her teaching of dance technique. This work allows dancers to yield their joints into the ground, balance without holding, breathe freely while moving and extend into expansiveness. In her workshop session “Freedom to Plie”, participants will partner with each other to experience pathways of muscle and skeletal sequencing that allows for their plie to be released and yielding, and for their torso to be breathable and available for movement.
Erin Thompson began her dance career with the Minnesota Dance Theatre and continued in New York City in the companies of Nina Wiener and Bebe Miller from 1980-1989. Erin received a New York Dance and Performance award, “BESSIE”, in 1986 for her dancing in Nina Wiener's Enclosed Time at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival. Since moving back to Minneapolis she received choreographer's fellowships, along with her husband Byron Richard, from the McKnight Foundation (1993) and from the National Endowment for the Arts (1994, 1996). Since 1990, Erin has been on the faculty of the University of Minnesota's Department of Theater Arts and Dance as well as at Zenon Dance Company and TU Dance, where she continues to provide high level advanced professional modern dance training for the Twin City's dance community. Erin received a Sage Award for Outstanding Dance Educator in 2008. Erin received her Alexander Technique training with Bruce and Martha Fertman at the Alexander Alliance in Philadelphia, PA., graduating in 2004. She is a certified member of ATI. In addition to her private Alexander students, she teaches a course at the University of Minnesota entitled “Alexander Technique for Movement Artists”.
Exploring the Missing Link, Part 1 and Part 2 by Rebecca Nettl-Fiol and Luc Vanier
These two sessions will delve into the material from our book, Dance and the Alexander Technique: Exploring the Missing Link. The “missing link” refers to the Dart Procedures, which we have researched and explored as a means of elucidating Alexander principles to dancers. Part I will be an introduction to our work, exploring the concepts of primary and secondary curves and the double-spiral mechanism. Part II will explore more subtle applications of our work, giving participants more layers of understanding. Prerequisite for Part II: Part I, or a prior workshop with both or one of us.
Rebecca Nettl-Fiol, Professor of Dance at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, is a teacher, choreographer, and author, specializing in the Alexander Technique and dance training. A faculty member at Illinois since 1982, she certified as an Alexander teacher with Joan and Alex Murray in 1990. She has been invited National Dance Education Organization and International Association for Dance Medicine and Sciences conferences. Rebecca and Luc’s teaching and research over Medicine and Sciences conferences. Rebecca and Luc’s teaching and research over the past 15 years has resulted in the book, Dance and the Alexander Technique: Exploring the Missing Link (University of Illinois Press 2011). She is also the co-editor of The Body Eclectic: Evolving Practices in Dance Training (U of Illinois Press 2008). Rebecca’s choreography is presented annually at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and was recently selected for performance at the American Dance Guild 2012 performance festival at the Ailey Theatre in New York City, and at the Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival at the Ruth Page Center in Chicago. At the University of Illinois, Rebecca has served as the Teaching Academy Fellow for the College of Fine and Applied Arts, and is the recipient of the Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 2012.
Luc Vanier started weekly lessons in Cleveland with Helen Hobbs in 1994 and certified with Joan and Alex Murray in 2001
- He is the training director for Alexander Technique Milwaukee (ATMKE.com)
- Luc is an Associate Professor in the Dance Department at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts
- His research on linking the Alexander Technique, developmental movement and Ballet is at the forefront of integrating somatic work into dance curriculum and has been presented at various conferences and workshops throughout the US, Russia, Australia and the Netherlands.
- His co-authored (with Rebecca Nettl-Fiol) “Dance and the Alexander Technique: Exploring the Missing Link” was published June 2011 by the University of Illinois Press.
- He is the 2012 recipient of the Center for 21st Century Studies $50,000 Interdisciplinary Challenge Award to research connections between physical therapy and the Alexander Technique.
- He is the recipient of the 2009 Wisconsin Arts Board Award for Choreography.
- Originally from Montreal, he studied at L'Ecole Superieur du Quebec under Daniel Seillier.
- In 1998, he retired from Ohio Ballet having danced a variety of roles such as the Workman in Kurt Jooss’ Big City, the Third Song of Tudor’s Dark Elegies, as well as the leads in Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante and Paul Taylor’s Aureole among others.
- He received his MFA at the University ofIllinois (top ten dance program in US News).
- Luc has been a Board-Member-at-Large of AmSAT since 2010
- For more information visit www.lucvanier.com
Grounding the Up by Eva Karczag
The AT places an emphasis on upward direction. We all know that ‘up’ needs to be rooted in groundedness, but in practice, this simple fact is often left unattended. In this class we will re-affirm our connection to the ground, and from there, build our upwardness within a breathing, sensitized, 3-dimensional body.
Eva Karczag is an independent dance artist and teacher. For the past four decades she has practiced, taught, and advocated explorative methods of dance making. She performs solo and collaborative work internationally, many of her collaborations involving links across the arts. Her performance work and her teaching are informed by dance improvisation and mindful body practices, including the Alexander Technique (ACAT certified teacher), whose concepts, in particular, shape her methodology. She has been a member of leading groups in the field of experimental dance, including the Trisha Brown Dance Company, and has taught dance at major colleges and studios throughout the USA, Australia, and Europe. She has an MFA degree (Dance Research Fellow) from Bennington College, VT. Recent performances include 'Promenade’, a series of improvised durational performance/installations with visual artist Chris Crickmay and composer Sylvia Hallett, in various locations in London and Coventry, England; Slapping Legs and Stepping Out, collaborative duet with Gaby Agis in London; and ‘Bear Scrutiny’, a solo, in Brescia, Italy.
Organism That Body! by Daria Fain
Our being constantly organize itself to function, act and rest. Whether we act on an impulse or we plan how to go from A to B or we are accomplishing every day tasks or in a meditative mode ---all involve a sense of motion. This class will take you into different movement modes in which our ORGANISM transforms creating priorities in the use of different mind/body systems. The Alexander Technic will be used as a tool for greater control and abandon at once to multiply improvisation skills.
Sound Exploration With Movement by Deborah Weitzman
The AT work invites spontaneity; how do we find and trust this in our own voice. We will experiment with the movement, invitation and the ever-changing nature of spontaneity. With improvisational ‘sound-weaving’ we can awaken and/or expand the unique voice we all have within us, whether you already sing or not.
Deborah Jeanne Weitzman is a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique since 1989. She holds a university degree in Music and Theatre and has been a teacher of voice, theatre, movement and the Alexander Technique for 25 years. In addition to leading workshops and teaching privately, she has performed extensively as singer-songwriter and storyteller around the world. www.deborahjeanne.com.
Altered States by Rebecca Brooks
In this workshop we will experiment with using fundamental principles of the Alexander Technique to engage our omni-sensory awareness in the context of both improvised and set movement material. What if our movement choices are driven by information other than the kinaesthetic sense? Might mindfulness be a pathway to an altered experience of space, self, or time? Who needs mind-altering drugs when you have the Alexander Technique?
Rebecca Brooks is a dance artist and AmSAT-certified Alexander Technique teacher based in New York City. She teaches primarily out of her studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and is also on faculty at Movement Research, Balance Arts Center, and St. Margaret's House. In addition to her work as a teacher, she is an active dancer, performer, and choreographer. Recent work includes projects with Marina Abramović, luciana achugar, Maria Hassabi, Heather Kravas, Katy Pyle, Susan Rethorst, robbinschilds and Kathy Westwater. Rebecca’s own work has been presented throughout NYC and she is currently developing a new piece. Fundamental to her performance work is a commitment to developing sustainable practices that enhance conscious awareness for the performers and the public alike. Her teaching and art practices are integrally linked. Co-founder, AUNTS; co-curator, Movement Research Festival Spring 2007: Reverence (Irreverence); Artistic Director, Rockbridge Artist Exchange. rebecca.kelley.brooks@gmail.com
Presence and Possibility: The Alexander Technique as a Preparation to Dance by Juliette Mapp
How can we prepare the body/mind for the work of dancing? This class will use the Alexander Technique as a practice for creating an enlivened, inspired and sensitized state to dance from and within.
Juliette Mapp is a dancer, teacher and choreographer based in New York City. She has presented her work throughout New York City since 2001. She has performed in the work of many other choreographers, most notably John Jasperse, Vicky Shick and Deborah Hay. Juliette has taught throughout the world and is currently on the faculty of The New School in New York City. Juliette was a guest curator at Danspace Project where she programed the "Back to New York City" platform. Juliette received two Bessie's, one for dancing (2002) and one for choreography (2008).
Tango as Improvisation by Katherine Mitchell
In Argentine Tango, each moment between partners is improvised. Experience leading without force, sustained listening and awareness, and finding freedom in the structure of the dance. Explore how the Alexander Technique improves poise and the connection between partners. We’ll also keep an eye on how the spontaneous, nonverbal communication of Argentine Tango might inform Alexander Technique teaching.
Katherine Mitchell has maintained a private teaching practice in the Alexander Technique for over twenty years. She has taught AT at the Conservatory for Theatre Arts at Webster University and run a teacher-training course. Katherine has a background in dance and teaches Argentine Tango at Washington
University. In December she completed an MFA in Creative Writing. She is interested in interdisciplinary teaching, most recently teaching a workshop on alliteration and movement.
Illuminating Your Postures: Yoga & the Alexander Technique by Joan Arnold
Applying the Alexander’s principles to yoga can help us unravel limiting habits and deepen this harmonizing practice. In this workshop, we’ll observe how freedom between the head and spine can foster the spine’s resiliency. As we move through a sequence of asanas, we will explore how the buoyancy of the breath can support us as we move. We will experiment with gentle hands-on encouragement to help students awaken a new feeling of freedom, making yoga practice safer, expansive and more fun.
Joan Arnold, Certified Teacher of the Alexander Technique (M.AmSAT, ACAT), and certified yoga instructor (RYT), is also certified to teach the Art of Breathing. She has been a dancer, teacher and writer for 30 years, maintaining a private practice on Union Square and writing on health and bodywork for national magazines. Her Anusara yoga classes at the Ancram Opera House (where she is director) and at Bodycraft Fitness in Brooklyn embody Alexander’s expansive approach to movement. She offers independent workshops in NYC exploring this blend and, from June 23rd– 28th, will teach a five-day workshop at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. www.joanarnold.com.
Body, Balance and Breath by Jennifer Sielicki
In this workshop we will explore how directed thinking can facilitate flow and change while in action. We will expand our awareness, by using simple observation directions and learning the fundamentals of the Alexander Technique as a direct application to movement. We will begin to discover the influence of breathing on the innate balance of the body and how to bring about equilibrium and efficiency into our work.
Jennifer Sielicki was first introduced to dance and the Alexander Technique at University, where it was used as the primary Technique for training dancers. Here she gained a deep understanding of the work. An appreciation grew, for the simplicity of the principles and procedures and their effectiveness at preventing injury, providing clarity of thought, and maintaining purpose and focus. As an independent performer and teacher, Jennifer practices and teaches mindful movement. Her work is informed and influenced by many practices from the more physical yoga and Pilates work to the more subtlety sophisticated balance as found with the Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais work.
Alexander Technique and Improvisation: Letting the Dance Dance You by Emily Faulkner
How can your innate body/mind intelligence put you in the zone where the dance dances you? The most basic element of good improvisation is that the dancer be present and engaged, as well as physically coordinated. The Alexander technique provides access to this place where we can let our creative impulses flow freely through our innate coordination.
A dancer, choreographer and improviser, Emily Faulkner founded Emily Faulkner/Wind-Up Dances to share with audiences her love of acceleration and suspension – the way movement ripples through the body and create the illusion of floating – and her love of improvisation in performance. Faulkner’s dances are known for being rigorously structured and for their combination of delicate movement, deadpan wit and physical ferocity. Faulkner’s work has been presented by Dixon Place, DanceNOW(NYC), Conversations at the Flea, Hatch, WaxWorks, Washington Square Church, the American Center for the Alexander Technique, and the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. She is honored to have presented work and performed many times at Movement Research at the Judson Church as well as at the Joyce Soho through New Dance Alliance. She performed in the works of many ground breaking choreographers, including Yvonne Meier (with whom she per- formed in the Bessie Award Winning, The Shining in 1995), Jennifer Lacey and D.D. Dorvillier. Faulkner will participate in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as part of the Booking Dance Festival this August. In addition to choreographing and dancing, for the past 12 years Faulkner has hosted and curated, in collaboration with Jody Sperling, Tea Dances, an afternoon series which has presented numerous dancers and choreographers including: Douglas Dunn, Ellis Wood and Chris Elam. Faulkner has been a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique since 1999. She teaches privately and at Balance Arts with Ann Rodiger, and teaches workshops in dance and the Alexander Technique. She has three children ages 11, 9 and 4
Using the Alexander Technique to Explore Modern Dance Movements and Vice Versa by Cynthia Reynolds
Cynthia Reynolds was a soloist with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company from 1976 to 1993, and Director of the Hawkins School from 1990-1993. Working with Hawkins led her to the Alexander Technique- which she has been teaching in New York for 25 years. (Certified ACAT-AmSat). She has traveled to work with dancers around the United States and internationally including running workshops in Tinos, Greece for many summers. Ms Reynolds currently teaches the Alexander Technique at the The New School for Drama, the NYU Vocal Performance Program, Mannes College Extension Division, and is on the faculty of the ACAT Teacher Training Program. She teaches dance classes at the 92nd St Y Harkness Dance Center and at Randy Warshaw’s Studio. Her teaching was featured in Dance Teacher Magazine and in a video documenting the technique of Erick Hawkins, created by Renata Celichowska in 2000.
Making Contact/Taking Weight by Ann Rodiger
Ann Rodiger is the founder and director of the Balance Arts Center and the Balance Arts Center Teacher Training Course. She has been teaching the Alexander Technique and movement for over 30 years in academic and private settings. She is skilled in Labanotation, Laban Movement Analysis, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Yoga, meditation, and various dance techniques. She maintains private practices in New York City, Berlin and Antwerp. She is the creator and producer of the Freedom to Move, Freedom to Play and co-creator of the Freedom to Act conferences. She has recently published a book, "How To Sit: Your Body at Work".
Pointe Work and Pas de Deux in Classical Ballet: Exploring Movement Extremes with the Alexander Technique by Tom Baird
Dancing en pointe and pas de deux are at the very heart of classical ballet. In today’s dance world one finds women as well as men dancing on point, and women partnering men as well as same-gender partnering. Part history class, part dance class, participants will learn about early ballerinas and how they danced on their toes, and, through the principles of the Alexander Technique, will explore the use of the feet, experience the connection of the extended, weight-bearing foot to the whole body, and learn exercises designed to build up the strength of the feet for point work. This class is for ballet teachers, dancers, and dance aficionados. Participants need not have experience in point work to enroll. Please wear dance clothes and shoes, including point shoes if you have them.
Thomas Baird is a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique and a graduate of the Balance Arts Center, Ann Rodiger, director. Since 2009 he has assisted Jane Kosminsky in the Dance Division at the Juilliard School, and since 2011 has taught Introduction to the Alexander Technique in Dance at Purchase College. Thomas has private practices in Norwalk, CT and New York City. Mr. Baird is a professional dancer and choreographer with a specialty in Historical Dance. He has provided historically appropriate choreography for Alfano’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” at the Metropolitan Opera, and has choreographed and performed with the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts for several years.
Spatial Support: The Eyes and the Distal Ends by Shelley Senter
Experiment with how we can organize ourselves in movement through the use of the eyes, the finger tips and the world around us. Open the body, the brain and the conversation to new considerations of ideas, language, seeing and dancing.
For nearly twenty-five years, Shelley Senter has been investigating the application of the principles of the Alexander Technique to the performing body and mind. A certified teacher of the Alexander Technique since 1994 (ACAT), her approach to teaching has influenced artists in all disciplines and has been written about in various dance, arts and Alexander Technique publications and scholarly papers. She has been critically recognized and awarded for her distinct approach to movement, both as an independent dance artist and as a collaborator/performer with many distinguished artists. She is a member of Lower Left artist collective and a repetiteur of the seminal works of Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer, which she stages internationally. She teaches workshops and private lessons in colleges and universities, conservatories, and in international dance festivals and organizations, as well as for dance companies such as the Trisha Brown Company, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's ROSAS, and the Lyon Opera Ballet.
CONFERENCE ARCHIVE:
Freedom to Play and Sing: 2013
The Conference for Musicians and the Alexander Technique
March 15-17, 2013
SHETLER STUDIOS AND THEATERS:
244 West 54th Street, (between 8th Ave and Broadway) New York, NY
Developed by Ann Rodiger and Judith Muir
Produced by the Balance Arts Center and Institute for Music and Health
Come join us for Freedom to Play and Sing: 2013
This conference is designed for performers, teachers and student of music and voice, as well as, Alexander Technique Teachers.
We will explore how the Alexander Technique supports and complements musicians and vocalists in their practice, rehearsal, and performance. We will discover how the use of our own instrument directly affects the quality of tone, phrasing, and expression.
The conference has been designed to allow for in-depth presentations in areas fundamental to music making and performance. The conference will include a panel discussion on how The Alexander Technique contributes to creativity and expression. We will also have an informal concert by some of the conference presenters.
We invite you to participate in learning, sharing and building community.
Come join us!
Fees:
Full Professional Conference Fee before March 1st: $225; After March 1st: $250
Full Student Conference Fee before March 1st: $160; after March 1st: $180
There are single workshop rates available.
Fees and registration information here.
FRIDAY March 15
6:00 pm: Registration Opens at Shetler Studios and Theaters (244 West 54th Street)
6:30-7:00 pm: Introduction to The Alexander Technique
7:00-9:00 pm: Introductions, Activities, and Social Gathering
SATURDAY March 16
9:00 am-12:00 pm: SESSION 1
A. The Voice and the Self
Beret Arcaya
B. Optimal Movement Strategies for Reliable Musical Results
Evangeline Benedetti
C. Come Blow Your Horn!: Actuating the back muscles to free up the breathing.
Judith Muir
12:00-1:00 pm: LUNCH
1:00-3:00 pm: SESSION 2
A. Keys to Freedom: Unlocking your Creative and Emotional Self at the Piano
Peter Muir
B. Baroque Dance Forms in the Music of Bach and Handel
Thomas Baird
C. From FM’s Whispered Ah to Your Singing Voice
Ann Rodiger
3:15-5:15 pm: SESSION 3
A. Biotensegrity: Suspended Support in Activity
Carol Boggs
B. Alexander Technique: Balancing Body, Mind and Flute
Lisa Lutton
C. The Spine is Your Sound Post; Strings, Springs and Resonance
Kathe Jarka
5:30-6:30 pm: INFORMAL CONCERT
SUNDAY March 17
9:00-11:00 am: SESSION 5
A. Banish Burnout: Rekindle the Flame and Rise Above Pain!
Jennifer Roig-Francoli
B. Embodied Voice
Pyeng Threadgill
C. Prepare Your Performance Body: Find your Back, Breath, and Balance
Ann Rodiger
11:00 am-12:00 pm: BRUNCH
12:00-2:00 pm: SESSION 6
A. Comparative Listening
Beret Arcaya
B. Stagefright ~~ Stage Freedom: Transcending Performance Anxiety
Peter Muir
2:15-3:15 pm: Panel Discussion
How the Alexander Technique Contributes to Creativity and Expression
Beret Arcaya, Corinne Cassini, Bill Connington, David Homan, and Ariel Weiss
3:15-4:00 pm: CLOSING DISCUSSION
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS:
The Voice and the Self by Beret Arcaya
How to build a vocal instrument and vocal authenticity. This is a workshop that will be about all aspects of singing technique, and will explore all the myths and falsehoods that have crept into the way singing is taught today.
Beret Arcaya has maintained ongoing, concomitant careers in classical singing and acting (performing and teaching) and the Alexander Technique (teaching) for over 31 years. She did her musical training at the Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music and studied acting intensively with Uta Hagen in New York City. She has performed in everything from Equity summer stock to soap opera (NBC, CBS and ABC) and film (MGM) to chamber music and opera (she won first prize at the Puccini Foundation vocal competition, made her debut at Avery Fischer Hall 1974 and has sung in the U.S., Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Italy and Venezuela.)Beret earned her teaching certificate in Alexander Technique at the ACAT*-NY Teacher Training Program under Judith Liebowitz in 1981 and undertook additional 3 year training with Walter and Dilys Carrington at The Constructive Teaching Center in London. She recertified with them and completed this training in 1999. Beret earned her teaching certificate in Alexander Technique at the ACAT*-NY Teacher Training Program under Judith Liebowitz in 1981 and undertook additional 3 year training with Walter and Dilys Carrington at The Constructive Teaching Center in London. She recertified with them and completed this training in 1999. She has combined her knowledge of music and the Alexander Technique in Master Classes for singers and musicians given all over Europe, most notably at the Salzburg Easter Festival under the auspices of the Kominsky Foundation. She has combined her knowledge of music and the Alexander Technique in Master Classes for singers and musicians given all over Europe, most notably at the Salzburg Easter Festival under the auspices of the Kominsky Foundation. She has combined her knowledge of music and the Alexander Technique in Master Classes for singers and musicians given all over Europe, most notably at the Salzburg Easter Festival under the auspices of the Kominsky Foundation.She was an ACAT board member from 1982-1985 and a founding member of the North American Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique (NASTAT), now known as the American Society for the Alexander Technique (AmSAT).Currently she is a member of the Spanish (APTAE), English (STAT) and American (AmSAT) Societies for the Alexander Technique.
Optimal Movement Strategies for Reliable Musical Results by Evangeline Benedetti
A workshop in which Ms. Benedetti will bring together her expertise as a master Alexander Technique teacher and its application to performance, drawing on her more than 40 years performing as a cellist in the New York Philharmonic. Over thousands of performances collaborating with colleagues and conductors at the highest caliber under the most demanding conditions, she has been able to study movement from this extraordinary perspective. The demands on the body coupled with the need for musical excellence require a technique that is flexible, reliable and reproducible under pressure. Bring your questions and be prepared to experience the paradox of freedom under pressure."
Evangeline Benedetti, cellist, active soloist, and chamber musician, has been a member of the New York Philharmonic since 1967, one of the first women cellists to be accepted into the organization. She appears regularly on the Philharmonic Ensembles series at Merkin Concert Hall in New York, including performances with guest artists Yefim Bronfman, Vladimir Feltsman, and Jerome Lowenthal. As a member of the New York Trio Concertant, she toured Japan in 1994 and 1995. In addition to the numerous recordings she has participated in with the New York Philharmonic, she has recorded the Prokofiev and Shostakovich Sonatas for cello and piano with Pedja Muzijevic that has been released by Musicians Showcase. Ms. Benedetti’s second love and career is teaching. She brings a unique approach to this endeavor as a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, which is a study of physical re-education based on integration of mind and body. Her cellistic approach is steeped in the tradition of Bernard Greenhouse, Zara Nelsova, and Janos Starker, her teachers. She also performed in master classes with Pablo Casals. Her education, after childhood studies at the University of Texas String Project with Phyllis Young, was at the Manhattan School of Music, where she earned her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees. She served on the faculty there for more than 20 years. Combining her knowledge of performance and the Alexander Technique makes her teaching approach applicable to all instruments. She has taught musicians in the San Diego, Dallas, and Fort Worth symphonies and has given master classes at Brooklyn College School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College of Music, and The Juilliard School. She taught a master class in Pyongyang, North Korea while on tour with the orchestra. As part of the Philharmonic’s Mentors and Protégés series, Ms. Benedetti has made several presentations at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Lincoln Triangle. In New York. Currently, she teaches privately and in workshops. Ms. Benedetti serves on the executive boards of the Violoncello Society of New York and the Bloomingdale School of Music.
Come Blow Your Horn! Actuating the back muscles to free up the breathing by Judith Muir
During this workshop we will explore and experience how to activate and energize the mechanisms of support that hold us up to help you "Blow Your Horn" more easily. Like all of Alexander's work it involves several parts:
-Becoming aware of the ideas that we have acquired about breathing, support, pressure and wind
-Developing awareness of what we are really doing
-Deleting inefficient patterns of co-ordination
-Enhancing our mechanisms of support
Judith Muir M.M. M.AmSAT., is a senior Alexander Technique teacher with thirty years of international experience. Originally from the UK where she trained with Walter Carrington, one of the most influential Alexander Technique teachers in the world, she moved to the USA and became a founding member of the American Society of Alexander Teachers (AmSAT), as well as Vice-Chair of the American Center for the Alexander Technique, New York. She is currently Director of an AmSAT approved teacher training course and has helped train students to become certified teachers of the Alexander Technique on three continents. Her past and present students include members of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York City Opera, flutist Sir James Galway, and actors Greta Scacchi and Chris Noth. Her background as a professional musician gives her an insider’s perspective on many of the issues faced by performers and strongly influences her teaching. Trained at Manhattan School of Music and The Royal Academy of Music, London, she is a distinguished clarinetist who has performed classical and jazz concerts internationally, including Carnegie Hall, St. Martin’s in the Fields, London, and Wigmore Hall in London. She and her husband Peter Muir are Directors of the Institute for Music and Health in the Hudson Valley www.musichealth.net where they teach the Diamond Method for Music and run many programs for people with disabilities.
For twelve years she taught the Alexander Technique at Bard College as Associate Professor of Theatre, having previously taught at the Actors’ Movement Studio in New York City, Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, and the Powerhouse Theatre Apprentice Program, Vassar College.
Keys to Freedom: Unlocking your Creative and Emotional Self at the Piano by Peter Muir
This workshop presents holistic principles aimed to release your creativity and free up your piano-playing physically and emotionally. Drawing from the work of music and health pioneer John Diamond, M.D., pedagogue Abby Whiteside, F. M. Alexander, and music education researcher Edwin Gordon, among others, topics include: refining your ear; overcoming physical tension by playing from your center; optimizing improvisation; how to learn more efficiently; and enhancing co-ordination at the keyboard. Regardless of your level of experience, there will be much to learn. Come prepared to play or just audit – your choice.
Peter Muir, Ph.D., is an authority in using music for mental, physical and spiritual wellness. He is an internationally acclaimed classical and jazz pianist, composer, conductor, musicologist, and pedagogue, and director of the Institute of Music and Health in the Hudson Valley, NY, which teaches the unique work of his mentor John Diamond, M.D., the foremost authority in the field of music and health. Dr. Muir is much in demand as a performer, keynote speaker and presenter at conferences, and is a currently lecturer at The Graduate Institute, CT, as well as a former head of keyboards and director of jazz at Westminster School, London. His approach is based on the assumption that music is at its most powerful and positive when made with the entire self, and addresses the psychological, physical, emotional, and cognitive aspects of music-making as a symbiotic whole. Whether working with a professional musician at the highest level of functioning, or a person with profound disabilities entirely new to the act of music-making, Dr. Muir’s vision is the same: to best bring out the Music that resides in everyone, so as to enhance their creative, musical, and personal potential.
Baroque Dance Forms in the Music of Bach and Handel by Thomas Baird
You’ve played sarabandes, menuets, bourées, gavottes and gigues – now, learn how to dance them! Participants will learn very basic dance steps that will help them explore all these Baroque dance types, as well as courantes, chaconnes, passacailles, rigaudons and hornpipes. Learning and applying the principles of the Alexander Technique, students will begin with a dance warm-up, and will be guided through basic dance steps and floor patterns. Participants should wear clothing that allows their knees to bend and shoes that are supportive and flexible. Socks are also acceptable.
Thomas Baird is a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique and a graduate of the Balance Arts Center, Ann Rodiger, director. Since 2009 he has assisted Jane Kosminsky in the Dance Division at the Juilliard School, and since 2011 has taught Introduction to the Alexander Technique in Dance at Purchase College. Thomas has private practices in Norwalk, CT and New York City. Mr. Baird is a professional dancer and choreographer with a specialty in Historical Dance. He has provided historically appropriate choreography for Alfano’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” at the Metropolitan Opera, and has choreographed and performed with the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts for several years.
From FM’s Whispered Ah to Your Singing Voice by Ann Rodiger
This workshop adapts the material from Ann's Floor Balance and Ease class to freeing the breath for musicians. We will start on the floor with conscious deliberate focus on indentifying the inner breathing column. You will see how the breath effects your entire body and learn how to focus your air stream for optimal singing and playing. These movements can be adapted to create your own warm-up for practice, rehearsal, and performance.
Ann Rodiger is the founder and director of the Balance Arts Center and the Balance Arts Center Teacher Training Course. She has been teaching the Alexander Technique and movement for over 30 years in academic and private settings. She is skilled in Labanotation, Laban Movement Analysis, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Yoga, meditation, and various dance techniques. She maintains private practices in New York City, Berlin and Antwerp. She is the creator and producer of the Freedom to Move, Freedom to Play and co-creator of the Freedom to Act conferences. She has recently published a book, "How To Sit: Your Body at Work".
Biotensegrity: Suspended Support in Activity by Carol Boggs
Carol Boggs has been teaching the Alexander Technique since 1980 and an AmSAT member since 1990 . She practices in greater Washington DC., has offered AT classes for both the Vocal Studies and Dance Departments at George Mason University, and has joined faculties teaching for AT residential courses in the USA, Japan and the Caribbean. Her continuing education credits include, Jessica Wolf's "The Art of Breathing", John Nicholls' "The Carrington Way of Working" and Stephen Shaw's "The Art of Swimming." With a strong movement and dance background including Laban Movement Analysis, Continuum, Tai Chi and Aikido and a keen interest in the interface between Biotensegrity and the AT, Carol continues to explore a lively approach to AT teaching.
The Spine is Your Sound Post; Strings, Springs and Resonance by Kathe Jarka
Alexander Technique: Balancing Body, Mind and Flute by Lisa Lutton
Playing the flute requires balance in your body, a good mental balance, and balance of the flute itself. If any one of those elements is out of balance, it will impact the other two quite directly. In this class we’ll experiment with some ideas and activities you can use to help you explore those relationships, restoring better balance in yourself and in your relationship to your flute.
Lisa Lutton is a graduate of the American Center for the Alexander Technique (ACAT) in New York City, and she is certified by the American Society for the Alexander Technique (AmSAT). Lisa came to the Alexander Technique through her background as a classical flutist. She received degrees in music performance from Northwestern University (BM) and Mannes College of Music (MM), and she enjoys helping other musicians reach their full potential and stay injury-free with the Alexander Technique. She has presented classes and demonstrations at Rutgers University, Mannes College of Music, the American Center for the Alexander Technique, the National Flute Association convention, Tulane University, and the Jewish Community Centers in New York and New Orleans. Lisa continues to be amazed by how powerful the mind/body connection can be in promoting both physical and emotional well-being. She is an avid student of tai chi and is in training to be a yoga teacher. She currently lives in New Orleans, where she spends her spare time swing dancing to live jazz.
Banish Burnout: Rekindle the Flame and Rise Above Pain! by Jennifer Roig-Francoli
Inspiring and uplifting spirits, touching and moving hearts, melting into mysterious seas of sound, communicating and connecting with others, sharing and expressing our deepest selves through music...these are all experiences that motivate musicians to devote our lives to art. Unfortunately, it is all too common for music students and professionals in our fast-paced, goal- oriented culture to lose sight of dreams and ideals, and get disconnected from our ultimate purpose. Students can feel frustrated and overwhelmed by technical details, deadlines, the need to make money, performance anxiety, or the ambition required to compete for a dwindling number of jobs. Professionals may fall prey to loss of meaning and disillusionment in repetitive environments that fail to stimulate growth and curiosity. The worst scenarios result in deep personal dissatisfaction and burnout, along with physical pain and injury; yet, so much pain can be prevented by returning to the source of our inspiration. In this workshop, we will address how the Alexander Technique can help prevent burnout and injury, and how it can help musicians recover the healthy joy of music-making if it has been lost. We will discuss obstacles that confront students and professionals and how to stop falling into habitual patterns that lead to psycho-physical suffering. We will give ourselves time, individually and in groups, to explore essential questions such as, “Why do musicians make music, and where does it come from?”; “What does it mean to be a successful artist, and what are the obstacles to success?”; “How can we use our whole selves and our instruments to best advantage, in practice and performance?”; and we will put our musings to practical application with hands-on Alexander Technique explorations, with or without musical instruments.
Jennifer Roig-Francoli is a highly-qualified Alexander Ttchnique teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio, certified by AmSAT, and a professional performing artist. She is the Owner/Instructor of Balance & Harmony Alexander Technique, where she teachers private and group lessons, as well as Adjunct Instructor of the Alexander Technique at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Xavier University, and UC-CCM Preparatory Department. She also offers AT workshops and lessons on-site for many other Professional and educational institutions. As a violinist, Jennifer performs on the baroque and modern instruments, and is currently part of the Period-Instrument Duok ADASTRA. As a research investigator at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, in 2009-2010 Jennifer designed and implemented a pilot study involving teaching the AT to surgeons performing laparoscopic skills. The aim of hte study, which had very favorable preliminary results was to assess whether the AT can help surgeons with their postural use while performing surgery and thereby prevent the pain and stress that lead to surgical fatigue. Jennifer co-authored a scheintific paper on this research which was presented in major medical conferences across the US, won second prize for clinical rsearch paper submissions from the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2010, and will be published in the Journal or Urology in October 2011.
Embodied Voice by Pyeng Threadgill
Embodied Voice is a voice and movement class combining Somatic Voicework, The LoVetri Method, with the principles of attention, awareness and inhibition from the Alexander Technique. Together these methods can help one to access improved sound and overall health. Using various approaches from Yoga to Qigong to deepen and channel ones free voice creates new possibilities for breath, improvisation, songwriting and wellness. Embodied Voice is geared towards beginners and professionals alike. This class works with the belief that as we tone the voice, we tone the body and by toning the body, we tone the voice. Students should dress comfortably, bring a Yoga mat and sitting cushion if possible.
Pyeng Threadgill is a professional vocalist/composer/recording artist and certified teacher of both the Alexander Technique and Somatic Voicework, Level III. Pyeng has toured nationally and internationally with her own groups at places such as San Sebastian Jazz Festival (Spain), Atlanta Jazz Festival, Vermont Arts Exchange, Seattle Jazz Festival and even New York's own Rockwood Music Hall. Threadgill is a 2008 recipient of the fellowship in Music Composition from New York Foundation for the Arts for her project Portholes To A Love & Other Short Stories. She teaches on the voice faculty at Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and Alexander Technique at Balance Arts. Pyeng also has a private practice in Brooklyn.
Prepare Your Performance Body: Find your Back, Breath, and Balance by Ann Rodiger
We will with your whole body coordination to fine your balance and center through floor and standing work. There will be focus on breathing, ease, coordination and directions. We will work slowly and carefully to build your awareness of your limbs in relation to your head, neck and back.
(Ann Rodiger bio above)
Comparative Listening by Beret Arcaya
How we can hear the use of the self by the sound of the voice.
(Beret Arcaya bio above)
Stagefright to Stage Freedom: Transcending Performance Anxiety by Peter Muir
There is no aspect of a performer’s life more potentially debilitating, or more universal, than stagefright. Based on the ground-breaking work of music and health pioneer John Diamond, M.D., this workshop examines the psychological causes of the condition and presents an original approach to music-making designed to transform the performance experience. The result is creative liberation and enhanced power for the musician, whatever your level of experience or instrument. Time to deal with the topic at its root and turn your relationship with your audience into a joyful and positive one!
(Peter Muir bio above)
Freedom to ACT: 2013
The Conference on Acting and the Alexander Technique
January 11-13, 2013
Shetler Studios & Theatres
244 West 54th Street, Suite 1206
New York, NY, 10019
Developed by Teva Bjerken, Belinda Mello and Ann Rodiger.
Presented by AT Motion and the Balance Arts Center.
Come join us for the Freedom to Act 2013:
The conference for students and professionals in Theater, Film and the Alexander Technique.
Freedom to be physically, vocally and emotionally flexible is a must for actors. As they learn to access this freedom, they take the audience with them through a transformational experience; storytelling served by authenticity.
The Alexander Technique is an indispensable tool for discovering freedom and flexibility. Performing artists worldwide value the foundational role that the Alexander Technique plays in art and in life.
Young actors, as well as seasoned professionals, rely on the heightened consciousness and unhabituated expression they gain when the Alexander Technique is integrated into their artistic work. The variety of workshops and presentations offered at this conference reflect the vitality of the Alexander Technique in many aspects of acting and actor training. There will be special events for Theatre and Alexander Technique teachers, workshops for those who are new to the technique, and social gatherings.
All the conference presenters have extensive experience teaching the Alexander Technique to actors, directing theater productions, or coaching actors on film, many have had distinguished performance careers. Everyone who attends will be exploring the vital role that Alexander Technique plays in illuminating the acting process.
Come join us to explore, experience and share!
Fees:
Full Professional Conference Fee: $225
Full Student Conference Fee: $160
Single workshop rates available at checkout.
Fees and sign up information here.
FRIDAY (at the Shelter Studios Penthouse)
6:00: Registration Opens
6:15-7:00 pm: Introduction to The Alexander Technique
7:00-8:30 pm: Activities and Social
SATURDAY
9:00-11:00 am: SESSION 1
A. The Alexander Technique in Acting Class and At the Heart of Actor Training
Jed Diamond
B. The Alexander Technique as an Effective Means for Learning and Teaching Some Basic Acting Skills
Kathleen Baum
C. Connecting With Our Roots: Alexander Technique and Training the Speaking Voice
Diane Gaary
D. Limps and Tics and Humps–Oh My!: Extreme Character Physicalization
Christine Stevens
11:15-1:15 pm: SESSION 2
A. How Do We Build a Strong Role for The Alexander Technique in an Acting Program?
A Panel discussion moderated by Teva Bjerken
B. The Show Must Go On! Managing Performance Anxiety with The Alexander Technique
Ruth Rootberg
C. Shakespeare and the Alexander Technique: The Relationship of Alexander Principles to Breath, Sound and Word and Suspected Influences of Textual Devices
Greg Seel
D. Release Into Text: An Exploration of How We Can Use Direction and Awareness to Facilitate Our Connection to Text
Nina D'Abbracci
1:15-2:30 pm: LUNCH
2:30-4:30 pm: SESSION 3
A. Psychophysical History: An Alexander Technique Approach to Creating Character
Cathy Madden
B. Effort, Risk, Momentum, Joy: Alexander Technique and Physical Training at Dell’Arte International
Joe Krienke
C. The Art of Breathing
Jessica Wolf
D. Alexander Technique in Collaboration: Partner Dancing with Alexander Bodies
Mona Stiles and Michael Raine
4:45-7:30 pm: SESSION 4
A. Acting in Film and The Alexander Technique
Jean-Louis Rodrigue
B. Shaping a Character Using The Alexander Technique: Playing with Inner and Outer Transformation (WORKSHOP FULL)
Carolyn Serota and Richard Feldman
C. Learning to Speak UP: Vocal Acoustics and The Alexander Technique (ends at 6:15 pm)
Kathryn Armour
SUNDAY
9:00-11:00 am: SESSION 5
A. Sharing Curriculum: For Alexander Technique Teachers Working in a Theater Program
Constance Clare-Newman and Clare Maxwell
B. A Simple and Engaging Presence: Theatrical Clown and the Alexander Technique
Jean E. Taylor
C. Preparing and Presenting a Monologue: An Alexander Approach (WORKSHOP FULL)
Meade Andrews
10:30-12:00 pm: BRUNCH SOCIAL ($10 payable at Friday night registration)
12:15-2:15 pm: SESSION 6
A. The Actor Who Sings
Ann Rodiger
B. At the Actor’s Core: The Alexander Technique
Belinda Mello
C. Alexander Technique: An Acting Approach
Sarah Barker
D. Alexander Technique: Alert and Calm Readiness
Gabriella Minnes Brandes
2:30-3:30 pm: CLOSING SESSION
Come share your experiences from the weekend and your ideas about bringing the AT further into the spotlight of Acting. Everyone is welcome!
Sign up here.
*Schedule is based on participant registration and is subject to change.
The final schedule will reflect registration.
Requests for cancellations will be honored, less $50 per person processing fee, if cancellation is received in writing before January 5, 2013. No cancellations will be accepted over the phone.
F2A: 2013 Workshop Descriptions and Biographies
The Alexander Technique in Acting Class and at the Heart of Actor Training by Jed Diamond
Mr. Diamond will share his approach to teaching the Alexander Technique in acting classes and as a core practice for actors in training and throughout their lives. He will share vocabulary and examine the principles in play at introductory and more advanced levels. The workshop is conceived to foster discussion and exchange with participants.
Jed Diamond is Head of the MFA in Acting program at The University of Tennessee / Clarence Brown Theatre, a three year conservatory, where he teaches both acting and the Alexander Technique, and is a member of the Clarence Brown Theatre Company. He has acted at Arena Stage, The Roundabout Theatre, The New York Shakespeare Festival, Syracuse Stage, Signature Theatre, with The Acting Company, and in many other venues. He taught acting and the Alexander Technique in New York from 1997 to 2005, at the New York Shakespeare Festival, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, The Actors Center, Stella Adler Studio, Playwrights Horizons Theatre School, and privately. He trained in the Alexander Technique at the Mathews School in New York, and completed a post-graduate term of study with Walter Carrington in London.
Shared Ground: The Alexander Technique as an Effective Means for Learning and Teaching Some Basic Acting Skills by Kathleen Baum
Skills that the Alexander Technique teaches are basic skills for an actor: the ability to be attentive simultaneously to both inner and outer worlds; the ability to be present and to experience each acting moment as if for the first time; the ability to be open to questioning personal assumptions and perceived limitations. We will explore these skills through discussion and work on simple physical exercises based on Meyerhold's Biomechanics.
Kathleen Baum graduated from Alexander Technique of Syracuse (Kathryn Miranda, Director) in 2011. She teaches in the Syracuse University Drama Department and at the National Theater Institute at Eugene O'Neill Theater Center with a specialization in movement-based approaches to theatre. She has taught Meyerhold's Biomechanics at Syracuse, at the O'Neill, and as a guest at a broad range of venues across the U.S. and internationally.
Connecting with our Roots: Alexander Technique and Training the Speaking Voice by Diane Gaary
F.M. Alexander was fascinated with the health and development of his speaking voice. In this workshop we will explore how applying the principles of the Alexander Technique affects the speaking voice, and learn how vocal health, resonance, expressiveness, and power are natural by products of Good Use. We will also examine the role of the Alexander Technique as it interfaces with various voice and speech training methods that are currently used in today’s actor training.
Diane Gaary is an Alexander Teacher, Voice and Speech Trainer, and Feldenkrais Practitioner™. Diane is a teaching member of The American Society for the Alexander Technique (AmSAT). She also holds teaching certification from Alexander Technique International (ATI), Feldenkrais Practitioner™ certification from The Feldenkrais Guild, and Speaking Voice and Movement Trainer certification from The Lessac Institute. Diane has a B.A. in Theatre and English from Smith College and an MFA in Acting from the University of Virginia where she also studied graduate-level speech pathology for two years. She teaches at Temple University, Arcadia University, and Westminster Choir College, and maintains private studios in Philadelphia and New York City.
Limps and Tics and Humps... Oh My!: Extreme Character Physicalization by Christine Stevens
Limps, humps and spasms are only a few of the possible physical choices an actor may need to embody in the playing of a role. But how do we create Laura Wingfield’s limp or sustain Richard III’s crooked spine without injuring ourselves? How do we make it authentic so that it enhances and doesn’t distract from our performance? We’ll explore how applying the principles of the AT can help the actor bring truth to and prevent injury from extreme physicalizations.
Christine Stevens teaches the AT with the Brown University/Trinity Rep MFA Program for Actors and Directors in Providence, RI and maintains a private practice in Amherst, MA.
How Do We Develop a Strong Role for the Alexander Technique in a Program of Training for the Actor? Panel moderated by Teva Bjerken; This workshop will be a conversation with faculty from universities and conservatory programs, addressing some of the challenges that arise when building placement and support for the AT in programs with varying approaches to actor training. Panelists will include: Meade Andrews, Sara Barker, Jed Diamond, Richard Feldman, Cathy Madden, Jean-Louis Rodrigue, Carolyn Serota, Jessica Wolf and moderated by Teva Bjerken. We will share ideas that have created satisfying results in curriculum, offer support for building collaborative relationships with other faculty and address effective ways to bring the AT into productions.
Teva Bjerken (developer) has been teaching the Alexander Technique as faculty of The Actor's Studio MFA Program and The New School for Drama since 1995. She has taught workshops at the Red Bull Theater, Tom Todoroff Studio, The Actors Movement Center, and the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theater. A graduate of the American Center for the Alexander Technique, her teaching is informed by her own conservatory training as a dancer and career performing works in dance/theater (Bessie award-1990), post graduate AT studies in NY and London, and years of collaboration with Belinda Mello with whom she is published.
The Show Must Go On!: Managing Performance Anxiety with the Alexander Technique by Ruth Rootberg; What are the many ways the Alexander Technique helps the actor manage performance anxiety? Participants will exchange, experiment, and yes—stand before the group—to explore what thoughts and procedures help manage uncomfortable anticipation of an upcoming event, whether it takes place in the future, on the day of performance, or in-the-moment of performance.
Ruth Rootberg, M.AmSAT (ATSNE, Missy Vineyard) is also a designated Linklater voice teacher and Laban Movement Analyst. Ruth has presented workshops at AmSAT AGM’s, the Voice Foundation, and with Christine Stevens at Freedom to Act, 2011. Ruth lives and teaches in Amherst, Massachusetts. Recent articles include “Reducing Music Performance Anxiety,” http://majoringinmusic.com/reducing-music-performance-anxiety/.
Shakespeare and the Alexander Technique: The Relationship of Alexander Principles to Breath, Sound and Word and Suspected Influences of Textual Devices by Greg Seel; A two hour workshop where participants will have the opportunity to explore Alexander with Classical monologues. We will hypothesize Alexander's influence from classical textual devices such as antithesis, rising iambic line and scansion and engage some physical processes to fuse use of self and use of text.
Greg Seel first studied the Alexander Technique with Walter Carrington and Mary Holland while in actor training at The Drama Studio. He was first Certified at ACAT in 1983 an later STAT Certified in 1988. He is currently teaches at Rutgers University MFA Acting Program, NYU BFA Program (Classical Studio & Meisner Studio) and The New York Conservatory for the Dramatic Arts. He has taught in conjunction with professional acting programs since 1986. Gately/Poole Acting Studio and The New Actor's Workshop. He has served on the faculties of Suny Purchase, Columbia University, and St John's University. He collaborated extensively with Ray Yeates of The Abby Theater, Dublin and Ballymun. He was a founding member of The Riverside Shakespeare Co. and The Mint Theater Co. He teaches privately in Brooklyn with his wife Genevieve.
Find Your Full Expression: Speaking, Breathing and Moving by June Ekman; This workshop his about becoming more conscious of one's physical patterns and how they may be interfering with one's full expression of speaking, breathing and moving. The workshop includes work with rubber balls lying on the floor to help deepen one's proprioceptive awareness.
Release Into Text by Nina D'Abbracci. An exploration of how we can use Direction and Awareness to facilitate our connection to text. We will work with balls on the floor to help soften frozen tension, then explore Alexander Direction while we work on text.
Nina D'Abbracci was a faculty member of The New Actors Workshop's two year conservatory program for 16 years, and has taught at Columbia University in the MFA Theater Department, Ensemble Studio Theater, Michael Howard Studio, and NYU. She is currently on the faculty of The Linklater Center for Voice and Language, and has maintained a private practice on the Upper West Side since 1987. Nina trained and performed as a dancer and an actor, and integrates her skills as an Alexander teacher within the context of the performing arts. In addition, she is certified in Kinetic Awareness, ( A.K.A. "The Great Ball Work" ), which she also incorporates into her teaching.Nina is a teaching member of Alexander Technique International, and is a Certified Master Teacher of Kinetic Awareness.
Psychophysical History: An Alexander Technique Approach to Creating Character by Cathy Madden
If each of us has a lifetime that creates our psychophysical history, then the challenge for the actor is how to create that lifetime of experience for an imagined life in the temporally concentrated process of rehearsal. In much actor training, there is a dilemma about how to translate the idea of the character’s past into present time behavior on the stage. All acting theorists value this transformation, many recognize a quality of coordination that enables it, but don’t have a process to offer that can consistently bring it to life. My premise is that the rehearsal process must be a condensed creation of the psychophysical history of the lives of the characters out of which the play must inevitably happen. By using the Alexander Technique in combination with rehearsal techniques that amplify the psychophysical response of the actor to the circumstances of the play, my actor/students and I have been developing highly effective rehearsal and performance tools.
Cathy Madden is a Principal Lecturer for the University of Washington School of Drama, Director of the Alexander Technique Training and Performance Studio in Seattle, Associate Director for BodyChance in Japan, Theatrical Director for Lucia Neare Theatrical Wonders ( recent winner of the Seattle Mayor's Arts Awards), has been a Congress Teacher for the International Congresses of the Alexander Technique, and is a frequent guest at training schools in Europe and Australia. She is a Founder and Former Chair of Alexander Technique International which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2012. She has been teaching since 1980 and was a long time student of Marjorie Barstow.
Effort, Risk, Momentum, Joy Alexander Technique and Physical Training at Dell’Arte International by Joe Krienke; This workshop will look at the Alexander Technique as basis for athleticism. The class will begin moving through physical activities that include walking, running, skipping, quadrupedal gaits, flexibility, strength, endurance, and the movements of the spine. The workshop will then focus on the structures and movements of the acrobatic balancing skills backbend, headstand, and handstand and will conclude with a survey of the basic tumbling skills forward roll, back shoulder roll, and cartwheel. No acrobatic experience is necessary to benefit from the workshop.
Joe Krienke is the Associate School Director at the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre in Blue Lake, CA where he teaches Alexander Technique, Acrobatics, Movement Analysis, Daily Practice, Archery, and Clown. Between 2001-2006 he was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Mask Acting and Clown in the MFA acting program at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He trained as an Alexander Technique teacher in Philadelphia with Martha Hansen-Fertmen.
The Art of Breathing by Jessica Wolf
Actors often speak of having an inspirational experience. This level of performance demands high energy and coordination. To achieve this the actor needs to learn how to use the breath as the fuel for the body and support for the voice. Applying the principles of “The Art of Breathing” we will explore the coordination and the efficiency of the respiratory system in relationship to vocal power, movement and character transformation.
Jessica Wolf, ACAT 1977, is an internationally recognized teacher of the Alexander Technique and maintains a private practice in NYC. Jessica joined the faculty of Yale School of Drama in 1998, and now holds the position of Assistant Professor. In 2002, Jessica founded and directed the first post-graduate training program for Alexander teachers in "The Art of Breathing". Faculty appointments include the Aspen Music Festival, The Juilliard School, SUNY Purchase, Circle in the Square Theater School, Hunter College, Sarah Lawrence College and the Verbier Music Festival.
Alexander Technique in Collaboration: Partner Dancing with Alexander Bodies by Mona Stiles and Michael Raine; Mona and Michael work together in Michael's dance classes at The NYU Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program. The use of Alexander thinking in any activity is logical to us as teachers. When two teachers from different disciplines combine in a class, the experience is both richer and more demanding for both teacher and student. In this situation it helps actors hear the physical conversation needed for the lead/follow aspect of partner dancing. We hope to demonstrate this with our students. We also look forward to having a discussion about growing this type of collaboration with all of its rewards as well as its challenges.
Mona Stiles worked as a professional actress for many years in regional theater as well as NYC. During that time she studied the Alexander Technique with Marj. Barstow, and Troup and Ann Matthews. She eventually trained at The Matthews School, did post graduate work with Rivka Cohen, and completed the Jessica Wolf “Art of Breathing” workshop. Mona teaches in the New York University, Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program and maintains a private practice.
Acting In Film and The Alexander Technique by Jean-Louis Rodrigue
An actor's vision in film acting is lived emotionally and physically. This kind of performance requires more than instinct- it needs interpretative intelligence and a mastery of physical, psychological, and emotional craft into performance. Jean-Louis Rodrigue leads an intensive workshop to explore the skills and tools that are required for the extraordinary creation of characters and performances specifically geared for the camera.
Jean-Louis Rodrigue collaborated with such film artists as acting coach Larry Moss, Leonardo DiCaprio, Forest Whitaker, Ang Lee, Juliette Binoche, Josh Brolin, Chris Pine, Hilary Swank, Helena Bonham Carter to name a few, gives Jean-Louis a unique point of view of applying the Alexander Technique to acting in film.
Shaping a Character Using The Alexander Technique: Playing with Inner and Outer Transformationsby Carolyn Serota and Richard Feldman
In transforming into a character, the actor travels a road of choice and change from self to other. He or she must move from personal habit to balanced availability and finally to the embodiment of a character, an "other" with patterns of perception, impulse, behavior, and action different from one's own. The Alexander Technique promotes poise in the body and poise in the imagination, the starting place for the journey to otherness. How does this "otherness" happen? Using the Alexander tools of awareness, conscious inhibition, and direction; simple acting exercises; elements of environment work; and exercises developed from Judith Leibowitz's early energy games, we will explore aspects of inner and outer transformation techniques and how they might inform and affect one another to create an imagined life. Carolyn and Richard will share their collaborative way of working in process.
Carolyn. M. Serota has been teaching the Alexander Technique in the Drama Division of the Juilliard School since 1990 . After graduating from Bryn Mawr College, she performed and taught dance before training as an Alexander teacher at ACAT under Judith Liebowitz and Barbara Kent. She was a member of the ACAT Teacher Training faculty 1989-92; The Chatauqua Conservatory Theater Faculty 1994-95; and
The Actors Center 1997-98. Since 1991, in addition to teaching, she has joined with many directors at Juilliard to explore the integration of the AT into the rehearsal process. She is married to director and acting teacher Richard Feldman, with whom she has an ongoing artistic collaboration. Carolyn also has a private practice in NYC.
Richard Feldman is the Associate Director of the Drama Division at Juilliard where he has taught Improvisation, Text Analysis and Scene Study, and directed many, many projects and plays for 25 years. After receiving his undergraduate degree at Yale he studied acting at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. He has taught and directed at the Chatauqua Conservatory Thetaer, the Actors Center, and for the past 8 years at NYU Graduate Acting. He has an ongoing artistic collaboration with his wife Carolyn Serota who teaches the Alexander Technique at Juilliard.
Learning to Speak UP: Vocal Acoustics and the Alexander Technique by Kathryn Armour
A brief presentation on voice anatomy will be followed by exploratory etudes for improved structural awareness, and more resonant speech. In partner work we will integrate the voice back into the whole self. As a group we will move into song.
Kathryn Armour (M.A. University of Chicago), studied voice in Florence, Italy for 5 years, and then returned to study voice and acting in New York City. She was a finalist in both the Metropolitan Opera and Pavarotti Competitions and has extensive performing experience in all genres from opera to Broadway and cabaret. She has been on the voice faculty of New York University for 17 years, teaching in the CAP21 Music Theater Studio. She also has a studio in mid-town Manhattan, where she teaches voice together with the Alexander Technique. She holds an intensive summer course in Voice and Alexander Technique at Lake Como, in the Italian Alps, and in late summer she teaches a Voice Camp in New Hampshire. She is currently the Voice and Alexander Technique teacher for the Broadway award-winning Fiasco Theater Company, which will present Sondheim’s Into the Woods for the McCarter Theater (April 2013). Kathryn Armour was certified as an Alexander Technique teacher in 2003, and is a member of ATI. She has been a performer at the last 3 international Alexander Technique Congresses. This season she is teaching workshops for the University of Wisconsin Medical School Voice Clinic; the Susan Sinclair Alexander Technique Centre in Toronto, Canada (an AT teacher training school); and Wheaton College (MA) Drama and Dance Dept.
Sharing Curriculum: for Alexander Technique Teachers Working in a Theater Program by Constance Clare-Newman and Clare Maxwell; Are you new to teaching groups in a theater program? What would you most like to know about how your colleagues teach their classes? If you’ve been teaching for years, what successes and discoveries would you most like to share with your colleagues? We will sample key moments from each other’s curriculi, discuss experiential activities that develop students’ Alexander understanding and practice, and explore pedagogical methods that resonate with AT principles.
Constance Clare-Newman certified at ATI-SF (Frank Ottiwell, Director) in 2001. She teaches at her Oakland, CA studio and has been teaching actors at Academy of Art University since 2005.
Clare Maxwell certified at ACAT in 2000 and in 2010 with Jessica Wolf in The Art of Breathing. She teaches at her studio in NYC and is on faculty at Movement Research and the William Esper Studio.
A Simple and Engaging Presence: Theatrical Clown and the Alexander Technique by Jean E. Taylor
The workshop process is about bringing who you are, and what you already have, forward. It is an opportunity for participants to embrace, through openness and humor, their own unique ridiculousness. Theatrical clowning can develop our capacity for playing in the moment and offer us new perspectives on ourselves as both teachers and performers. Connections are made throughout the workshop between Theatrical Clown and the Alexander Technique, specifically recognition of habit, positive inhibition, and non-end-gaining.
Jean E. Taylor, teacher and performer, collaborates on the development of original plays, which have been featured at a variety of national and international venues. Her latest work, Pants and Skirts, was presented at The Barrow Group Theatre in May 2012. Her current work, True Hazards of Childhood is scheduled for a workshop performance in December 2012. Jean is a teaching artist for Lincoln Center Institute and teaches theatrical clowning for The New School for Drama and The Barrow Group Theatre. Jean studied with Philippe Gaulier, Ron Foreman, Merry Conway, and David Shiner.
Preparing and Presenting a Monologue: An Alexander Approach by Meade Andrews
This workshop will focus on bringing Alexander's process of observation and awareness/inhibition/direction to the preparation and performance of a monologue. First, as a whole group we will explore the relationship between AT and the acting process in preparation for presenting a monologue, focusing on: Stimulus/response, the "moment before",moment to moment playing, and breath/speech. Each person will receive a monologue to explore. Second, I will work with 3-4 actors in front of the group on a monologue they have prepared, using the material explored in the first hour in relation to each actor.
Meade Andrews currently teaches as guest artist in theatre at Rider University and Westminster Choir College, in Princeton, NJ. She also maintains a private practice in NJ, teaches in NYC and DC, and contributes to AT training courses in Houston, Philadelphia, North Carolina, and Toronto. Former director of the Dance Program at American University in DC, she continues to teach at the Studio Theatre, her professional base for 20 years. Meade travels nationally and internationally to teach the AT, and has served as movement coach for numerous theatrical productions.
The Actor Who Sings by Ann Rodiger
Alexander's fundamental principle "whispered ah" will be used as the basis for speaking and singing. We will work individually and in partners to discover a free and connected singing voice. Explorations of the head, neck, tongue and jaw will be integrated with the whole body as you vocalize. For the second-half of the workshop, we will move into a master class format with an accompanist. Participants are invited and encouraged to prepare something to sing.
Ann Rodiger (producer) is the founder and director of the Balance Arts Center and the Balance Arts Center Teacher Training Course. She has been teaching the Alexander Technique and movement for over 30 years in academic and private settings. She is skilled in Labanotation, Laban Movement Analysis, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Yoga, meditation, and various dance techniques. She maintains private practices in New York City, Berlin and Antwerp. She is the creator and producer of the Freedom to Move, Freedom to Play and co-creator of the Freedom to Act conferences. She has recently published a book, "How To Sit: Your Body at Work".
At the Actor’s Core: the Alexander Technique by Belinda Mello
Every performing artist needs essential skills for setting inner conditions and directing the flow of energy. When you can engage with your “primary control”, or fundamental organization of head/spine/connective tissue at the core, you are able to establish the support you need for embodiment of character and expression of impulses. Your primary coordination opens up a pathway for transformation - we will explore this in a progressive sequence of movement, voice and emotional flexibility exercises, as well as directly into a kinesthetic approach to meeting a new piece of text.
Belinda Mello, MFA (co-producer) teaches the Alexander Technique, Movement and Mask in the BFA program at Brooklyn College/CUNY and at Tom Todoroff Studio Conservatory. She is a guest artist at Ted Bardy Studio, Muhlenberg College, the Actor’s Movement Studio, Aching Dogs Theater Company, Jean Cocteau Rep and the Women’s Project. She has performed in the USA and Europe, and was both a director and actor in an Obie award-winning production. Currently, she is working toward Professor Certification in the Margolis Method and has recently published an article with Teva Bjerken. An Alexander teacher since 1989 and member of ATI, she teaches annually in Spokane with her mentor, Dr. William Conable. Belinda’s pracitce, AT Motion, is in NYC and Brooklyn.
Alexander Technique: An Acting Approach by Sarah Barker
Sarah Barker will demonstrate how she works directly with actors’ challenges in rehearsal. Drawing on 37 years of acting coaching for university and professional productions she will focus on using the AT as an acting approach, work closely with several actors as they rehearse a short scene or monologue. Themes for the work include initiating actions with greater ease and economy, unifying voice and body with the imaginative action and including one’s acting partner in an expanded field of attention to strengthen connection.
A nationally recognized leader in movement training and a respected actor trainer, Sarah Barker teaches at the University of South Carolina. Recognized for her innovative work teaching the Alexander Technique for actors she trains Alexander Technique teachers in Japan and North Carolina. Sarah’s book, The Alexander Technique, (translated in five languages) and her new DVD, Moving with Ease (also in Japanese) are used in many theatre-training programs throughout the US.
Alexander Technique: Alert and Calm Readiness by Gabriella Minnes Brandes
Participants will explore ways of applying the Alexander-Technique (e.g., inhibition, direction, and primary control) working on character, finding an appropriate voice for a character, and connecting voice and movement. Gaby will then share insights from analyzing videotapes and journals of acting students, as she reflects on the ways Alexander Technique enhances the art and craft of performing artists. Participants are invited to bring monologues to work on, and are also invited to share their experiences of applying the Alexander Technique in their work with performing artists.
Gaby Minnes Brandes, Ph.D. has been teaching the Alexander Technique since 1988. She is the co-director of the Vancouver School of the Alexander Technique and teaches the Alexander Technique in the Theatre Department at Capilano University while maintaining a thriving private practice. She researches the connections between Alexander Technique and creativity in the performing arts. Gaby holds a Ph.D. in education, informing both her practice and her research. For more information, please see http://alexandertechniquecentre.ca
Freedom to ACT: 2012
The Conference on Acting and the Alexander Technique
January 13-15, 2012
Shetler Studios & Theatres
244 West 54th Street, suite 1206
New York, NY, 10019
This workshop is developed by Teva Bjerken, Belinda Mello and Ann Rodiger and is presented by the Balance Arts Center.
Come join us for the Freedom to Act: Acting and Alexander Technique Conference.
This conference is designed for actors, theater and film professionals as well as Alexander Technique teachers.
Explore how the Alexander Technique accelerates the actor’s process in training, rehearsal, and performance. Freedom to move and breathe is at the heart of this Technique and why so many actors and performers use it as a fundamental aspect of their work and life.
Discover how an actor’s ability to recognize choices of action increases when bringing the Alexander Technique into the acting process; the connection of thought, sensation and expression is revitalized.
Experience the foundational role that the Alexander Technique plays in breathing, voice, movement and transformation for the actor.
All the conference presenters have extensive experience teaching the Alexander Technique to actors in universities, conservatories, in theater productions, or in film –some are performing artists and many have had extensive performance experience.
The variety of workshops offered speaks to how fundamental and vital the principles of the Alexander Technique are today, in all aspects of preparation and performance in theater and film.
Come join us and share in the experience!
Freedom to Move 2011: Dance and the Alexander Technique
May 20th, 21st, 22nd, 2011
Location:
Pearl Studios NYC
500 8th Ave., 4th Floor
btw 35th/36th St.
New York, NY 10018
www.pearlstudiosnyc.com
Come join us for the second Freedom to Move Dance and Alexander Technique conference.
We will continue to explore how the Alexander Technique supports and complements dance technique and performance.
Movement freedom, ease, and coordination can be enhanced and taught through concepts and principles of Alexander Technique. The conference provides experiences and exploration of many ways the Alexander Technique can be applied to dance – from tango to composition to research to performance.
You will also have time to share and exchange ideas as we work together.
All the conference presenters have had extensive experience both in teaching the Alexander Technique and in dance. The Alexander Technique has greatly influenced their thinking and approach to movement, how they teach, and how they create work. The variety of workshops speaks to the fundamental all-encompassing nature of the Alexander Technique and how the concepts are permeating many corners of the dance world.
Come join us and explore!
SCHEDULE OVERVIEW*:
Friday May 20
7:00-9:00pm Opening Event
Introductions and Awareness Activities
Saturday May 21
8:45-10:45am: SESSION 1
A. Core Emptiness, Spatial Support: Deepening the Practice and the Conversation – Shelley Senter
B. Exploring the Missing Link: Ballet and Modern Dance Technique – Rebecca Nettl-Fiol, Luc Vanier
C. Releasing with Balls – June Ekman
D. Intention, Initiation and Manifestation – Daria Fain
11:00am-1:00pm: SESSION 2
A. Reciprocity – Eva Karczag
B. Suspended Support and the Alexander Technique – Carol Boggs
C. Alexander Technique and Classical Ballet – Thomas Baird
D. Using the Alexander Technique in Creating Movement – Emily Faulkner
1:00-2:30pm: BAG LUNCH/GATHERING
Option to purchase bag lunch for an additional $10
2:30-4:30pm: SESSION 3
A. Alexander Technique and Argentine Tango – Katherine Mitchell
B. Hawkins Vocabulary and the Alexander Technique – Cynthia Reynolds
C. Floundering, Flubbing and Faltering – Another ‘Indirect Procedure’ – Glenna Batson
4:30-5:00pm: BREAK
5:00-7:00pm: SESSION 4
A. Performance/Discussion
Sunday May 22
9:00-11:00am: SESSION 5
A. Exploring the Missing Link: Ballet and Modern Dance Technique – Rebecca Nettl-Fiol, Luc Vanier
B. Speaking, Singing and Making Sound: Voice for Dancers – Ann Rodiger
11:15am-12:45pm: SESSION 6
Research Presentations:
The Implications of the Alexander Technique in Dance Teaching: Strategies, Challenges and Transformations
Raquel Cavalcanti
A Teachers’ Insights on Dancers’ Application of the Alexander Technique
Fernande Girarde
1:00-2:00pm: CLOSING SESSION
A. Open Group Improvisation/Ending Comments
*The final schedule will reflect registration.
REGISTRATION
Registration includes attendance at Opening Event, Bag Lunch/Gathering, and one workshop in each session. Note that Opening Event and Closing Session are free to both conference registrants and pay-by-session studentes.
Register for the full conference on our website. Once you have registered for the conference you will receive an email asking you to chose which workshop (A, B, C or D) in sessions 1, 2, 3, or 5 you will attend. Priority registration will be on a first-come basis. Schedule is based on participant registration and is subject to change.
You can also pay for the conference by check. Email Ann Rodiger to register, and then make check out to Balance Arts Center.
Contact:
info@balanceartscenter.com
vm: 212-439-5248
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS AND PRESENTER BIOS (in alpha by teacher)
Alexander Technique and Classical Ballet
Thomas Baird
This class will explore the classical ballet vocabulary from barre to center incorporating the principles of the Alexander Technique. The style of ballet taught has been handed down through Cecchetti/Craske/Tudor/Corvino.
Thomas Baird is co-director of New York City-based Baroque dance and music ensemble Apollo’s Banquet; 1998-2008 director of East Coast Baroque Dance Workshop at Rutgers University; teaches regular Baroque Dance master classes at The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music; faculty member of Opera Division at the State University of New York at Purchase; Period Movement Coach for recent Broadway productions of “A Touch of the Poet”, Lincoln Center Theater’s “The Rivals”; choreographer for Metropolitan Opera production of “Cyrano de Bergerac”; teaches Historical Dance at the Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet, NYC; choreographed and performed for five seasons for the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts; certified teacher of the Alexander Technique; teaches the Alexander Technique in the Dance Division at the Juilliard School.
Floundering, Flubbing and Faltering – Another ‘Indirect Procedure’
Glenna Batson
A hallmark of the Alexander Technique lies in finding poised support through indirect procedures. Although Alexander teachers know that the primary control is not a fixture, students can get caught in end-gaining trying to get it “right.” This workshop offers the chance to practice error. In the spirit of play, we’ll explore balance through coordination conundrums and idiosyncratic relationships. We’ll play on the edge of near-miss variability in finding primary control. Let the power of the imperfect help illuminate the Alexander principles while avoiding self-imposed constraints. Come shake up the familiar – all you have to lose is habit!
Glenna Batson is an internationally recognized teacher of the Alexander Technique (certified 1989) and a teacher of somatic approaches to movement. Over the last three decades, she has designed and taught embodied approaches to understanding the art and science of the moving body. She believes in the power of movement education as a means of meeting and transforming the challenges present in our world today. A former dancer, Glenna has been faculty of the American Dance Festival since 1986, currently teaching Contemporary Body Practices for the Hollins/ADF M.F.A. program. She retires from the Winston-Salem State University Physical Therapy program as Professor Emeritus in March 2011. She thanks her first teachers, Bruce Fertman and Martha Hansen, for fostering an atmosphere of deep acceptance during those many periods of suspended belief and confusion.
Suspended Support and the Alexander Technique
Carol Boggs
Experiment with a variety of ideas about how we support ourselves in relation to gravity. Investigate how spatial thinking influences support and mobility; it matters what you think and what beliefs stand behind your thoughts. Build a tensegrity model and learn to apply the principles of Biotensegrity to the use of your self no matter what the activity.
Carol is an Alexander Technique teacher, Laban Movement Analyst, and Massage Therapist with B.S. and M.A. degrees in Dance. She has a private practice in greater Washington D.C, has offered AT classses for both the Vocal Studies and Dance Departments at George Mason University, and has joined faculties teaching for AT residential courses in the USA, Japan and the Caribbean. In 2003 and 2005 respectively, she completed the AT postgraduate courses,”The Art of Breathing” with Jessica Wolf and “The Carrington Way of Working” with John Nicholls. She has also studied “The Art of Swimming” developed by AT teacher, Steven Shaw. Carol has a strong movement and dance background including Continuum, Tai Chi and Aikido, and a keen interest in the interface between Biotensegrity and the AT. She has been teaching the Alexander Technique since 1980.
The Alexander Technique as a Creative Strategy to Approach Dance Training
Raquel Cavalcanti
In this presentation I will be sharing the results of my research: A way of thinking: The implication of the Alexander Technique in dance teaching, where the experiences of two Alexander Technique teachers applying Alexander’s principles in their dance classes were studied. During the presentation I will be seeking to answer the following questions based on my findings: (a) How does the Alexander Technique inform the teaching experiences of two dance teachers applying the Alexander Technique principles in their dance classes? (b) From the perspective of these teachers, how do the principles of the Alexander Technique enhance or affect dance teaching? (b) What are the main challenges in that interaction? My aim is to discuss the relevance of the Alexander Technique in dance education from a teaching perspective. By exploring the experiences of teachers using the principles of the Alexander Technique in relation to dance teaching, I hope to shed light on the technique’s effectiveness as a tool fordance teachers and to offer alternative ways to approach dance training. This presentation could be of interest to any teacher interested in applying somatic techniques to dance training, as well as teachers interested in an interdisciplinary approach to their classes.
Raquel Cavalcanti, MA, BA, has been dancing, teaching, and choreographing for more than 15 years. She started her professional career at Primeiro Ato Grupo de Dança in Brazil, in 1987. From 1988 to 1994, she performed and taught workshops with the company throughout Brazil, South America, and Europe. Raquel became a certified Alexander Technique Teacher at IRDEAT – Institute for Research, Development, and Education in the Alexander Technique, in New York, with a full scholarship from the Brazilian Ministry of Culture. She assisted Ann Matthews at Tisch School for the Arts, teaching the Alexander Technique for theater graduate students. She also assisted Cindy Reynolds at Fordham University and June Ekman at Sarah Lawrence College, teaching the Alexander Technique for undergraduate dance students. In 2008, she concluded her BA in Liberal Arts at Adelphi University. Raquel has been part of several conferences discussing the impact of the Alexander Technique in dance training. Recently, she taught the Alexander Technique as a guest teacher at Movement Research, in NY. Raquel was awarded a scholarship from Steinhardt School at New York University to pursue her Master’s degree in Dance Education, which was concluded in May 2010.
Releasing With Balls
June Ekman
This workshop will deal with ‘site-specific’ areas of the body, using small rubber balls. The purpose is to help deepen one’s proprioceptive awareness of the joints, and take this sensory information into movement in space.
June Ekman came to NYC from Chicago in 1953 to study with Martha Graham. She went on to perform with many early Modern Dance Companies and to participate and perform at Judson Memorial Church. She has been a certified ACAT Alexander Teacher since 1979, and has taught in the theater and dance department at Sarah Lawrence College for the past 21 years. Her main focus and interest is in working with dancers to help them to understand and use the basic principles of the Alexander Technique, to enable them to be more conscious and ease-ful with their bodies. In June of 2009, the American Center for the Alexander Technique honored her for her teaching and service.
Intention, Initiation and Manifestation
Daria Fain
The focus of the workshop will be using the Alexander Technique and the principal of INHIBITION to observe in action the way movement manifests between INTENTION, INITIATION and MANIFESTATION. Wether improvising or interpreting a set choreography dancers constantly experience these 3 simple stages of movement. These stages are not a linear process. They are relative to one’s personal experience as dancer and audience member. We will look the ways in which these stages are intertwined and how the INHIBITION principal can be used as a resource to observe how physical, emotional, energetic and intellectual impulses play their roles in the various stages.
Daria Faïn’s choreography has been presented in New York at The Kitchen, Danspace Project, Movement Research and the 92nd Street Y, among other venues. Faïn founded her company Human Behavior Explorers in 2000, and, with architect- poet Robert Kocik, founded the non-profit organization Universal Coverage, Inc., in 2008. Faïn’s work is based on two decades of practice in the Asian philosophy of the body, American dance training, and the study of architecture. Faïn’s research on impaired senses has led her to work with patients in the fields of neurology, psychology and with blind-deaf individuals, leading to a complex understanding of the body as a resource of knowledge. Her website is www.prosodicbody.org.
Using the Alexander Technique in Creating Movement
Emily Faulkner
In this workshop we will explore how we can use the Alexander technique to unleash our creativity and physicality in order to invent movement and ultimately choreograph dances. We often use the Alexander technique to polish movement – to learn to dance more fluidly and efficiently – but what if we took that heightened state of awareness and coordination, and used it specifically and consciously to create movement? We will start with a group warm up and some simple hands on to get moving, and then we will work in groups and pairs as we explore and refine. If you’re already working on something, feel free to bring it in and work on it. If you’ve got nothing up your sleeve, this is the place to find it! At the end, we will show our work – which could be a set piece of movement or a structured improvisation.
A dancer, choreographer and improviser, Emily Faulkner founded Emily Faulkner/Wind-Up Dances to share with audiences her love of acceleration and suspension – the way movement ripples through the body and create the illusion of floating – and her love of improvisation in performance. Faulkner’s dances are known for being rigorously structured and for their combination of delicate movement, deadpan wit and physical ferocity. Faulkner’s work has been presented by Dixon Place, DanceNOW(NYC), Conversations at the Flea, Hatch, WaxWorks, Washington Square Church, the American Center for the Alexander Technique, and the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. She is honored to have presented work and performed many times at Movement Research at the Judson Church as well as at the Joyce Soho through New Dance Alliance. She performed in the works of many ground breaking choreographers, including Yvonne Meier (with whom she per- formed in the Bessie Award Winning, The Shining in 1995), Jennifer Lacey and D.D. Dorvillier. Faulkner will participate in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as part of the Booking Dance Festival this August. In addition to choreographing and dancing, for the past 12 years Faulkner has hosted and curated, in collaboration with Jody Sperling, Tea Dances, an afternoon series which has presented numerous dancers and choreographers including: Douglas Dunn, Ellis Wood and Chris Elam. Faulkner has been a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique since 1999. She teaches privately and at Balance Arts with Ann Rodiger, and teaches workshops in dance and the Alexander Technique. She has three children ages 11, 9 and 4.
A Teacher’s Insights on Dancers’ Application of the Alexander Technique
Fernande Girarde
Fernande Girard holds a master’s degree in dance from the Université du Québec à Montréal, and has completed her PhD coursework. She has been teaching dance since she graduated from the teachers’ program of the National Ballet School of Canada in 1981. She has worked professionally as dancer and choreographer, and served as artistic advisor to soloists Roxane D’Orleans Juste (for eight years) and Chantal Lamirande (since 2000). She completed her training at the Institute for the Alexander Technique in New York City in 1989. Fernande taught in Manhattan for close to 10 years, before moving to Montreal, where she currently teaches dance and somatics at the Université du Québec à Montréal and at the Collège Montmorency. She also teaches a somatics course for musicians at UQAM.
Fernande was a presenter at the 8th International Congress of the F.M. Alexander Technique in Lugano, Switzerland in 2009. Her master’s thesis study is entitled: An inquiry into the experience of professional contemporary dancers studying and applying the Alexander Technique to dance: a qualitative study. She has written two articles on the subject of dance and the Alexander Technique:
Suspended Support and the Alexander Technique
Eva Karczag
We breathe air, air breathes and buoys us. In this workshop, we will reflect on the reciprocal nature of breathing and of sensory perception. ‘As breathing involves a continual oscillation between exhaling and inhaling, offering ourselves to the world at one moment and drawing the world into ourselves at the next, so sensory perception entails a like reciprocity, exploring the moss with our fingers while feeling the moss touching us back, at one moment gazing the mountains and at the next feeling ourselves seen, or sensed, from that distance’ . . .from ‘Becoming Animal’ by David Abram
Eva Karczag: Independent dance artist and teacher. For the past three decades she has practiced, taught, and advocated explorative methods of dance making. She performs solo and collaborative work internationally, many of her collaborations involving links across the arts. Her performance work and her teaching are informed by dance improvisation and mindful body practices, including the Alexander Technique (ACAT certified teacher), whose concepts, in particular, shape her methodology. She has been a member of leading groups in the field of experimental dance, including the Trisha Brown Dance Company, and has taught dance at major colleges and studios throughout the USA, Australia, and Europe. She has an MFA degree (Dance Research Fellow) from Bennington College, VT. Current activities include collaborating with Lisa Kraus and Vicky Shick on “Red Thread”, a project inspired by a model of women’s quilting circles, and with visual artist Chris Crickmay and composer Sylvia Hallett on improvised durational performance/installations.
Bringing the Alexander Technique to Argentine Tango
Katherine Mitchell
Whether you have always wanted to learn about tango, or would like to improve your dancing, or are an Alexander Technique teacher who would like to improve your teaching skills, this workshop is for you. We will explore how the principles of the Alexander Technique can improve tango dancing by fostering the connection between partners. We’ll build from simple games to tango patterns. Our goal is to see how easily we can move in tandem, both as a group and with partners. Awareness and understanding of the head-neck-back relationship helps with form. It also improves how we connect with our partner and how we transfer and receive an improvised lead, thereby enhancing the fun and exhilaration of dancing together. How do we prepare to move? What messages are we sending? How fun and easy can it be to communicate well? Experiencing these subtleties of non-verbal connection between dance partners can be applied to any form of dancing. For beginner and experienced dancers alike. We will explore principles of the Alexander Technique through leading and following during simple games and basic Argentine Tango. How do we prepare to move? What messages are we sending unintentionally? Awareness and understanding of the head-neck-back relationship helps with form, and improves how we connect with our partner and how we transfer and receive an improvised lead, thereby enhancing the fun and exhilaration of dancing together. Experiencing these subtleties of non-verbal connection between dance partners can be applied to any form of dancing.
Katherine Mitchell came to the Alexander Technique as an injured professional dancer in the early 1980s. She was a choreographer and dancer in Memphis TN where she danced with the Harry Bryce Dance Theatre and developed environmental pieces for a pasture, a farmhouse and an ancient YMCA racquetball court. She danced with various companies in Chicago and Denver including Radis Dance Strata and ARTCO. She made the transition to social dancing in the late 1980s, calling square dances in rural Illinois and in the city of Chicago. She has maintained a private teaching practice in AT for the past 20 years and has trained AT teachers since 2001. She developed and taught AT classes for the Conservatory for Theatre Arts at Webster University for eleven years and an AT class for dancers at Washington University for five years. She currently teaches Argentine Tango at Washington University. She sees special relevance for the AT in the embrace, connection between partners, and improvisational nature of Tango. She is interested in the AT’s ability to help people avoid injury and thrive at whatever they want to do.
Exploring the Missing Link: Ballet and Modern Dance Technique
Rebecca Nettl-Fiol and Luc Vanier
These two workshops will introduce our work on linking the Alexander Technique to dance through the Dart Procedures and developmental movement.(The Dart Procedures, as developed by Joan and Alex Murray, is a series of movements derived from developmental and evolutionary sequences.) Eachworkshop will begin by exploring the basic concepts of primary and secondary curves as a foundation for looking at the moving body, giving a vocabulary for discussing habitual movement tendencies and preferences, and offering a way of redirecting. Spirals will also be introduced as a key concept for understanding lengthening and support. The second portion of each workshop will be a movement session incorporating these principles into dance technique. One session will be on ballet, the other on contemporary modern dance.
Rebecca Nettl-Fiol is an Associate Professor of Dance at the University of Illinois. A certified Alexander teacher since 1990, she is particularly interested in looking at developmental movement as a lens for enlivening and illustrating the Alexander principles for dancers. Rebecca has presented numerous workshops and papers on Alexander and dance both nationally and internationally. Publications include “Alexander Technique and Dance Technique: Applications in the Studio” (Journal of Dance Education), and a co-edited book, The Body Eclectic: Evolving Practices in Dance Training. She is completing a book with Luc Vanier on dance and the Alexander Technique, to be published by University of Illinois Press. Rebecca is also a choreographer, producing work annually at the Krannert Center as well as in other venues throughout the U.S. Most recently, her work was selected for performance at PS 122 in FranceOff!, 2007, and for the American Dance Guild Performance Festival 2008 at Dance New Amsterdam.
Hawkins Vocabulary and the Alexander Technique
Cynthia Reynolds
In this dance class, which is open to all movers, you will get to connect with yourself and move in the Hawkins vocabulary using a blend of the principles put forward by F.M. Alexander and by Erick Hawkins, an American modern dance pioneer (1909-1994) noted for effortless looking, free-flow movement). Cultivating our attention to how we are using our bodies, our thinking and our kinesthetic sense, we will focus on releasing to move, skillful shift of weight, healthy oppositional head-spine-pelvis relationships, ease, flow, momentum and the pleasure of moving.
Hawkins taught that all movement starts in the pelvis and spine. Alexander says the head leads and the body follows. Both methodologies value undoing, not doing, and releasing to move. Erick taught people to “think/feel,” and that “tight muscles can’t feel.” FM taught to heighten and refine our sensory awareness, and not to take it for granted or rely on it as an accurate measure of what we think we are doing; instead, to be experiencing in the present moment with an expanded field of attention-and in that moment to be able to stop and think- to “direct” – clear, energized spatial thought.
Cynthia Reynolds left the dance faculty of the University of Maryland inspired to train with and dance for Erick Hawkins. She was a soloist in the Erick Hawkins Dance Company for 18 years, performing and teaching with Erick from 1976 to 1993, and was Director of the Hawkins School from 1990-1993. Motivated to open her body and extend her dancing career, Reynolds began studying the Alexander technique, trained at ACAT and certified as an Alexander teacher in 1987. Ms Reynolds teaches the Alexander Technique in private practice one-to-one, and in classes at the The New School for Drama, the NYU Vocal Performance Program, Mannes College extension division, and trains teachers at the American Center for the Alexander Technique. In New York she teaches dance classes informed by the Alexander technique at the 92nd St Y Harkness Dance Center and Panetta Movement Center. Her teaching was the subject of a feature article in Dance Teacher Magazine, and is also featured in Erick Hawkins Modern Dance Technique, a video documenting the technique of Erick Hawkins, created by Renata Celichowska in 2000.
Speaking, Singing and Making Sound: Voice for Dancers
Ann Rodiger
This workshop is tailored specifically for dancers wishing to develop vocal skills for performance range. You will learn how to use your voice well through principles of the Alexander Technique; how your breath and whole body participate in speaking, singing, and making sound; learn how knowledge of good vocal technique can enhance your balance and movement experience. Bring your questions and concerns about speaking and singing. No prior vocal experience necessary.
Ann Rodiger (producer) brings her experience of over 25 years in the Alexander Technique, Laban Movement Analysis and Observation, Dance Notation, movement education, and her own dance performance experience to her work as a teacher. She currently has a private practice in New York City. Ms. Rodiger is the founder and director of the AmSAT approved Balance Arts Center Alexander Technique Teacher Training Course in NYC. Ms. Rodiger has taught graduate and undergraduate level dance courses in several major U.S. Universities, including the University of Illinois-Urbana, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Hawaii-Manoa, City College of New York, and the Juilliard School. Internationally, she teaches regularly in Berlin, and has taught in France and Switzerland. Ms. Rodiger graduated from the Urbana Center for the Alexander Technique in 1981. She also holds a Masters Degree in Dance from the Ohio State University and a B.S. from the University of Oregon. She has also studied ergonomics, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Feldenkrais, yoga and meditation.
Core Emptiness, Spatial Support (Deepening the Practice and the Conversation)
Shelley Senter
Opening the body, the brain and the conversation to new considerations of ideas, language, seeing and organizing the self in time and space.
For nearly twenty-five years, Shelley Senter has been investigating the application of the principles of the Alexander Technique to the performing body and mind. A certified teacher of the Alexander Technique since 1994 (ACAT), her approach to teaching has influenced artists in all disciplines and has been written about in various dance, arts and Alexander Technique publications and scholarly papers. She has been critically recognized and awarded for her distinct approach to movement, both as an independent dance artist and as a collaborator/performer with many distinguished artists, including Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer, for whom she is an official repetiteur. She teaches workshops and private lessons in colleges, universities and conservatories, in international festivals and organizations, as well as at Movement Research and the Trisha Brown Company School in New York. After more than a decade on the West Coast, Senter has recently returned to New York City and maintains a private practice in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Finding Continuity
Jennifer Sielicki
The Alexander Technique is about regaining and maintaining natural poise. The breath and how we think of movement play an integral part in continuity and expression. We will therefore, explore poise and breathing through simple phrasing, allowing time to investigate; how we make each move; how we think about the action and how the breath works through the movement. This will intern allow us to find the connections or flow of movement through the phrasing.
Jennifer Sielicki is the Artistic Director and Founder of Grove Dance Theatre. She began her professional career by studying Performance Art at De Montfort University in the UK. Jennifer is experienced in organizing platform performances from street events at the Leicester International Dance Festival to quarterly showcases for the emerging choreographers in Brighton and Oxford. Her work, both theatrical and dance, has been performed in venues across Europe including The Oxford Playhouse, UK and the Music Conservatory in Enschede, NL. Jennifer moved to New York in 2000. She has been working with the Alexander Technique and dance since 1990 and in 2003 became a certified teacher of the work. She taught Alexander Technique on the graduate acting course at NYU for 6 years and has a private teaching practice in NYC.
Luc Vanier is an Associate Professor in the Dance Department at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee where he teaches ballet, Alexander Technique and digital media. Originally from Montreal, he graduated from L’École Supérieur de Danse du Quebec under Daniel Seillier. In 1998, he retired from Ohio Ballet having danced a variety of roles such as the Workman in Kurt Jooss’ Big City, the Third Song of Tudor’s Dark Elegies, the leads in Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante and Paul Taylor’s Aureole among others. He both received his MFA from the University of Illinois and became a certified Alexander teacher in 2001 from ATCU. His research on linking the Alexander Technique, developmental movement and Ballet is at the forefront of integrating somatic work into dance curriculum and has been presented at various international conferences and workshops most recently at the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science conference in The Hague and the Freedom to Move conference in New York City. Co-wrote Dance and the Alexander Technique: Exploring the Missing Link with Rebecca Nettl-Fiol to be published by the University of Illinois Press in the Spring 2011.
Movement Strategies for Musical Results
Bring your instruments to learn practical procedures based on the Alexander Technique.
This unique workshop features the all-encompassing Alexander Technique presented by three experienced teachers, therefore, three perspectives. It is a rare advantage to be able to work with three teachers in one place. A person new to the Technique as well as those with experience will benefit from this event.
March 4-6, 2011
PRESENTED BY:
Evangeline Benedetti, Cello, New York Philharmonic
Judith Muir, Clarinet, Co-Director Institute for Music and Health
Ann Rodiger, Director of Balance Arts Center
MC:
David Homan, Executive Director
Supporting Teachers:
Karla Diamond
SCHEDULE:
Friday, March 4: 7-9pm
Introductions and Awareness Activities.
Saturday, March 5: 9am-6:30pm
Three working sessions of lecture/demonstrations will be followed by individual attention in small groups.
Workshop 1: A Firm Foundation from which to Play
The foundation for all playing is sitting or standing. We will explore an optimal way to sit and stand through the familiar squat. The squat is something we all did as children and possibly do today in activities. Within this framework, we will explore Alexander Technique principles of inhibition, direction, and primary control.
Evangeline Benedetti
Workshop 2: Breathing is the Essence of Your Playing
Demystifying common misunderstandings about breathing, blowing, air movement and support. Learn the “Whispered Ah” and how to apply it to improve ease and flow of breath.
Judith Muir
Workshop 3: Playing with Your Whole Body
Learn to integrate your whole body with your playing while you are sitting and/or standing. This workshop will include how you approach, contact, and support your instrument. You will also learn how to be aware of your fellow players, conductor, and audience while you play.
Ann Rodiger
Evening: Informal gathering at a nearby restaurant.
Sunday, March 6th: 10am-2pm
Master Class setting for select participants who wish to perform with critique. Each participant will receive 20 minutes to play and receive individual instruction.
LOCATION:
Ripley Grier Studio
520 8th Ave, 16th Floor
New York, NY
The Alexander Technique helps you:
- Balance, breathe and move while playing
- Reduce your chance of injury
- Increase your rehearsal and performance stamina
To register, click here or call 212.439.5248
Presenter Bios:
Evangeline Benedetti, cellist, active soloist, and chamber musician, has been a member of the New York Philharmonic since 1967, one of the first women cellists to be accepted into the organization. She appears regularly on the Philharmonic Ensembles series at Merkin Concert Hall in New York, including performances with guest artists Yefim Bronfman,Vladimir Feltsman, and Jerome Lowenthal. As a member of the New York Trio Concertant, she toured Japan in 1994 and 1995. In addition to the numerous recordings she has participated in with the New York Philharmonic, she has recorded the Prokofiev andShostakovich Sonatas for cello and piano with Pedja Muzijevic that has been released by Musicians Showcase.
Ms. Benedetti’s second love and career is teaching. She brings a unique approach to this endeavor as a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, which is a study of physical re-education based on integration of mind and body. Her cellistic approach is steeped in the tradition of Bernard Greenhouse, Zara Nelsova, and Janos Starker, her teachers. She also performed in master classes with Pablo Casals. Her education, after childhood studies at the University of Texas String Project with Phyllis Young, was at the Manhattan School of Music, where she earned her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees. She served on the faculty there for more than 20 years.
Combining her knowledge of performance and the Alexander Technique makes her teaching approach applicable to all instruments. She has taught musicians in the San Diego, Dallas, and Fort Worth symphonies and has given master classes at Brooklyn College School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College of Music, and The Juilliard School. She taught a master class in Pyongyang, North Korea while on tour with the orchestra. As part of the Philharmonic’s Mentors and Protégés series, Ms. Benedetti has made several presentations at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Lincoln Triangle. In New York. Currently, she teaches privately and in workshops.
Ms. Benedetti serves on the executive boards of the Violoncello Society of New York and the Bloomingdale School of Music.
Judith Muir, M.M. M.AmSAT, is one of the senior teachers of the Alexander Technique in America. She is a founding member of the American Society of Alexander Teachers (AmSAT), and former Vice-Chair of the American Center for the Alexander Technique, New York, with 27 years of private teaching experience. She trained in London with Walter Carrington, one of the most influential teachers of hte Alexander Technique in the world. Her teaching experiences include helping to train students to become certified teachers of the Alexander Technique in Cape Town, South Africa, Manhattan, New York City, and Amherst, Massachusetts. Currently on the faculty at Bard College in the Theatre Department her past and present students include, members of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York City Opera, flutist Sir James Galway, and actors Greta Scacchi and Chris Noth.
As Director of Early Childhood Education at the Institute for Music and Healthin the Hudson Valley, Judith also offers an exceptional international background in woodwind and piano pedagogy. She has a Masters degree from Manhattan School of Music and is a distinguished clarinetist. Her performances include classical and jazz concerts on three continents, and her solo and ensemble appearnaces include Carnegie Hall, New York City, St. Martin’s in the Fields, and Wigmore Hll in London U.K. She also runs an award winning music program at the Hawk Meadow Montessori School in Poughkeepsie based on the work of John Diamond M.D. having been personally trained by him for twelve years in his unique approach to music and healing.
David Homan is a composer and collaborative artist. Dedicated to live composition for theatre, dance, chamber music, and musical theatre, Mr. Homan’s current projects emphasize collaboration in live performance and communication between performers and creators in various fields.
He is the founding director of the Live Arts Collaboration, a non-profit dedicated to producing multidisciplinary works in NYC, and the Executive Director of the American-Israel Cultural Foundation.
Ann Rodiger brings her experience of over 25 years in the Alexander Technique, Laban Movement Analysis and Observation, Dance Notation, movement education, and her own dance performance experience to her work as a teacher. She currently has a private practice in New York City. Ms. Rodiger is the founder and director of the AmSAT approved Balance Arts Center Alexander Technique Teacher Training Course in NYC. Ms. Rodiger has taught graduate and undergraduate level dance courses in several major U.S. Universities, including the University of Illinois-Urbana, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Hawaii-Manoa, City College of New York, and the Juilliard School. Internationally, she teaches regularly in Berlin, and has taught in France and Switzerland. Ms. Rodiger graduated from the Urbana Center for the Alexander Technique in 1981. She also holds a Masters Degree in Dance from the Ohio State University and a B.S. from the University of Oregon. She has also studied ergonomics, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Feldenkrais, yoga and meditation. She has been working with singers and musicians for over 25 years.
Listen to the podcast of the Panel discussion here: http://balanceartscenter.podbean.com/2010/06/07/alexander-symposium-5-20-2010/
Freedom to Move: Dance and the Alexander Technique
May 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 2010
Location: 440 Studios, located at 440 Lafayette Street between Astor Place and 4th Street in Manhattan
Dancers strive for movement freedom, coordination, and ease. The Alexander Technique provides concepts and tools to achieve these goals. The focus of the Freedom to Move Conference is to bring dance and the Alexander Technique together, to exploring how the principles of the Alexander Technique are being applied to the many aspects of dance.
The weekend will be full of workshops, a panel discussion, and a performance, for AT teachers who work with dancers, AT teachers who would like to work with dancers, dancers who have had experience with the AT, and dancers with no experience of the AT!
All the conference presenters have had extensive experience both in the teaching the Alexander Technique and in dance. The Alexander Technique has greatly influenced their thinking and approach movement, how they teach, and how they create work. The variety of workshops speaks to the fundamental all- encompassing nature of the Alexander Technique and how the concepts are permeating many corners of the dance world.
Come join us and explore!
SCHEDULE OVERVIEW*:
Friday May 21
7–9 pm
Opening Event: Introductions and Inhibition Games
Thomas Baird, Jonathan Bastiani, Daria Fain, Jennifer, Grove, Katherine Mitchell, Ann Rodiger, Shelley Senter
Saturday
9:30-11am Session 1
A – The Sun King Goes Up! – Thomas Baird
B – Releasing with Balls – June Ekman
C – Balance and Ease on the Floor – Rebecca Brooks
11:10am-12:40pm Session 2
A – Working with Dancers – Jane Kosminsky
B – A Way of Thinking: The Alexander Technique as Tool for Dancers – Raquel Cavalcanti
C – Neurological Connections Between Sight and the Tendons – Daria Fain
12:40-1:30pm Break for Lunch
1:30-3:00pm Session 3
A – Finding Continuity – Jenny Grove
B – From Crawling to Leaping, Part I: Primary and Secondary Curves – The Lively Interplay – Rebecca Nettl-Fiol and Luc Vanier
3:10-4:40pm Session 4
A – Dynamics of Flow – Eva Karczag
B – Bringing Alexander Technique to Partner Dancing – Katherine Mitchell
5-6:30pm Panel Discussion: Creativity and the AT
Moderator: Ann Rodiger
Panelists: June Ekman, Eva Karczag, Rebecca Nettl-Fiol, Cynthia Reynolds, Luc Vanier
8pm Concert
Featuring performances by Thomas Baird, Rebecca Brooks and Sarah White-Ayon, Raquel Cavalcanti, Daria Fain, Emily Faulkner, Jennifer Grove, Eva Karzag and Shelley Senter, and more!
Sunday
10-11:30am Session 5
A – Balance and Ease on the Floor – Ann Rodiger
B – Core Emptiness, Spatial Support – Shelley Senter
11:40am-1:10pm Session 6
A – Alexander Technique for Yoga – Ann Rodiger
B – From Crawling to Leaping, Part II: Spirals for Connectivity and Lengthening – Rebecca Nettl-Fiol and Luc Vanier
*The final schedule will reflect registration.
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS and TEACHER BIOS (in alpha by teacher):
The Sun King Goes Up!
Thomas Baird
In the court of Louis XIV, one had to have présence or bearing especially while dancing, but also in giving honors, walking, standing and sitting. Thomas Baird will teach a specific style of movement from a distant era, through the principles of the Alexander Technique. A good introduction to period movement for actors and singers as well as dancers, the workshop will begin with a short Balance Arts Floor Class and will continue with walking, standing, bowing and “fan language.” Finally, the mark of every accomplished courtier was in dancing the Ordinary Menuet. Learn the steps and various floor patterns of this once popular dance. Participants should wear loose fitting clothes and dance shoes with low or no heels.
Thomas Baird is a Baroque Dance specialist, and is the co-director of Apollo’s Banquet, a New York City-based Baroque dance and music ensemble. For ten years he directed the annual East Coast Baroque Dance Workshop at Rutgers University. Mr. Baird is a regular guest lecturer on Baroque Dance at The Juilliard School, Mannes School of Music, and the Manhattan School of Music. He is a faculty member of the Opera Division at the State University of New York at Purchase where he teaches Movement Styles for Singers and choreographs the opera productions. He was the Period Movement Coach for the Broadway productions of O’Neill’s “A Touch of the Poet,” and, at Lincoln Center Theater, Sheridan’s “The Rivals.” In 2005, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut as a choreographer, providing period dances for Alfano’s “Cyrano de Bergerac.” Most recently, he has choreographed and performed period dances for the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts at Avery Fisher Hall. Thomas is a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, having received his training from the Balance Arts Center in NYC (Ann Rodiger, Director). Mr. Baird is a Guest Faculty member in the Dance Division of The Juilliard School where he teaches the Alexander Technique.
Balance and Ease on the Floor
Rebecca Brooks
Find your balance and center through an extended session on the floor. Work slowly and carefully to build your awareness of your limbs in relation to your back. Focus on your breathing, ease, coordination, and direction during your movements. The class is useful for movement professionals and community members alike who want to improve balance, coordination, and strengthen their movements. Ann Rodiger developed the Balance Arts Floor Class to present movement through the lens of the Alexander Technique. Rebecca Brooks teaches her version of the class, building towards full body movements and expanded sensory integration.
Rebecca Brooks is a NYC-based performing artist and AmSAT certified Alexander Technique teacher. She has taught classes in the Alexander Technique at Balance Arts Center, CLASSCLASSCLASS, Movement Research and the American Dance Festival, and she also teaches privately. This spring she has been re-performing Imponderabilia as part of the Marina Abramović retrospective The Artist Is Present at MoMA. Upcoming and recent performance work includes projects with Heather Kravas, Amanda Loulaki, Jillian Peña, Katy Pyle, robbinschilds, and Kathy Westwater. Her own work has been presented throughout NYC. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, co-founded AUNTS, currently (wo)manages programs and events at Movement Research, and is Artistic Director of the Rockbridge Artist Exchange in Lexington, Virginia.
A Way of Thinking: The Alexander Technique as a Tool for Dancers
Raquel Cavalcanti
In this workshop we will explore the idea of changing our thinking to change our movement. We will discuss and experiment with Alexander’s principles and see how they can be used as a tool to guide us in our dancing. We will start by observing our habitual ways of moving and using our bodies as we think about the “idea” of dancing or creating a movement. We will then experiment with new ways of thinking to see the impact in our movements. My hope is to make this workshop a revealing and fun experience to everyone interested in using the Alexander principles as a powerful tool to dance making.
Raquel Cavalcanti is a Brazilian-born artist, based in NYC since 1995, who has been creating, teaching, and choreographing dance for more than 15 years. Her own work has been presented in the US, Brazil, and Europe. Raquel became a certified Alexander Technique Teacher at IRDEAT, in New York, in 1999. Since then, she has been teaching private lessons and workshops in New York and throughout Brazil. She worked as Ann Mathews’ assistant at NYU, teaching the AT to graduate students at Tisch School for the Arts. She also assisted Cindy Reynolds at Fordham University teaching the AT to undergraduate dancers. From January to March 2010, Raquel taught the Alexander Technique for Dancers class at Movement Research. She will earn her MA degree in Dance Education from New York University in May 2010. Her master’s thesis research explores the Alexander Technique as a tool for teaching dance.
Releasing with Balls
June Ekman
This workshop will deal with “site specific” areas of the body, using small rubber balls. The purpose is to help deepen one’s proprioceptive awareness of the joints, and take this sensory information into movement in space.
June Ekman came to NYC from Chicago in 1953 to study with Martha Graham. She went on to perform with many early Modern Dance Companies and to participate and perform at Judson Memorial Church. She has been a certified ACAT Alexander Teacher since 1979, and has taught in the theater and dance department at Sarah Lawrence College for the past 21 years. Her main focus and interest is in working with dancers to help them to understand and use the basic principles of the Alexander Technique, to enable them to be more conscious and ease-ful with their bodies. In June of 2009, the American Center for the Alexander Technique honored her for her teaching and service.
Neurological Connections between Sight and the Tendons
Daria Faïn
Using the Alexander Technique principals along with the Chinese Theory of the 5 Elements and Chi Kung, we will experience how the sense of sight has deep implication in our behaviors.
Daria Faïn’s choreography has been presented in New York at The Kitchen, Danspace Project, Movement Research and the 92nd Street Y, among other venues. Faïn founded her company Human Behavior Explorers in 2000, and, with architect- poet Robert Kocik, founded the non-profit organization Universal Coverage, Inc., in 2008. Faïn’s work is based on two decades of practice in the Asian philosophy of the body, American dance training, and the study of architecture. Faïn’s research on impaired senses has led her to work with patients in the fields of neurology, psychology and with blind-deaf individuals, leading to a complex understanding of the body as a resource of knowledge. Her website is www.prosodicbody.org.
Finding Continuity
Jennifer Grove
The Alexander Technique is about regaining and maintaining natural poise. The breath and how we think of movement play an integral part in continuity and expression. We will explore poise and breathing through simple dance phrases, allowing time to investigate how we make each move, how we think about the action, and how the breath works through the movement. This will in turn allow us to find the connections or flow of movement through the phrasing.
Jennifer Grove is the Artistic Director and Founder of Grove Dance Theatre. She began her professional career by studying Performance Art at De Montfort University in the UK. Jennifer is experienced in organizing platform performances from street events at the Leicester International Dance Festival to quarterly showcases for the emerging choreographers in Brighton and Oxford. Her work, both theatrical and dance, has been performed in venues across Europe including The Oxford Playhouse, UK and the Music Conservatory in Enschede, NL. Jennifer moved to New York in 2000. She has been working with the Alexander Technique and dance since 1990 and in 2003 became a certified teacher of the work. She taught Alexander Technique on the graduate acting course at NYU for 6 years and has a private teaching practice in NYC.
Dynamics of Flow
Eva Karcag
At the foundation of this workshop lies an appreciation of, and respect for, the innate intelligence of a fluid and alert body. Using movement improvisations, imagery, and the directed touch of the Alexander Technique, participants will be guided to sense, observe, and explore the complexity of anatomical structure as it relates to individual patterns of use. Through embodying our weight and lightness, and our breathing and flow, we can arrive at an experiential understanding of our capacity for equilibrium and efficiency, and taste the integrated openness and buoyant suppleness that generates easeful articulate moving.
Eva Karczag: Independent dance artist and teacher. For the past three decades she has practiced, taught, and advocated explorative methods of dance making. She performs solo and collaborative work internationally, many of her collaborations involving links across the arts. Her performance work and her teaching are informed by dance improvisation and mindful body practices, including the Alexander Technique (ACAT certified teacher), whose concepts, in particular, shape her methodology. She has been a member of leading groups in the field of experimental dance, including the Trisha Brown Dance Company, and has taught dance at major colleges and studios throughout the USA, Australia, and Europe. She has an MFA degree (Dance Research Fellow) from Bennington College, VT. Current activities include collaborating with Lisa Kraus and Vicky Shick on “Red Thread”, a project inspired by a model of women’s quilting circles, and with visual artist Chris Crickmay and composer Sylvia Hallett on improvised durational performance/installations.
Working with Dancers – a Workshop for Alexander Technique Teachers
Jane Kosminksy
In this workshop, Jane shares her approach to working with dancers. What is the psychology of dancers? Where do you begin? What should you look for? Where do you put your hands? How can you help the dancer to achieve safely what seems to be dangerous? Juilliard dancers will be present for “hands on” work and for there their input in integrating dance and the Alexander Technique. Learn how you can help dancers improve alignment, strengthen technique, work without injury, lengthen careers and dance with greater joy and passion.
Jane Kosminsky. Dance Award Winner, School of Performing Arts, 1960. B.A. in Language & Literature, CCNY. Graduate, The American Center for the Alexander Technique. Soloist, Norman Walker Dance Company, 1960-65. Soloist, Paul Taylor Dance Company, 1965-71. Co-artistic director (with Bruce Becker) and principal dancer of 5 by 2 Plus, a modern dance repertory company, 1971-82. Restaged Paul Taylor’s Aureole for productions of Nureyev and Friends and appeared as Mr. Nureyev’s partner, Paris, 1974; London, 1976; Madrid, 1978. Director of Dance, 92nd Street Y, 1986-1988. Faculty, The Neighborhood Playhouse since 1988. Faculty, The American Center for the Alexander Technique Teacher Training Program, 1986-1994. The Juilliard School drama faculty, 1971-1986. Dance faculty since 1986. AmSAT member. Has produced 3 pioneer videos about the Alexander Technique (www.balanceofwellbeing.com). Latest DVD – For Dancers, The Alexander Technique was released in the spring of 2005.
Bringing Alexander Technique to Partner Dancing
Katherine Mitchell
We will explore principles of the Alexander Technique through leading and following during simple games and basic Argentine Tango. How do we prepare to move? What messages are we sending unintentionally? Awareness and understanding of the head-neck-back relationship helps with form, and improves how we connect with our partner and how we transfer and receive an improvised lead, thereby enhancing the fun and exhilaration of dancing together. Experiencing these subtleties of non-verbal connection between dance partners can be applied to any form of dancing.
Katherine Mitchell came to the Alexander Technique as an injured professional dancer in the early 1980s. She was a choreographer and dancer in Memphis TN where she danced with the Harry Bryce Dance Theatre and developed environmental pieces for a pasture, a farmhouse and an ancient YMCA racquetball court. She danced with various companies in Chicago and Denver including Radis Dance Strata and ARTCO. She made the transition to social dancing in the late 1980s, calling square dances in rural Illinois and in the city of Chicago. She has maintained a private teaching practice in AT for the past 20 years and has trained AT teachers since 2001. She developed and taught AT classes for the Conservatory for Theatre Arts at Webster University for eleven years and an AT class for dancers at Washington University for five years. She currently teaches Argentine Tango at Washington University. She sees special relevance for the AT in the embrace, connection between partners, and improvisational nature of Tango. She is interested in the AT’s ability to help people avoid injury and thrive at whatever they want to do.
From Crawling to Leaping I and II
Rebecca Nettl-Fiol and Luc Vanier
In these two sessions we will explore the Alexander Technique principles through the lens of the Dart Procedures and developmental movement. (The Dart Procedures, as developed by Joan and Alex Murray, is a series of movements derived from developmental and evolutionary sequences.) We will demonstrate how a playful investigation of these movement sequences can give you insights about your own movement patterns and inform and enhance your dance technique. The Dart Procedures are especially useful for dancers interested in learning the Alexander Technique because they provide simple movements for exploring Alexander’s principles in a non-dance situation, yet they can easily be linked to dance vocabulary.
In Part I: Primary and Secondary Curves – The Lively Interplay, we look at the two opposing curves present in the body and explore the ongoing interplay between these two movement pathways. This provides a foundation for looking at the moving body, giving a vocabulary for discussing holding patterns, habitual movement tendencies and preferences, and places where we unwittingly interfere with the movement intent. The primary and secondary lens provides us with a flexible and adaptable model, moving us away from “posture” toward a dynamic use of the whole body in action.
In Part II: Spirals for Connectivity and Lengthening, we will show how the primary and secondary curves intertwine to create spirals. The spiral is a key concept in understanding dynamic alignment, allowing us to maintain connectivity without stiffening or bracing. At the same time, the spiral facilitates lengthening and movement through space, propelling you into actions such as turning, falling, or leaping.
Rebecca Nettl-Fiol is an Associate Professor of Dance at the University of Illinois. A certified Alexander teacher since 1990, she is particularly interested in looking at developmental movement as a lens for enlivening and illustrating the Alexander principles for dancers. Rebecca has presented numerous workshops and papers on Alexander and dance both nationally and internationally. Publications include “Alexander Technique and Dance Technique: Applications in the Studio” (Journal of Dance Education), and a co-edited book, The Body Eclectic: Evolving Practices in Dance Training. She is completing a book with Luc Vanier on dance and the Alexander Technique, to be published by University of Illinois Press. Rebecca is also a choreographer, producing work annually at the Krannert Center as well as in other venues throughout the U.S. Most recently, her work was selected for performance at PS 122 in FranceOff!, 2007, and for the American Dance Guild Performance Festival 2008 at Dance New Amsterdam.
Balance and Ease on the Floor
Ann Rodiger
Find your balance and center through an extended session on the floor. Work slowly and carefully to build your awareness of your limbs in relation to your back. Focus on your breathing, ease, coordination, and direction during your movements. The class is useful for movement professionals and community members alike who want to improve balance, coordination, and strengthen their movements. Ann Rodiger developed the Balance Arts Floor Class to present movement through the lens of the Alexander Technique. She has combined her knowledge and experience of the Alexander Technique for over 25 years, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Feldenkrais, Yoga and various dance techniques in creating the class.
Ann Rodiger (producer) brings her experience of over 25 years in the Alexander Technique, Laban Movement Analysis and Observation, Dance Notation, movement education, and her own dance performance experience to her work as a teacher. She currently has a private practice in New York City. Ms. Rodiger is the founder and director of the AmSAT approved Balance Arts Center Alexander Technique Teacher Training Course in NYC. Ms. Rodiger has taught graduate and undergraduate level dance courses in several major U.S. Universities, including the University of Illinois-Urbana, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Hawaii-Manoa, City College of New York, and the Juilliard School. Internationally, she teaches regularly in Berlin, and has taught in France and Switzerland. Ms. Rodiger graduated from the Urbana Center for the Alexander Technique in 1981. She also holds a Masters Degree in Dance from the Ohio State University and a B.S. from the University of Oregon. She has also studied ergonomics, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Feldenkrais, yoga and meditation.
Core Emptiness, Spatial Support
Shelley Senter
Opening the body, the brain and the conversation to new considerations of ideas, language, seeing and organizing the self in time and space.
For nearly twenty-five years, Shelley Senter has been investigating the application of the principles of the Alexander Technique to the performing body and mind. A certified teacher of the Alexander Technique since 1994 (ACAT), her approach to teaching has influenced artists in all disciplines and has been written about in various dance, arts and Alexander Technique publications and scholarly papers. She has been critically recognized and awarded for her distinct approach to movement, both as an independent dance artist and as a collaborator/performer with many distinguished artists, including Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer, for whom she is an official repetiteur. She teaches workshops and private lessons in colleges, universities and conservatories, in international festivals and organizations, as well as at Movement Research and the Trisha Brown Company School in New York. After more than a decade on the West Coast, Senter has recently returned to New York City and maintains a private practice in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Additional panelist bios:
Cynthia Reynolds left the dance faculty of the University of Maryland inspired to train with and dance for Erick Hawkins. She was a soloist in the Erick Hawkins Dance Company for 18 years, performing and teaching with Erick from 1976 to 1993, and was Director of the Hawkins School from 1990-1993. Motivated to open her body and extend her dancing career, Reynolds began studying the Alexander technique, trained at ACAT and certified as an Alexander teacher in 1987. Ms Reynolds teaches the Alexander Technique in private practice one-to-one, and in classes at the The New School for Drama, the NYU Vocal Performance Program, Mannes College extension division, and trains teachers at the American Center for the Alexander Technique. In New York she teaches dance classes informed by the Alexander technique at the 92nd St Y Harkness Dance Center and Panetta Movement Center. Her teaching was the subject of a feature article in Dance Teacher Magazine, and is also featured in Erick Hawkins Modern Dance Technique, a video documenting the technique of Erick Hawkins, created by Renata Celichowska in 2000.
Luc Vanier is an Associate Professor in the Dance Department at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee where he teaches ballet, Alexander Technique and digital media. Originally from Montreal, he graduated from L’École Supérieur de Danse du Quebec under Daniel Seillier. In 1998, he retired from Ohio Ballet having danced a variety of roles such as the Workman in Kurt Jooss’ Big City, the Third Song of Tudor’s Dark Elegies, the leads in Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante and Paul Taylor’s Aureole among others. He both received his MFA from the University of Illinois and became a certified Alexander teacher in 2001 from ATCU. His research on linking the Alexander Technique, developmental movement and Ballet is at the forefront of integrating somatic work into dance curriculum and has been presented at various international conferences and workshops most recently at the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science conference in The Hague and the Freedom to Move conference in New York City. Co-wrote Dance and the Alexander Technique: Exploring the Missing Link with Rebecca Nettl-Fiol to be published by the University of Illinois Press in the Spring 2011.
Registration includes attendance at Opening Event, Panel Discussion, Concert, and one workshop in each session.
Note that Opening Event and Panel Discussion are free to both conference registrants and pay-by-session students.
Register for the full conference on our website SOON. Once you have registered for the conference you will receive an email asking you to chose which workshop (A, B or C) in each session (1-6) you will attend. Priority registration will be on a first come basis.
You can also pay for the conference by check. Email Ann Rodiger to register, and then make check out to Balance Arts Center.
Contact:
info@balanceartscenter.com
vm: 212-439-5248
