Classes + Workshops

"Hope is such a clear teacher, and I really appreciate all the thought she puts into what and how she teaches."
-Laura Hymers, Former Director of Education, Trisha Brown Company

"Hope is an effective, generous, knowledgeable teacher who ties together extraordinary concepts and technique in an expansive and enjoyable manner"
-Participant in Technique for a Versatile Body, Dancers' Group Summer Intensive, July 2006

SUMMER TEACHING: TECHNIQUE

Technique Class  provides a laboratory for expanding our potential for integrated, full-bodied movement. By tuning the senses, moving in and out of the floor, and organizing our energy and structure, we work towards clarity of form, awareness in space, and ease of movement. Rigorous phrasework offers an experience of weight, gravity, momentum, sequential movement, and freedom. Influences for teaching include Alexander technique, Trisha Brown repertory, Cunningham technique, and improvisational forms.

Sundays 10-11:30
Shawl-Anderson Dance Studio

Two Weeks at ODC

May 24-June 4 MWF 10-12
www.odcdance.org

Six Weeks at Kunst-Stoff Arts 

June 7-July 12  WF 10-12
www.kunst-stoff.org

Creative Movement Classes

These classes support healing and community through the joy of movement.  Participants explore their stories through a body-centered creative process. In a safe environment, class supports healing and positive body image through relaxation, breathing, gentle physical warm-ups, guided visualization, improvisation, verbal sharing, and joyful release through rhythm.  Participants report increased body awareness, better energy, improved posture, and enhanced self-esteem.  Classes have occurred at Breast Cancer Connections, California Cancer Care, and the Palo Alto VA Hospital.

Special Workshop Offerings

Workshop: The Language of the Listening Body
Exploring Sound and Movement in the Environment
In collaboration with composer and acoustic ecologist Michelle Nagai, Hope offers workshops exploring sound and movement in the environment. Based on initial research done through the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance in New York, Hope and Michelle guide participants in exploring listening awareness and improvisation practices.

Workshop:  Technique for a Versatile Body
Are you a formally trained dancer interested in accessing more release in your movement, or does release-based movement come naturally to you, but you would like to deepen your technical foundation?  Regardless of your preferences and strengths, this workshop is designed to push your range.  Workshop will support rigorous inquiry into habits of support, phrasing, focus, and tension (or lack thereof). Warm-up facilitates an internal, experiential understanding of initiation, sequencing and weight through awareness, not mimicry. Technical exercises are rooted in principles of alignment and anatomy. Challenging, intricate phrasework covers space and expands our versatility as dancers-both muscle and bone, powerful and articulate, strong and at ease, organized and able to fall.  By expanding our awareness, we can have more choices and a stronger artistic voice.