Archive

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.

Threads Dance Project will hold its first ever Advanced/Professional Summer Intensive and Audition Workshop this August 1 to August 5 at the Threads Dance Nexus. Registration is now open! 

This program provides participants with a rigorous exploration of techniques as well as the opportunity to explore and enhance the performative elements of dance via repertory class. Classes for the advanced/professional Intensive include ballet, modern, improvisation/jazz, and repertory class.

August 1-5, 2022
10:00am–3:30pm
Ages 18+
Tuition: $225
Participants must register and balances must be paid in full by July 18.

More information at: https://www.threadsdance.org/summer/.

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

Join ARENA DANCES for one week of movement classes taught by guest artist Shane Larson, member of the renowned Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. Participants will practice contemporary dance technique and learn a new original work as a part of this intensive. Targeted for the high-intermediate to advanced level dancer.

Instinct: August 15-20, 2022
Monday–Saturday, 10:00am-3:00pm
Class: 10:00-11:30am
Rehearsal of new work: 12:00-3:00pm

During class, dancers will build a bottom to top, floor to standing modular class that deepens with task-based repetition, while encoding new movement pathways through basic shapes. Students are encouraged to learn-by-doing, rather than to learn and ‘perform’, relying on muscle memory to strengthen pathways. Architectural forms of the body are created, deconstructed, and recycled within the containers of momentum and temperature, offering a full-body, far-reaching experience of movement.

After class, dancers will focus on creating—using skills as scaffolding for building material as a community. We’ll spend time talking about memory and time, graphing separate experiences together to focus and distill common patterns, shapes, and anecdotes. The final object created will be an investigation that is distinctly your own and something that can be taken into future experiences.

Shane Larson was raised in Minnesota, where he received his early training at the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. He graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, with a BFA in Dance and a minor in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies. He also studied at SEAD in Austria. Since living in New York City, he’s branched out to collaborate with punk musicians, film makers, improvisational music ensembles, and site-specific visual artists. He is also a multimedia video artist making collage-based work about memory. Shane joined the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company in 2015.

Ages 16+.
Intensive capped at 15 participants. 
Registration is open and must be completed by August 1.
Early Bird: $475 – register by July 15.
General: $550.

Photo by Jim Coleman

Classes and programs for Summer 2022 at the School of Ballet Co.Laboratory are now enrolling!

The School of Ballet Co.Laboratory offers the finest dance education to artists of all ages and abilities in a nurturing and welcoming environment. Our summer programming gives students the opportunity to train with locally and nationally acclaimed dance professionals who are dedicated to the growth of each individual student. 

To learn more or to register click here: https://bit.ly/SummerBCL