Tag: Master Classes

DITA, Falling and Rolling with guest artist Kristi Faulkner

January 5, 2019

Join us in welcoming Kristi Faulkner / Kristi Faulkner Dance
Falling and Rolling
Sunday March 24th, 2019
4-5:45 pm
Meijer-Royce Center for Dance
341 Ellsworth Ave SW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503

Class Description: Falling and Rolling

Explore sensation and surrender while learning to make friends with gravity. Dance is physics – we will explore the ways in which momentum and surface area can help us achieve efficiency moving in and out of the floor. While maintaining a continuous flow of energy and efficient use of muscle tone, we will hover on the edges of suspension and surrender to impulse.

Kristi Faulkner is the Director of Kristi Faulkner Dance – a queer-identified contemporary dance company based in Detroit that dares to be different. Performing everywhere from warehouses to community centers, from museums to the middle of the street, Faulkner believes in making dance accessible and empowering audiences to connect with their world. Her work has been commissioned and presented throughout Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Kentucky and New York. Faulkner is a 2018 Maggie Allesee Choreography Award finalist for “Women’s Work” and a 2016 finalist for “OBject/obJECT”. She received the 2017 MCACA New Leader Award. Her winning Knight Arts Challenge project to engage and inspire LGBTQ youth through performance and storytelling titled “Not In My House” premiered October 2018. KristiFaulknerDance.com

Pre-registration
$17 Advanced General
$15 Advanced Professional/Dance Educator
$13 Seasonal advanced ($65)
Pre-registration provided by ArtPeers: https://artpeers.org/pre-registration/
Day of Class
$20 Drop-in
For dancers 16+ years old ~ for more information contact Amy Wilson at [email protected]

DITA, Open Improvisation w/Marlee Grace wsg. Fiona Dickinson

December 14, 2018

Join us in welcoming Marlee Grace and Fiona Dickinson
Open Improvisation (all levels, all movers)
Sunday January 27th, 2019
4-5:45 pm
Meijer-Royce Center for Dance
341 Ellsworth Ave SW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
Pre-registration
$17 Advanced General
$15 Advanced Professional/Dance Educator
$13 Seasonal advanced ($65)
Pre-registration provided by ArtPeers: https://artpeers.org/pre-registration/
Day of Class
$20 Drop-in
For dancers 16+ years old ~ for more information contact Amy Wilson at [email protected]

Open Improvisation
composition and choice making through movement

Join Marlee Grace for a workshop in improvising as a tool for performance, choice making, and composition. We’ll work through solo movement, duets, and group work – playing with space and generosity, spontaneity and thoughtfulness, solitude and togetherness.
We’ll look at different ways to discover your own movement vocabulary as well as collaborate with others

Soundscapes from other planets provided by Fiona Dickinson 

No dance experience required, just a willingness to move your body
No moves to learn! All movement generated from your self

Marlee Grace is a dancer and a writer who uses improvisation as a method for creating new works, hosting artists at her residency and studio CENTER, and being in the world.
Marlee has a BFA in Dance from the University of Michigan and documents her dance practice on the Instagram account @personalpractice which has been featured in the Huffington Post and the New York Times

Fiona Dickinson is a British songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and music educator currently residing in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Along with her work arranging strings for the ambient noise project, Saltbreaker, Fiona has a lengthy list of collaborations on stage and in the studio. She also has a background in composition for independent film and live score for site-specific performance with dance, video, and analog projection.

Pre-registration – New Rates – New Discounts

December 12, 2018

Pre-registration is now open for all of the DITA Master Classes for Winter/Spring 2019 at the Meijer-Royce Center for Dance! All classes can be purchased for a discount in advance. Save your spot and save money!

You can also give the gift of dance to a loved one or friend – just in time for the gift giving season! Our new “Season Pass” is perfect for the dancer/mover in your life!

Stay tuned for more details on each of our guest artists!

Please note – our class with Marlee Grace will feature live music by the lovely Fiona Dickinson and will be open to all movers! Our class with Heather Vaughan-Southard from Educating Dancers will also be open to all movers!

RATES
Pre-registration
$17 Advanced General
$15 Advanced Professional/Dance Educator
$13 Seasonal advanced ($65)

Day of Class
$20 Drop-in

Pre-registration provided by ArtPeers: https://artpeers.org/pre-registration/
For dancers 16+ years old
For more information contact Amy Wilson at [email protected]

DITA Winter/Spring 2019 Master Class Scedule
All classes are held at Meijer-Royce Center for Dance
341 Ellsworth Ave SW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503

January 27th – Marlee Grace wsg. Fiona Dickinson
Open Improvisation – All levels, all bodies
4-5:45pm

February 17th – Lucy Riner/RE Dance Group
Int/Adv Contemporary Modern
4-5:45pm

March 24th – Krisit Faulkner/KFD  
Int/Adv Contemporary Modern
4-5:45pm

April 28th – Heather Vaughan Southard
Movement Based Mindfulness – All levels, all bodies
4-5:45pm

May 19th – TBA
Int/Adv Improvisation, Rep
4-5:45pm

DITA, Int/Adv Contemporary Modern, w/Lucy Riner / RE Dance Chicago

August 30, 2018

Join us in welcoming Lucy Riner / RE Dance Group Chicago 
Int/Adv Contemporary Modern Technique
Sunday February 17th, 2019
4-5:45 pm
Meijer-Royce Center for Dance
341 Ellsworth Ave SW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
$17/$15 Professional/Dance Educator
$13 Pre-registration provided by ArtPeers:https://artpeers.org/pre-registration/
For dancers 16+ years old ~ for more information contact Amy Wilson at [email protected]

Class description:
A fast-paced contemporary modern dance class that explores weight, momentum and musicality. Using an eclectic movement style inspired by social dance, modern dance traditions and somatic practices, the class moves in and out of the floor and encourages the dancer to make personal movement choices and embody immediacy.

Lucy Vurusic Riner (Executive Director/Co-Founder) is a native Chicagoan who has been dancing, choreographing and teaching in the Midwest for over twenty years. She received her BS Degree in Dance and Dance Education from Illinois State University. Lucy has been a member of Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak, RTG Dance Company and Matthew Hollis’ “The Power of Cheer.” She has also been part of the community cast of White Oak Dance Project and David Dorfman Dance. Lucy has taught modern, hip hop, and jazz at numerous studios and high schools in the Chicagoland area. For the last fourteen years she was the Director of Dance at Oak Park and River Forest High School. Lucy now teaches at New Trier High School. In 2005, Lucy completed her Masters Degree in Education from National Louis University and also received the Midwest Dance Teacher of the Year award and was the youngest of four finalists in the running for the National Dance Teacher of the Year award. When Lucy is not working with RE|Dance Group, she spends time with her super, supportive family: Jim, Margie and Luka.

DITA+Calvin College, Workshop w/Molly Shanahan / Mad Shak

August 30, 2018

Join Calvin College and DITA in welcoming 
Molly Shanahan / Mad Shak
October 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 2018
Calvin College
3201 Burton St SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546
FREE

Workshop:
Diving into Spirals with Molly Shanahan / Mad Shak
Sunday October 21st, 3:15-5:00pm
Spoelhof Fieldhouse Complex Dance Studio HC251/252
For dancers 18+ years old
**Space is limited – to reserve your spot in this workshop or for more information please contact Amy Wilson at
[email protected]

This dance phrasework experience will offer participants an embodied glimpse into choreographer Molly Shanahan‘s current movement research, which emphasizes whole body lusciousness, the incorporation of a mobile pelvis, articulation of the juicy ball and socket joints, and articulate movement phrases that feel so easy and yet challenge the body-mind to find ease within precision, vigor within rigor, and forgiveness within discipline.

Performance:
Mad Shak
Monday, October 22, 8pm
Covenant Fine Arts Center

Lecture:
Molly Shanahan
Tuesday, October 23
(time and location pending)

Choreographer Molly Shanahan has based her work in Chicago since 1994, after receiving her Master of Arts in Dance at The Ohio State University. Sustaining a lifelong focus on movement practices in and out of the studio, long-term creative processes involving multiple iterations, and inquiry into the philosophies and theories that touch her work, Molly is recognized as a “singular voice in Chicago dance,” (TimeOut Chicago) who has been “distilling the essence of performance—the relationship between audience and artist—for years, exposing the honest beauty of the body in its natural state: fluid, organic motion” (New City Chicago).

Molly’s work has been supported by two National Performance Network Creation Fund Awards, a Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist Award, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship for choreography, and a 2010 Meier Arts Achievement Award, among others. In 2012 Molly received a Presidential Fellowship from Temple University (Philadelphia) to pursue a PhD in Dance. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at Denison University; and has taught at Wayne State University, Bryn Mawr College, Temple University, The University of Chicago, and Columbia College Chicago, among others, and was a Lecturer in the Dance Program at Northwestern University from 2008-2012. www.madshak.com.

DITA, Int/Adv Contemporary Tech w/guest artist Amy Cova

August 29, 2018
Join us in welcoming Amy Cova
Int/Adv Contemporary Modern Technique
Sunday September 16, 2018
4-5:45 pm
Grand Rapids Ballet
341 Ellsworth Ave SW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
$17/$15 Professional/Dance Educator
$13 Pre-registration provided by ArtPeers: https://artpeers.org/pre-registration/
For dancers 16+ years old ~ for more information contact Amy Wilson at [email protected]
 
Amy Cova, (MFA in Dance, U of M) is Artistic Director of Amy Cova Dance (ACD), contemporary dance ensemble splitting time between NYC and Michigan, often working in collaboration with musicians and visual artists. Cova is on faculty at the University of Michigan and The Roeper School. She is an Artist Associate at Room Project, a space for women and non-binary writers and artists. Cova’s movement vocabulary punctuates the highly physical with a quiet gestural sense evoking worlds of turmoil, confusion, hope, and happiness in a single theatrical experience. Cova is interested in embodied text, oral histories, subjugated knowledge and personal reflections as they dialogue through evocative movement languages.
Amy Cova has been presented at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Inside/Out, and throughout NYC at Dance New Amsterdam, the Manhattan Movement and Arts Center, Triskelion Arts, The Flea Theatre and The Irondale Center. Her work has been showcased at the Alvin Ailey Studio Theater, The Alchemical Theater Laboratory, the John Ryan Theater, Studio AIR, Dixon Place, Spoke the Hub, the Green Space, and the Detroit Institute of Art.
 
Cova has performed in works by Laura Dean, Daniel Gwirtzman, Rennie Harris, Alex Springer, Paul Taylor, and Ginger Thatcher, amongst others. She has most recently performed at WestFest All Over WestBeth (NYC) with compositional, improve dance cooperative, The Lovelies and Grand Rapids Ballet as part of Michigan Dance Festival’s Maggie Allesee Choreography Competition.
 
Cova has been a faculty member/guest artist at numerous institutions, including University of Michigan, Manhattanville College, Eastern Michigan University, Grand Valley State University, Oakland University, Wayne State University, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, DITA, Gibney Dance Center (NYC) and Dance New Amsterdam (NYC). Her choreography has been presented internationally in Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica and Italy. She enjoys continued collaboration with musician, David Vaughn.
 
This class celebrates freedom in movement; big, juicy moves alongside quiet gestural shifts. With a focus on an organic, personal way of moving, students are encouraged to tap into their physical, intellectual and emotional history throughout class. We begin with an easy, rhythmical movement pattern gently waking the muscles and brain, uniting the bodies and energies in space in order to create a fresh community for learning. Together we move in and out of the floor with the aim of priming the body for more vigorous movement tasks. We explore the space through dynamic and often virtuosic movement patterns. Finally, extended phrase work invites students to couple their emotional and physical self in order to articulate their performative voice.

DITA, Int/Adv Contemporary Modern w/guest artist Matt Farmer

May 7, 2018

Join us in welcoming Matt Farmer 
Int/Adv Contemporary Modern Technique
Sunday May 20, 2018
4-5:45 pm
Grand Rapids Ballet
341 Ellsworth Ave SW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
$17/$15 Professional/Dance Educator
$13 Pre-registration provided by ArtPeers: https://artpeers.org/pre-registration/
For dancers 16+ years old ~ for more information contact Amy Wilson at [email protected]

Int/Ad Contemporary Modern: Using a variety of elements of modern and contemporary dance techniques, this class requires dancers to push themselves both physically and artistically. Building on the long fluid lines and posture of contemporary dance, while simultaneously implementing the strength and stamina of classic modern and post-modern floorwork, this class is sure to challenge dancers from all training backgrounds.

Matthew Farmer is currently the Chair of the Dance Department at Hope College, the Co-Artistic Director of R.G. Dance Productions and the Co-Artistic Director of H2 Dance Co. Formerly the Head of Dance at Anderson University, Farmer has had great success as a director, educator, choreographer, performer, and author; co-authoring the book Introductory Modern Dance: A Teaching Manual. Formerly the Associate Director and company member of LehrerDance, Farmer has appeared in Dance Teacher Magazine, Dance Magazine Online, and Dance Magazine. Prior to dancing with LehrerDance, Farmer danced with Peter Sparling as a company member of The Peter Sparling Dance Co. While dancing for Sparling, Matthew received his MFA from the University of Michigan, and he received his BA in Theatre and Dance from Hope College. As a soloist and guest performer he has performed in multiple cities throughout the United States and Europe, and has had the privilege of working with and/or performing works by Avi Kaiser, Sergio Antonino, Merce Cunningham, Laura Dean, Matthew Thornton, Doug Varone, and many more. As a master teacher and choreographer his works and classes have been produced by Eastern Michigan University, Anderson University, Western Kentucky University, Chicago National Association of Dance Maters, Southern Association of Dance Masters, Dancer’s Inc., On Tour dance conventions, Blue Lake International Ballet Ensemble, Interlochen, Wellspring/Cori Terry an Dancers, Fort Wayne Dance Collective, Hope Summer Repertory Theater, Next Step Dance, Musiker Productions, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and many more.

DITA Master Class at Grand Rapids Ballet: Sunday, March 18th, 2018

February 27, 2018

WE’RE ON THE MOVE! 

In February 2009 DITA launched its first Master Class in the Wealthy Theatre Annex, creating relationships with the most accomplished dance educators in the region and beyond. DITA enters its 10th year of dance education and performance with a new partnership: the 2018 DITA Master Class season kicks off at Grand Rapids Ballet, home of Michigan’s only professional ballet company.

WORLD-RENOWNED INSTRUCTORS

World-renowned Graham Technique master teacher William Crowley will lead the first DITA Spring Master Class – March 18th, 2018 from 4-5:45pm at Grand Rapids Ballet.

PREREGISTRATION 

Our friends at ArtPeers made a special offer: dancers can pre-register for the first class of our 10th year for only $12! Going forward, class fees will return to normal, ensuring the sustainability of DITA Master Classes. DITA does not operate for profit, and class fees go toward space rental costs, and for our instructors, many of whom travel here from other cities. Pre-registration ends March 17th at midnight. Sign up HERE! 

 

ABOUT DITA

Led by Artistic Director Amy Wilson, DITA produces large-scale concerts, and creates live and dance-film works that are site-specific with an emphasis on process. DITA has long called Wealthy Theatre home, with dance education and a number of groundbreaking, sellout events produced at the historic landmark. DITA also has explored other spaces in the region and beyond: collaborative works regularly take place at 337 Project Space, Avenue for the Arts, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (UICA) and SiTE:LAB. DITA was awarded the Time-Based Juror Award for their piece respirador (breather) at ArtPrize 2014. More recently, DITA joined a collective of Michigan artists on a journey to the Path of Totality during the 2017 solar eclipse, where we produced a full-length dance film that will be released in 2018.

JOIN US IN WELCOMING WILLIAM CROWLEY

Int/Adv Graham Technique
Sunday March 18th, 2018
4-5:45 pm
Grand Rapids Ballet
341 Ellsworth Ave SW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
$17/$15 Professional/Dance Educator
$12 Pre-registration provided by ArtPeers: https://artpeers.org/pre-registration/

For dancers 16+ years old ~ for more information contact Amy Wilson at [email protected]

The Master Class introduces students to the Graham Technique, its basic principle of “contraction and release”, and the beneficial knowledge that comes from the awareness of one’s own center and core strength. The structure of the class is composed of floor work, standing center work, and traveling exercises. Intermediate/Advanced level students will also be exposed to learning phrases of original choreography.

William Charles Crowley, received his MFA in Dance from the University of Michigan and additional training at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in NYC. He has danced with numerous companies and has garnered favorable reviews from The Detroit Free Press, The Chicago Tribune, Denver Rocky Mountain News, The Miami Herald, and Dance Magazine. William is the Artistic Director of Next Step Dance based in Miami, FL., and currently teaches throughout the United States and Europe.

Most recently, William had the distinct honor of being one of the first Americans ever to teach in Cuba since 1959, as part of the U.S.-Cuba People to People cultural exchange program, at the Danza Contemporanea de Cuba in Havana.

DITA, Int/Adv Contemporary Modern w/guest artist Rachel Miller

October 5, 2017

Join us in welcoming Rachel Miller to the Annex
Sunday October 22nd
4-5:45pm
Wealthy Theatre Annex
1110 Wealthy St Se
Grand Rapids, MI 49506
$15/$12 students w/ID
For dancers 16+
Email [email protected] for more information

Contemporary Modern Technique
A contemporary release-based technique class, which is informed by the Normative technique created by Erick Hawkins. The class will begin with a somatically informed improvisational warm-up, continue to floor work, center, and across-the-floor work, and end with a large sweeping movement phrase. 

Rachel Miller is a company dancer, instructor, choreographer, and Midwest Regional Alternative Dance Festival (RAD Fest) Curator for Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers. She attended The Ohio State University as a Dance Major, holds a BA in Creative Writing through Western Michigan University, and an MFA in Dance through Hollins University in partnership with the former Forsythe Company of Frankfurt, Germany. Miller has performed all over the country, and her choreographic and screendance works have been presented in the Midwest RAD Fest in Kalamazoo, Detroit Dance City Festival in Detroit, Big River Dance Festival in Huntington, South Bend, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Fringe Festival Praha (Prague), and Indianapolis. She is a 2005 recipient of the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation Emerging Artist Grant and a 2010 recipient of the Kalamazoo Artist Development Initiative grant. Miller has sat on the adjudication panels for the Motor City Dance on Film Festival, RAD Festival, and Screen. Dance. Now. She is also a certified Pilates instructor, has been an Aerial Artist for ZFX Flying Effects in Louisville, has taught in the Western Michigan University Dance Department and for Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. She is currently on faculty in the dance department at Grand Valley State University.

DITA, the practice & the person w/guest artist Marlee Grace

August 28, 2017

Join us in welcoming Marlee Grace to the Annex
wsg. Fiona Dickinson (musical accompaniment)
Tuesday Sept 5th, 6-8pm
Wealthy Theatre Annex
1110 Wealthy St Se
Grand Rapids, MI 49506
$15/$12 students w/ID
All movers ages 16+ welcome

the practice & the person

a workshop on improvising & revealing the complete person

september 5 2017 + wealthy theatre annex grand rapids, mi

_____________________

Drawing on themes from the chapter PRACTICE in Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch we’ll navigate a series of exercises in ensemble improvisation. Making duets, trios, & group works while honoring the act of practicing as research, as performance, as the thing.

_____________________

We will generate solo material from our own bodies, practicing witnessing and being witnessed.

We will slowly combine our solo material into duets, finding ways to stay true to our own work while navigating space with others.

We will transition into ensemble work, trios, quartets, and full group improvisations.

_____________________

This workshop is open to all people 16+ years old with a willingness to explore with their bodies

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