thank you!
"Highly recommend! Very enjoyable to move my body and explore my creativity without having to leave my home. It was sweet to connect with other like-minded folks, to play and support each others' process... The awareness that we can access the healing power of dance anywhere, anytime!"
- Dance Improvisation participant, Winter 2021
Thank you for your interest.
Stay tuned for the next season of classes.
Join Colleen on this 6-week deep-dive into dance improvisation. Practice spontaneous movement to train, perform and enjoy!
About the Class
This 6-8 week dance improvisation class is led by Colleen Snell from 7pm-9pm (EST) on Thursdays, once per week.
The purpose of this course is to MOVE and be moved. We will study improvised movement as a form, focussing on techniques from contemporary dance. You will move from impulse, learn to trust your instincts and tune into your senses. We will draw inspiration from our habits, be curious as we challenge them and open up a wide range of dynamic qualities. As you dance, you will explore different structures for improvisation - techniques and approaches to encourage specificity in your movement. This class will touch upon scores, site-specific work, and developing an improvised dance piece. As the course progresses there will be time set aside for reflection and feedback.
Each class will begin with a warm up, a guiding question and series of dance improvisation tasks, culminating in sharing.
*Recommended for movers with 5+ years of training, 18 years of age and older.
What you will need:
- Zoom access and a webcam
- Writing implements (pens, pencils, erasers)
- Paper (notebook recommended)
- Loose clothing for movement, water bottle
- A space to move (enough room to lie down in, and stand up without touching the ceiling)
Section 1: Listen to impulse
Stream of consciousness, listening, tuning into our senses.
Section 2: Understand and create scores
Create from a constraint. What do scores do and how can we use them?
Section 3: Site-specific work
How can we make dances that are inspired by where we already are? Let's dance in a variety of spaces, and see what happens. Let's use zoom's camera in inspiring new ways.
Section 4: Crafting an improvised dance
Create your own improvised dance project(s), based on in-class learning.
* The course is subsidized by Frog in Hand to be under $12 per class! Thanks to our funder, the City of Mississauga, for making this low rate possible.
About the Teacher
Colleen works with a broad range of movement organizations as an educator, choreographer, collaborator, outside eye, fight director and performer. She co-founded site-specific dance-theatre company Frog in Hand in 2012. Colleen devises and performs collaborative work with musicians, poets, actors, fight directors, visual artists and martial artists. Choreographic commissions include Stories in the Woods (2019), Toronto Fringe (2018, 2019, 2020), Block Party (2017), Creature (2016), Springboard Danse (2015) and Guelph Dance Festival (2015, 2016). As a dancer Colleen has created roles with Dancemakers, TOES for Dance, Transcendance Project and Alysa Pires. In England she completed a Masters Degree at the London Contemporary Dance School. An avid bilingual arts educator, Colleen is committed to developing and sharing cultural capital with diverse learners. She is devoted to improvisation as a vehicle for discovery, training, sparking creativity and tuning into the present moment.
History
Our first season of Dance Improvisation was held in Winter 2021 and our second season of Dance Improvisation was held in Spring 2021 on Zoom with a group of talented and explorative folks of different artistic backgrounds. They were guided through opening their senses, structures and techniques for improvisation, scores, site-specific work, and developing improvised dance.
If you have any questions about this class, please contact us.