Class with Jenna Riegel

Classes may be purchased in person at the Box Office upon arrival. Cash or check preferred.
As class begins, a soft internal focus is emphasized as students warm, align and prepare their bodies through simple Bartenieff-inspired floor work, Pilates-based or Yoga-based stretching and strengthening or improvisational scores. Students are encouraged to tune into their instruments and evaluate their current bodily state. As class progresses to standing center work and traveling phrases, attention is shifted outward to learning movement material from an external source and interacting and being inspired by the fellow artists in the classroom. Musical phrasing, details of body part initiations, tonal quality and dynamics are expected to be replicated as precisely as possible as a way of practicing seeing and experiencing the teacher’s body habits, rhythms and choices. The class is divided into groups so that students can witness and learn from each other’s habits and choices. Then, in a culminating center phrase, individual expression and freedom is cultivated through repetition of material and guided exercises in shifting attention and awareness to different aspects of dancing… i.e. musicality, the use of space, focus and dancing together with others. Movement material is derived from and explores the dichotomies of being centered verses off-centered, still verses momentum driven, upright verses inverted, released verses explosive and shape verses sensory-oriented.