Saturday DANCEbank class with Neil Greenberg

[Sarah Vox]

DANCEbank Fall session
Saturdays, 11am-1pm
class costs $12. cash only, exact change appreciated!
please pay teacher before class starts

Sep 5, 12, 19: Cheng-Chieh Yu
Sept. 26, October 3, 10: Roxanne Steinberg
Oct. 17, 24: Kevin Williamson
Oct. 31st: Hana van der Kolk
November 7, 14, 21: Neil Greenberg
December 5, 12: Sheetal Gandhi

classes are held at Metabolic Studio/Farmlab
1745 North Spring Street, #4
directions below and at www.farmlab.org

join the DANCEbank group on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=85140382975

November 7, 14, 21: Neil Greenberg

I'm thinking that each class/workshop will draw from three possible arenas:

§ Working with information from some of the somatic approaches I've studied, considering body systems in addition to, and in conjunction with, the prevalent skeletal/muscular model. Could be called a bodywork approach to movement training. Warming up will be one goal, here. Call this the "technique" focus.

§ Directed improvisation, using some of the ideas from my recent "Really Queer Dance With Harps" as a springboard, and also working with ideas from my current project: I've been questioning the notion that speech metaphors-for example, "what is this dance saying?"-can accurately describe dance experiences. I'm instead interested in exploring the "isness" of the performance moment.

§ Working with set material drawn from my choreography, learning and playing with "phrase-work." Sort of a mini repertory focus. (This probably a lower priority for me at present.)

I still feel quite new to L.A., and hope to continue making work here. I see these workshops as an opportunity to continue to meet and get to know artists from the L.A. dance community, and to bring to the table some of the ideas with which I've been working.

Feel free to email me with any questions: ne...@ucr.edu.

Neil Greenberg moved to L.A. from N.Y.C. in fall 2007 to join the dance faculty of UC Riverside. He has been making dances since 1979, and is known especially for his 1994 work, Not-About-AIDS-Dance, which employs his signature use of projected supertitles as an alternative text to the onstage dance action, and a door into the "meanings" of viewing dance. His work also reflects the influence of innovative somatic approaches to movement, such as Klein Technique, which he's studied extensively with Barbara Mahler and Susan Klein, and Body-Mind Centering, which he's studied with RoseAnne Spradlin. His most recent work, Really Queer Dance With Harps, continues his investigation into the nature of meaning-making. RQDWH premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in NY in June 2008, and was presented at REDCAT in LA in April 2009. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, NEA NYFA & the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, two "Bessies," a Time Out Audience Award, and grants from the National Dance Project, the Rockefeller Multi-Arts Production Fund and NYSCA. He has created two commissions for Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project. A former dancer with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (1979-1986), he has been on the dance faculty of Purchase College and Sarah Lawrence College, and served as dance curator at The Kitchen from 1995-1999. For more information: <www.neilgreenberg.org>.

COMING UP:

December 5, 12: Sheetal Gandhi

Sheetal is interested in movement that is gestural, expressive and musically complex.

She draws on her inspirations including kathak dance, vocal percussion, popping and waving, modern dance, classic jazz, Michael Jackson, West African dance, Pilates, Yoga and Bharatanatyam mudras. This two-part course will use the complex, precise rhythms of the North Indian classical dance form Kathak, as a springboard into exploring the musician-dancer body. Choreographically, we will explore the possibilities within the drum and dance language, using our voices and dance to create highly specific movement sequences and soundscapes. All levels and techniques welcome. The class should warm you up, cool you down, and keep you groovin' in between!

Sheetal Gandhi is interested in creating a space that brings the many sides of her personality together: dramatic, wry, Indian, American, dancer, percussionist, abstract, chameleon, precise, impulsive, singer and storyteller. She draws on her strengths and professional successes from the subway platform to the Broadway stage to create work that blurs cultural and disciplinary boundaries, promoting intercultural understanding through artistic excellence. In 1993, Sheetal's passion for rhythm led her to Ghana, West Africa where she spent a year studying and performing the traditional music and dances of the region. Sheetal grew up folk dancing within her own culture and in 1995 moved to India for six months to further study the North Indian classical dance form Kathak. As a percussionist, she plays the calabash, or dried gourd, and the West African xylophone. Sheetal worked as a creator and performer in Cirque du Soleil'sDralion, and toured with the international cast from 1999-2001. Her New York credits include: leading role in the Broadway production of Bombay Dreams, Stephen Schwartz's Children of Eden at the Paper Mill Playhouse, and the revival of Hair.

Gandhi was Co-Artistic Director of the modern dance company California Contemporary Dancers in San Francisco from 2001-2004 and holds an MFA in Dance/Choreography from UCLA's Dept. of World Arts and Cultures. Most recently she has been touring her multi-disciplinary one-woman show, Bahu-Beti-Biwi (Daughter-in-law, Daughter, Wife), with recent performances in Los Angeles at the REDCAT NOW Festival and in New York with the National Asian American Theater Festival. For more info. visit www.sheetalgandhi.com

...about Metabolic Studio
Derived from the Greek word for change, 'metabolism' is the process that maintains life. In continuous cycles of creation and destruction metabolism transforms nutrients into energy and matter. Working to sustain these cycles, the Metabolic Studio transforms resources into energy, actions, and objects that nurture life. Led by artist and philanthropist Lauren Bon, it is a studio for practice at the intersection of art and philanthropy. The Metabolic Studio comprises Chora, which supports the intangibles that precede creativity, and Farmlab, which supports living things in often-hostile environments.

DIRECTIONS: 1745 North Spring Street, #4, Los Angeles

The building is a warehouse and is literally under the Spring St. Bridge, and more like it's on Baker @ Aurora.
>From the 110, exit Solano and turn R, go down the hill to Broadway.
L on Broadway. Cross the bridge. At the intersection of 18th, Broadway, Pasadena, make a hard right onto North Spring (it should feel like you are doubling back).
Cross a second bridge. At the end of the bridge make a quick R @ Aurora. You are now next to the warehouse! Walk under the bridge through the urban planter garden. Metabolic Studios is right there.

From the 10:
Exit Alameda
take Alameda all the way to China Town
veer R onto Spring St.
Go past the park (to your left) and continue towards the bridge. One block before the bridge is Baker ST. make a left onto very crumbly road. Take to end (about 2 blocks). You are now parked behind the Metabolic Studios. You can walk through the workshop, then the garage to get to the studio.


--

DANCEbank is a project of Show Box.

SHOW BOX is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit service organization. Did you know you can make a tax-deductible donation to Show Box online? Support the continuation of some of your favorite L.A. dance community projects, and invest in the germination of new ideas.

Donate here: https://www.fracturedatlas.org/donate/1490

UPCOMING EVENTS:

***

"Trace" created and performed by Cynthia Lee and Shyamala Moorty

Sea and Space Explorations Gallery
4755 York Blvd Los Angeles CA 90042

Saturday, November 7: gallery open 7-10 PM, performance at 8:30 PM
Sunday, November 8: gallery open 1-5 PM, performance at 2:30 PM followed by reception
FREE ADMISSION

"Trace" is part of INSTRUMENTS OF RISK, a performance series curated by Asher Hartman and Carol McDowell at Sea and Space Explorations (www.seaandspace.org). The curators state: "Performance is up and out of the margins again, lately as a hybrid of practices that highlight the collective exchange between performer, gesture, spectator, and space, whose lineage can be traced back to performance constructions of the 1970s....This is physical conceptual performance with an unabashed theatricality and rigorous abstraction, steering through the unresolved complexities of our world. Focusing on the body as a compass, the artists in this series grapple with multiple means through which we understand history, speech, location, culture, force, and self in relation to the world around them and within."

***

An interesting pairing to see on the same weekend:

Anna Halprin

parades & changes, replays
WHEN: Wed Nov 11 - Sat Nov 14 at 8:30pm
WHERE: REDCAT | THE ROY AND EDNA DISNEY/CALARTS THEATER
631 W Second Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
TICKETS: $25-30 [Students $20-25]
213-237-2800 or www.redcat.org
INFO: Improvising around a set of movement and music scores, dancers carry out everyday tasks, dress and undress, invent gestures, and disappear inside swirling rolls of paper in this full-scale reinterpretation of Anna Halprin's game-changing 1965 work parades & changes, her first "collective creation" and a landmark of postmodern dance.

In conjunction with the performances at REDCAT, Morton Subotnick and Anne Collod will be joined by other collaborators in a post-show discussion on November 12, 2009, about the process by which they reinterpreted parades & changes and the new work that has resulted
from their collaboration.

Hana van der Kolk and Five Thirty Three Present

Once More, Again, One

November 12, 13, 14 & 15 2009 at 8:30pm

Once More, Again, One investigates presence, intimacy, and the cultivation and sharing of joy through examinations of duration and repetition. Featuring Megan May Daalder, Justin Streichman, Greg Barnett, and Jane Pickett, Once More explores the boundaries between collective encounter and traditional performance, day-to-day states of mind and states of altered awareness, popular music/dance and minimalism, and audience and performer. Lighting design by Christopher Kuhl and sound assistance from Nick van der Kolk and Kees van Zelst.

Five Thirty Three, 533 Los Angeles St. (between 5th and 6th Streets), 2nd Floor

Suggested donation of $10 at the door
No reservations
Street parking or in nearby lots on Los Angeles Street

More at www.hanavanderkolk.com


***

No Dancing at the Mandrake: Round 3
Sunday November 15, 7 PM
An open forum community screening for new dance media work or work in progress. Work should not exceed 10 minutes. Please bring work formatted for DVD player. This is a non-curated and no fee program; in fact, more like an open projector. This is a great opportunity to get feedback prior to submission deadline for DCW's June 2010 festival program of LOCAL MAKERS. Send required RSVP with: Your name, title of work, length, and brief film description to off...@dancecamerawest.org
Mandrake Bar
2692 South La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90034
(between Venice Blvd and Washington Blvd)

--
join the DANCEbank group on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=85140382975

--