CLASSES & WORKSHOPS
SENSE OBJECT @ THE BERKELEY FINNISH HALL
CONTEMPORARY DANCE & SOMATICS
MONDAYS 10-Noon
Berkeley Finnish Hall Auditorium
$15-30 requested, no one turned away for lack of funds
Teachers rotate monthly
Mondays in April
MIRIAM WOLODARSKI
Coordination, Composition, and Contact
This class sources experiential anatomy and developmental movement patterns to develop coordinations that support sensitivity and ease in motion. These will lead us into contact and partnering, improvisation and experimentation, and further out into unknown unknowns. Honoring dance practice as an opportunity to experience form as emptiness and emptiness as form, we will unfold our efforts with care and kindness for whatever arises in the moment, at times letting things decompose in order to nourish new pathways, deconstructing the known to find support for new emergent structures.
Miriam Wolodarski is a teaching artist with over a decade of experience teaching contemporary dance, improvisation, and composition at universities, festivals, and studios. Framing dance as a contemplative practice, her work takes a kinesthetic approach to the socio-political, emotional, and philosophical questions we hold in our bodies. Miriam’s original performances has been supported by programs at YBCA, CounterPULSE, TragantDansa, Centre Cívic Barceloneta, and The Hemispheric Institute, among others; she is currently the Artistic Director of the arts organization Sense Object. senseobject.com
Mondays in May
KRISTEN GRECO
BODY :: BREATH :: BONES
From body to breath to bones we'll immerse ourselves in themes of expansion and release, suspension and momentum, kinetic energy and locusts of potential. This class brings in themes and practices from Breathwork, Axis syllabus, Neuromuscular RePatterning and release technique. We'll improvise, breathe, incorporate touch, dive into movement phrases, get our blood pumping and sweat. Join us for an experimental inquiry into ways we can shift our habituated breath and stress responses into an integrated and enlivening baseline of full body breath support for dancing and for life.
Kristen (she/they) can be found dancing in experimental performance projects in rural and urban settings. Her background includes long time practice in axis syllabus, CI, physical theater, voice, somatics, and improvisation. As a socially engaged somatics practitioner for the past 25 years, Kristen has developed a unique hybrid of therapeutic work that integrates the physical, emotional, and intergenerational aspects of personal and collective trauma and healing. Kristen is a former teaching artist and co-director of an intergenerational dance company at the University of San Francisco and directed, performed and toured internationally with The Carpetbag Brigade Physical Theater Company from 2002 - 2011. She has danced with Sara Shelton Mann, Erika Tsimbrovsky, Syzygy Butoh, Human Nature Dance Theater and been a resident artist at Earthdance and CounterPulse. Kristen's private practice in somatics and bodywork is based in Oakland, CA.
FAMILY ART NIGHTS!
Family art nights are process oriented experiential art making events. Come do projects that may be too big, messy, or hard to set up at home! All ages are welcome!
Let’s play in community!
Coming up:
March 24 Printmaking & Marblizing
April - Costumes & Masks
May (date TBD) - water, Watercolor & wet on wet
June (date TBD) - squish gloop and slime
Facilitated by Suzi Garner: suzigarner.com
Some images from our February Family Art Night session on Shadow Puppetry!
COMPOSTABLE FEMINISMS
MORNING DANCE CLASS
with Rosemary Hannon & Miriam Wolodarski
Experiential Anatomy
Choreographic Motifs/Phrases/Coordinations
Improvisation and Composition: frames, scores, experiments
Awareness Practices and Open Discussions
Feminism awakens the moment we take note of imbalances of power, but it does not end there, it blossoms into new ways of being. This is a class that asks: “What does a feminist dance practice feel like?” The idea is not to answer the question, but rather to tune to sensation, leaning into mutable structures in order to build skills while staying in touch with the unknown, noticing and valuing places of ambiguity and ephemerality. We are interested in ways of moving, dancing, and learning together that resist the teleology of self improvement, turning instead to felt, bodily sensations, process oriented practice, and collective dialogue.
compostablefeminisms.wordpress.com
THIS CLASS IS ON HOLD!
PLEASE CHECK BACK FOR FUTURE COMPOSTABLE FEMINISIMS OFFERINGS
Sense Object is located at the Berkeley Finnish Hall, a community center in Berkeley, California, where we are the arts company in residence.
Follow these links for information about A&AIR RESIDENCY & PERFORMANCE SALON
For information about the many other awesome events held at the hall, or to inquire about rentals or the Finnish Heritage Society, please visit finnishhall.org, email finnish.hall@gmail.com, or call 510-845-5352.