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Gina Battistich // Teacher
IDOCs » Contemporary dance and Feldenkrais
The IDOC I present here is a documentation of a workshop I taught in Puebla, Mexico. The topic of the workshop was to provide an entrance to contemporary dance technique through individual movement exploration, sensing weight and stimulating students proprioceptive and spatial awareness. The class was built up of a Feldenkrais lesson, improvisation and dance exercises.
2016.06.01

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I teach regular public workshops that are open to all levels. Usually my workshops have the same build up. The most recent which I will describe here took place in a cultural centre in Puebla, Mexico over 4 days. The students came from different backgrounds such as ballet, contemporary dance, theatre and the Feldenkrais method.

First of all my task in the classes is to guide students to a common language and at the same time allowing for the students individuality and learning process to appear. The classes start with a Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lesson and continue with a movement exploration and improvisation which allows the students to follow their own curiosity. Then we move on to coordinated movement exercises that integrate movement ideas from the previous awareness through movement sequence and we combine that into short movement phrases in different spatial levels. We continue with new movement ideas that I build up through a guided movement exploration and later more dynamic movement exercises. From there we combine the elements of the workshop day into an improvisation or movement phrase with a focus on fluidity of movement transitions and dynamic changes. The class ends with warm down exercises.

 

 

 

- body scan, sensing contact with the floor and weight

 

- ATM focusing on differentiating the shoulderblades from the ribcage and exploring patterns connected with the arm in turning

 

- individual movement exploration, low and mid level, continuing the previous movement theme

 

- warming up exercise moving primarily from the shoulderblades

 

- exercise focusing on connecting the arms with the torso and all of the body

 

- arm swings with weight shifts

 

- shifting weight, focusing on bending and extending legs

 

- more dynamic exercise combining arms and lower body

 

- improvisation moving from the periphery alternating left and right side of the body, focusing on spirals and a differentiated use of fingertips and toes, later adding the core

 

- warm down, breathing, stretching


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