Class Schedule: All classes are for intermediate to advance students
 Sunday Morning March 1st 2009: 10am – 1pm Heather Stants
Moving From the Core: Connecting to the core for more powerful movements. Through years of training in dance, Pilates and Yoga, Heather has developed a strong practice and technique. In this class students will be lead through exercises, drills and movements that exemplify Heather's approach to powerful and expressive movement. Please bring a yoga mat.
Sunday Afternoon March 1st 2009: 2pm – 5pm Heather Stants
Fearless Floor-work! Bring your kneepads, but you may not need them, as we demystify floor choreography and find safe ways to inject a little floor into your dance performances. Bring the kneepads and a yoga mat for the warm up.
Monday Morning: March 2nd 2009: 9am – 12pm Heather Stants
Combo-Nation! Urban tribal is known for complexity and creativity in their choreography style. Learn the technique necessary for many of the movements in the urban tribal repertoire and then string them into fabulously funky combinations for use in improv and choreography. Please bring a yoga mat for warm up.
Monday Afternoon: March 2nd 2009: 1pm – 4pm Amy Sigil
SIGIL SCHOOL: Get a behind-the-scenes look at the teaching format of Amy Sigil in this interactive split session with UNMATA. In the first half of class, Amy will share her experience, ideas, and dance doctrine as well as answer your questions. In the second half of class, you will get on your feet for a Sigil School whirlwind demonstration. Tag words: warm-ups, transitions, music, mixes, tempo, choreography, common vocab, work, craft, drill, team, time, counting, working backwards, notes, repetition, fellowship, and yes, you will sweat!
Tuesday Morning: March 3rd 2009: 9am – 12pm Heather Stants
Creative Dance Composition: Students will be lead through exercises that will stimulate creativity and inspire staging. We will discuss choreography, use of sound and movement, and story-lines. Please bring a yoga mat for the warm up.
Tuesday Afternoon: March 3rd 2009: 1pm – 4pm Amy Sigil
OVERLAYING ISOLATIONS: Amy’s Art of Overlay is at the heart of this intermediate to advanced belly dance workshop designed to add expressive layers and distinction to your dance style. Although controlled simultaneous movement is a complex idea, this class provides a simple approach certain to bring impressive results. Beginning with a thorough breakdown of basic isolation technique, Amy will expand such elements as core strength and relaxed tension, and then demonstrate helpful exercises that are necessary to develop the awareness needed to isolate key muscle groups. Then she will teach and drill an isolation combo that incorporates the artistic flare unique to Amy Sigil and UNMATA.
Prerequisites: Because this class is designed for the intermediate to advanced dancer, a sufficient understanding of balance and timing is prerequisite.
Wed Morning: March 4th 2009: 9am – 12pm Rachel Brice
Extension & Posture, Arms & Hip Work:
In this workshop, practitioners will be given exercises to 1) create extension in the spine, 2) create stability and flexibility in the chest and shoulders, 3) condition the body to use the hips with arm movements in improvisational dance.
 Wednesday March 4th 2009: 1pm – 4pm Mardi Love;
Separation Anxiety: Isolation Patterns Goody, a bunch of drills that ask for a little concentration. Enjoy an afternoon of quirky patterns while keeping timely hips on the back burner. Indulge; it's good for you. Belly dance experience or a penchant for patting the head and rubbing the tummy recommended.
Turns: Providing a few new turns lovingly crafted by Mardi. A little something to slip into the slow piece.
Thurs Morning March 5th 2009: 9am – 12pm Rachel Brice
Excruciatingly Slow Dancing: In this workshop students will cover the basics for dancing slowly, including developing consciousness in the muscles required for isolations. The emphasis will be on developing flexibility and stamina. Participants will learn a series of slow combinations that they can build into their practice which cover many of the basic slow movements. Please bring a yoga mat and a notebook. Please do not eat at least 1.5 hours before this class.
Undulations and Introduction to Backward Bending: Access to the upper back is one very important element in a healthy and beautiful backbend and undulation. In this workshop, we begin with exercises to increase flexibility and strengthen in the chest, abdomen, upper back and front of the spine. We will then move on to the fundamentals of undulations and begin to work with “Laybacks” and backward bending. Wear stretchy clothes and bring yoga mat and notebook
Thursday Afternoon March 5th 2009: 1pm – 4pm Mardi Love
Quicker Combos and Zills: Spend the better part of class picking up quicker combos to blend into your repertoire. Top ‘emoff with bold customized percussive accents that will leave their ears bleeding. Bring zills!
Friday Morning March 6th 2009: 9am – 12pm Rachel Brice
Tribal Stylization & Creating Fusion Choreography: The roots of Tribal Fusion can be found in American Tribal Style as taught by Fat Chance Belly Dance. In this class, students will explore the differences and similarities in ATS and Tribal Fusion styles, and practice improvisational dance. Please bring finger cymbals.
Choreographies are made up of sections, as are musical pieces. In this workshop, the participant will learn a technique for structuring a choreography, and will be given ideas for thematic development and abstract musical interpretation. Participants will create their own combinations to be used with combinations/sections taught in class. This is workshop guided by Rachel, but students will be creating their own work. A good opportunity for one on one instruction and feedback.
Friday Afternoon March 6th 2009: 1pm – 4pm Mardi Love
The Good Ol' Fashioned: Spend the first part of class brushing up on some slow technique. You'll get acquainted with some slower combinations and work with inserting them into tribal improv movements with ease and fluidity.
Saturday Morning March 7th 2009: 10am – 1pm Rachel Brice
Combinations for Improvisational Dance: For the improvisational performer, it is common to feel that one's dance vocabulary is limited. In this workshop, Rachel will teach two or three intermediate/advanced combinations that can be used with most common-time (8 beat cycle) pieces of music and inserted anywhere in an improvisational performance or a choreography. The class will have three objectives: 1) to drill individual phrases in the combinations that emphasize a particular type of movement and can become part of a dancer's personal practice, 2) to use the full combinations as "forms", each with a different focus, for the purpose of muscle memory and neuromuscular education, and 3) to give the participant tools for a satisfying improvisational performance. Class will begin with rigorous Belly Dance drills, and end with a 30 minute Yoga practice for flexibility
Saturday Afternoon March 7th 2009: 2pm – 5pm Mardi Love
Snake Bait the Whole Cake: Here comes a new choreography. Improv and choreography both have their merits in belly dance. The choreography will be presented in chunks, drilled ruthlessly/endlessly, then strung together to form the Dance (i.e. the Whole Cake). Students can expect to come away with a few new tricks up their proverbial sleeves as well as an idea of how some dances are built. |
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