ASSIDUOUS MOVEMENT PRACTICES:

Royon’s AMP class invites curious and open-minded movers to explore a wide range of contemporary dance techniques. This class delves into various movement modalities, encouraging dancers to experiment with diverse forms and functions. Through this exploration, participants develop a rich understanding of contemporary dance, nurturing their growth as versatile and insightful movement artists.

The session begins with a guided movement meditation warm-up that emphasizes breath, core strength, and overall body awareness. Following this, a series of exercises promotes harmonious alignment and articulation of the spine, hips, legs, and arms. Dancers then engage in movement across the floor, facilitating grounded shifts in direction. The experience concludes with a final movement phrase that integrates key elements from the entire class, including the amplification of rigor, play, and generosity.

BIO:

Bennyroyce Royon (he/they/siya) is a queer Filipino-American dance artist and cultural producer creating between Seattle and New York City. Passionate about the performing arts, education, and community building, Royon’s choreography explores identity, culture, and belonging, inspired by love, nature, and the cosmos.

A Juilliard graduate, Royon has performed with notable companies and choreographers, including Aszure Barton, Jessica Lang, Sidra Bell, and Karole Armitage. He has worked on Broadway and with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. The New York Times highlighted his “keenly focused, succinct way with movement.”

Royon has received choreographic commissions from Atlanta Ballet and Ballet Hispánico, and has earned multiple awards, including the MAP Fund grant, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture’s Hope Corps grant, and the Joffrey Ballet’s Winning Works Choreography Award. His project-based contemporary dance company, Bennyroyce Dance, has performed at prominent venues in NYC and beyond.

Active in his communities, Royon serves as co-chair of the Eastside Culture Coalition, an Artist-in-Residence at the Filipino Community of Seattle, and a Washington State Arts Commissioner. He is also a co-curator for the Base Residency Program. More at www.bennyroyce.com.

*Photo by Tra To

APPROACHES TO IMPROVISATION:

This class is for the curious mover! We will begin with movement activations including meditations to wake up the senses, somatic exercises to warm the body, and collective group centering to establish trust and care for the space. Together, we will then explore different ideas and inspirations to expand our range of movement and our capacity for choice-making. Inspired by various prompts, movers will investigate space, dynamics, and relationship. Improvisation is crucial to the explorations of ideas, enrich movement experiences, and create dances. We will play, question, and discover the possibilities that exist in our bodies. There will be a brief discussion on the history of this dance form as a tool for composition. This is an inclusive practice, no improvisation experience necessary, and I encourage you to come with an open mind and generous spirit!

Class description (short)

This class is for the curious mover! Together, we will explore different ideas and inspirations to expand our range of movement and our capacity for choice-making. Inspired by various prompts, movers will investigate space, dynamics, and relationship, and discover the possibilities that exist in improvisation as a tool for composition. This is a playful and inclusive practice, no improvisation experience necessary, and I encourage you to come with an open mind and generous spirit!

BIO:

Maya Tacon (she/her) is a movement and teaching artist based in Seattle. She was born and raised in New York and graduated with honors from SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance. During her time at Purchase, she performed works by Rosalind Newman, José Limón, Martha Graham, and Jesse Zaritt, in addition to studying abroad for a semester at Taipei National University of the Arts in Taiwan. Maya was a member of BHdos, the official second company for Ballet Hispanico NYC, and has been in multiple dance film projects with international recognition by Marta Renzi, based in New York. Since transplanting to Seattle, Maya has performed for artists such as Cameo Lethem, Jordan Macintosh-Hougham, Michelle Miller, Andy McShea, Joseph Hernandez, Malacarne directed by Alice Gosti, and acted as Rehearsal Director for Lavinia Vago. Maya is one half of CO-, a collaborative entity that curates and produces dance events, teaches for the worldwide family of Dance Church ®, and guides professional level classes for the Seattle dance community.. She also holds a STOTT Pilates certification from Bodycenter Studios, and is deeply passionate about facilitating an empowering practice for professional movers and non-dancers alike. @mayaroset / mayaroset.com

*Photo by Natalie Goldstein

INTERMEDIATE BALLET:

This intermediate level ballet technique class follows a traditional format of exercises at the barre, in the center and across the space. Rigorous and fun, graceful and sweaty, we explore involves exploring joint range, rotation, dynamic alignment, muscle efficiency, strength and flexibility, spatial clarity, and musicality. We’ll be balancing, turning, extending, making lines, and jumping. You will have a deepened sense of your body’s alignment, an expanded sense of spatial and rhythmic accuracy, and increased strength and flexibility.A ballet technique class is typically structured to prepare you to jump and leap for joy by its end.What could be better than that?

BIO:

Mark Haim has been teaching and choreographing for over 40 years. Artistic Director of Mark Haim & Dancers from 1984-1987, and the Companhia de Danca de Lisboa from 1987-1990, he is currently AD of Mark Haim Dance and Theater based in Seattle, WA.  He has created new works for dance companies such as the Nederlands Dans Theater, Ballet Frankfurt, the Limon Dance Company, the Joffrey II Dancers, and the  Rotterdamse Dansgroep, and has restaged his works on The Joffrey Ballet, the Bat-Dor Dance Company of Israel, Djazzex, and the Juilliard Dance Ensemble. His full evening solo project, The Goldberg Variations, has been performed at the American Dance Festival, the Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, The John F. Kennedy Center, On The Boards and other venues in the U.S, Europe, Asia. His newest work, This Land Is Your Land, opened the ArtDanThe Festival in Paris, and has also been performed at the Joyce Theater in NYC and in the Nasher Museum of Art as part of the 2013 ADF performing series. Most recently, Mark has been choreographer for the Seattle Opera’s productions of The Consul and Tales of Hoffmann. Mark was on the faculty of the American Dance Festival (1993- 2014) and was the Senior Artist in Residence at the University of Washington Dance Program from 2002-2008. He has also taught at the NC School of the Arts, University of Illinois, Ohio University, SMU, VCU, Cornell, JMU, Reed College, Simon Fraser University, and for schools and companies in Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Latvia, Russia, Argentina, Chile and Japan. He is a recipient of a 1987 New York Foundation for the Arts Choreographers Fellowship, a 1988 and 1996 NEA Choreographers Fellowship, and grants from the NPN Suitcase Fund,  ArtsLink, Inc. and the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs. In 2000, he was awarded the Scripps/ADF Humphrey-Weidman-Limon Fellowship for Choreography.  Mark is a Fulbright Senior Specialist. He holds a BFA degree from The Juilliard School and an MFA from Hollins University.

*Photo by Jim Coleman

Lineages: a return to modern dance:

In this class, we will move through various styles of modern dance, exploring how historical forms influence and shape contemporary practices. Together, we will rediscover foundational elements of styles such as Horton that inform our current dance vocabulary. Through being in.conversation with our dance ancestry, we will not only be stronger in the present but able to project ourselves into the future. We will approach modern dance techniques as a jumping off point, a foundation, a meditation on the body and the forms it can inhabit. Participants will be encouraged to exercise their agency as dancers, taking what is needed and leaving what is not.

BIO:

Akoiya Harris is a movement artist based in Seattle Washington.  Her work uses a queer Black gaze to explore ways communal and personal stories can be interwoven into dance works. She has collected oral histories on behalf of Wa Na Waris Seattle Black Spatial Histories Institute, and Black Collectivity. Akoiya has also participated in the Black Embodiments Studio Arts Writing Incubator.  As a choreographer, she has shown work at the Seattle Art Museum, Wa Na Wari, On The Boards, Friends of the Waterfront, Velocity Dance Center, The Moore Theater, and more. Akoiya is a founding member of Black Collectivity, a group that explores memory and culture through embodied responses. Following a matriarchal lineage of teachers, Akoiya is a dance educator working with youth at Ailey Camp and Pacific Northwest Ballet. She has also performed with Spectrum Dance Theater, Will Rawls, Zoe|Juniper, Third Rail Projects, The Congregation, and SoloMagic. She is a 2024 Base Art + Space Resident. You can find her on instagram at a_koi_ya

Photo by Christine Mitchell 

TIPS AND TRICKS FOR THE LIMELIGHT:

In preparation for the culminating performance, we will be cultivating stage presence, offering advice on how to overcome stage fright and to make the most of your performance. There will also be opportunity to ask questions and learn more about how tech rehearsals and performances function and how to be best prepared

BIO:

Alyza DelPan-Monley (they/she) believes in the expressive power that can be accessed in the body through movement. Known for their embrace of whimsy, quirky non-sequitors and esoteric theatricality, they take inspiration from physical theatre, clowning, puppetry, cartoons, and a myriad of movement styles. As a movement designer and choreographer, their work has been presented at ArtsWest, Cafe Nordo, Washington Ensemble, 5th Avenue, Cornish and Bumbershoot. Alyza was Velocity Dance Center’s Curating Artist in Residence through September 2023. As a mixed-race queerdo 2nd gen immigrant, they are always thinking about the liminal identity and the assumptions made on the perceived body, and how performance can both expand and restrict the possibilities of legibility. They strive to participate in and build processes where everyone feels like they can exist in their fullest selves by cultivating and celebrating every bodies’ unique form of expression. 

*Photo by Ripple Fang

INTERMEDIATE MODERN:

This class features a thorough floor-based warm-up to get your spine articulating, your core and glutes tuned-up and toasty, and your center centered. We then stand up to do a sequential series of dancey dance exercises (yes! plies, tendus) interspersed with head to sacrum juiciness; a good dose of falling, spirals, and swings; floorwork sprinkles; and some upside down adventures. Then we jump a little to build strength and finish with an edge-finding, texture-rich, can’t-wait-to-learn-more combo. Our goal is to nurture resiliency in the dancing body and develop new creative pathways and movement expressions.

BIO:

Alana O’Farrell Rogers is a Seattle-born dance artist and Artistic Director of the project-based, Alana O. Rogers Dance Company. Her works seek to submerge their audience, through emotional landscapes, narrative and abstraction. She has been called a “world-builder,” audaciously dedicated to theatricality and the role of performance in art. Known for its crisp athleticism and poignant sensibility, her choreography has been commissioned by many festivals and programs in the PNW including the Seattle International Dance Festival, Slip Gallery/Belltown Artwalk, Velocity Dance Center, ChopShop, On the Boards, and the BOOST Dance Festival. She has been fortunate to receive grants and project support from the James Ray Residency Project/The Raynier Foundation, Artist Trust, and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. Outside of her creative endeavors, Alana is a physical therapist specializing in dance medicine, which has allowed her to fuse her passions of movement and science.

*Photo by Ernie Sapiro

HOUSE FOUNDATIONS:

House Class focuses on foundational steps and variations, feeling the music, finding your voice through freestyle, and working on steps through drilling, combos and choreography while working solo and with others. This class will help others learn some history of House dance as well as gain a larger vocabulary in movement. There are different warmups I utilize including body weight exercises, functional movement, freestyle and other dance-based warmups. My classes work on connecting the movements in your body and learning to make them your own and help speak your voice through the movement, everyone has a different body and relates to movement differently, so we work towards what feels best for you after working on a base. Freestyle is a big part of class and showing your authentic self, you will hear various types of music in class during freestyle sections, but foundation portions of the class will be to various types of House music, freestyle is a part of the warm up and class WILL ALWAYS END IN A CYPHER. Class will not tolerate any misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism, or any other form of disrespect to individuals in any way. Class is open to all levels, and anyone can take something away. Come ready to be yourself, have  fun, be challenged, and sweat! Feel free to message me for any questions.

BIO:

Majinn (They/Them) is a queer, disabled, mixed Black LMT and dance artist and educator who utilizes their training in multiple dance forms to find and express their whole self. They believe that to be the best person they can be they need to continuously push their own comfort zone. Majinn works to help guide people in becoming more confident and connected in their bodies, find joy in movement and be able to speak their voices primarily through Black social dance forms. One of Majinn’s biggest goals in dance is to spread the histories and cultures of Black social dance forms in and out of academia so that the cultures are learned and more respected. They also aim to give back to the communities that these art forms were created from through any way they can. Majinn’s art is for themselves and the communities they come from, always striving to be authentically themselves in their movement and work. You can find Majinn under Majinn_Moves on Instagram

*Photo by Erin O’Reilly