Archive: Workshops, Intensives, Master Classes, and Open Houses

Get back into our bodies and the studio with AMPLIFIED: AMP’s 4-day summer workshop sponsored by Zenon Dance School! Let’s move, sweat and explore mobility, length, momentum, 3-D expansion, while amplifying our physical possibilities in a curious, uplifting, and enlivening environment. Led by AMP and special guest artists. Suitable for pre-professional/professional movers. Come as you are!

June 6-9, 10:00am–1:00pm
10:00-11:30am: Contemporary Movement Practice with Joanna Lees
11:30am-1:00pm: Master Classes with Berit Ahlgren, Javan Mngrezzo, and Taja Will

Registration Info:
Drop-in: $15/practice or $28/day.
Drop in payments can be made in person at the door (subject to availability).
As of now, a mask will be required regardless of vaccination status.

More information and registration at alternativemotionproject.org. Send questions to: alternativemotionproject@gmail.com

Join us for the final few days of FREE classes and great discounts! Zenon Dance School’s Open House Week allows dancers to get a sneak peek of some classes to look forward to during our Summer Session, June 13-September 2, and use exclusive discounts when purchasing summer class passes throughout the week.

Remaining Class Schedule
Wednesday, June 8, 5:30-7:00pm: Contemporary with Ruby J. Smith – In Person
Thursday, June 9, 7:00-8:30pm: Modern with Dustin Haug – In Person

No Open House Week classes on Friday, June 10.

Open House Discounts, June 6-12, 2022
Take 20% off enrollment with code OHENROLL and $10 off class cards with code OH10OFF from Monday, June 6 through Sunday, June 12 in our online store.

Moving Practice is a weekly class series for professional dancers. Classes prioritize rigor, diversity of contemporary aesthetics, variety of class content, and commitment. Professional level dancers of all styles are welcome.

Tuesdays, 10:00-11:30am at The Arena
Taja Will teaches through June 21.

Drop in: $17. Buy a 10-class card and save. Register
FREE parking on all side streets: Aldrich, Bryant, Colfax, 31st

Duo and Ensemble Improvisational Partnering. Class is a place for co-learning, collaborative training and meeting in places of creative focus, skill building and current fascination.

Class culture: My pedagogy is grounded in healing justice and restorative justice at its foundations; this is to say all histories of power, privilege and oppression live in the room, when we don’t pay attention to them we maintain a status quo based on oppression. For me, giving voice and space to the practices of equity and awareness in creative/artistic spaces encourages the field to diverge from the status quo. Classes are open level,  you are invited, regardless of your experience in the dance form/style. Classes will center accessibility and inclusion for QT + BIPOC folks.

Class content: Drawing from my longtime commitment to Contact Improvisation this class will focus on duo and ensemble improvisational skills and structures. We’ll use somatic modalities to warm up awareness, and compositional instigations to encourage movement from small isolations to greater locomotion and possibly bombastic movement emergence. This is a place for us to gather and practice improvisational technique, awareness of our individual choice making alchemies, attunement to each other, and I will invite partnering that includes weight sharing and touch to your desire.

Taja Will (pronouns Taja/they/them) is a queer, Latinx (Chilean) adoptee, performer, choreographer, somatic therapist and Healing Justice practitioner based in Mni Sota Makoce, on the ancestral lands of the Dakota and Anishinaabe. Taja’s approach integrates improvisation, somatic modalities, text and vocals in contemporary performance. Their aesthetic is one of spontaneity, bold choice making, sonic and kinetic partnership and the ability to move in relationship to risk and intimacy. Will’s work explores visceral connections to current socio-cultural realities through ritual, archetypes and everyday magic.

Photo credit: Nanne Sorvold

An 8-week Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement Series with Sarah Baumert
Soften the System
June 29-August 28
Wednesdays at 6:30pm CST and Sundays at 4:00pm CST
Livestream classes will be taught over Zoom.

Our instincts RESIDE in the BODY. 

The lessons in this series are not just exercises in relaxation, mindful awareness, or feeling good. They are ways to better know, experience, and understand your body. Most importantly they can help you develop the ability to settle your body whenever you wish.

These are not just tools that you can lean on during times of stress or anxiety. These are ways to practice what it can feel like to be settled. To get to know the sensation of a settled nervous system, so that you can return to that place when you need to.

This is an alternative view of what we can do to grow in how we relate to the world, to settle our own nervous system, to then be able to engage with the world and in relationships in a way that feels skillful, wise, and from a place of compassion.

We will approach these lessons as a call to action to recognize that in order to create change in larger systems such as our community, our country, our world, understanding our body and softening the system is an important step for that change.

See the links below to learn more about the course and/or register!

The Karen L. Charles Threads Dance Project is excited to offer three training opportunities for youth as well as adult professional dancers. This summer’s teaching faculty will include present and former Threads company members, our esteemed Teaching Artists, and even Artistic/Executive Director Karen Charles.

Creative Connections I
July 11-15, 10:00-11:30am
Ages: 5-7
Tuition: $125
Participants must register and balances paid in full by June 20.

This program introduces participants to the five basic elements of movement (body, action, space, time, energy) as well as the basics of ballet and dance techniques. Participants will enhance kinesthetic awareness and begin to explore the body as a tool of self-expression.

Creative Connections II with Malia Craft
July 11-15, 1:00-3:30pm
Ages: 12-16
Tuition: $175
Participants must register and balances paid in full by June 20.

This program will provide participants with an expanded exploration of ballet and modern dance techniques and begin to explore how the five basic elements of dance are used to create movement motifs. Classes offered include ballet, modern, and introduction to composition skills. Participants will additionally reflect upon movement and movement creation through journaling.

More information available at www.threadsdance.org/summer.

Registration online at https://bit.ly/TDPcc.

Discover dance with a week-long camp for young artists! Not sure if your dancer has a style they like best, or looking for a way to try out something new? We’ll explore a variety of dance styles and creative movements in this one-week camp. There will be an informal showing on the last day. All abilities and levels of experience are welcome. In-person only at the Zenon Dance School studios.

July 18–22, 2022
Session 1: Ages 4-6 with Philip Hommes, 9:00am-12:00pm
Session 2: Ages 7-10 with Hannah Pierce, 12:30-3:30pm

Tuition: $195. Need-based scholarships are available for full or partial tuition.

Register online today! Registration closes one week before each camp begins.

This four-week workshop is designed for children ages 2-4 and their parent/caregiver who are interested in a shared movement experience that engages the senses of curiosity and play.

Both child and caregiver will participate in developmentally appropriate movement exercises that incorporate elements such as effort, shape, and tempo. Music will play an essential role in the class as students will be asked to respond to sounds as well as make sounds themselves. Participants will be encouraged to join at their own comfort level with the understanding that observation is often the best form of learning with younger children. This class will give children and caregivers the opportunity to learn more about themselves and one another through the art form of dance.

Mondays, 9:00-9:45am
Tuition: $60.00
Four-week session: July 18, July 25, August 1, and August 8
At TU Dance Center or outdoor location TBD.