CLASSCLASSCLASS
Tuesday 6/10 from 10a-12p– Jonathan González
Thursday 6/12 from 10a-12p– Jesi Cook
Tuesday 6/17 from 10a-12p– Leslie Cuyjet
Thursday 6/19 from 10a-12p– jess pretty <3 Juneteenth <3
LOCATION: Danspace Project at St Mark’s Church – 131 E 10th St NY, NY
CLASS FEE: $16 at the door (cash or venmo)
THERE WILL BE LUNCH
6/17: Join us for lunch after class to celebrate the AUNTS festival.
6/19 Join us for a mighty AUNTS Juneteenth cookout. Lunch will be provided from 12-4p in the courtyard outside of Danspace.
ACCESSIBILITY: The 10th Street entrance at Danspace is wheelchair accessible via a permanent ramp. A same-level, one stall restroom is available near the main performance space in the church Sanctuary. The doorway of that bathroom is 33 inches wide.
CLASS DESCRIPTIONS and TEACHER BIOS
Objects As Invitations In: In this class we will work with objects and architecture to create scores together. Foil, paper, wood, junk: how can objects support us to understand our own bodies, our movement interests, or make us feel safe while dancing? I'll guide a warm up: strengthening, (technique), breathing exercises, visualizations, and Chinese Medicine Theory's relation of elements to inner body channels, to then talk about my sound/ moving based practice with "STUFF." Maybe you've been far away from your body for a while, or front row in Cunningham class, all are welcome!
Jessica Cook is a choreographer based in NYC since 2005. She has presented her work at Roulette Intermedium, La Mama Moves Festival, LMCC’s 2024 River to River Festival, TSA Gallery, Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church, Pieter Performance Space Los Angeles, and AUNTS. Artist-In-Residences include The Chocolate Factory Theater, Movement Research, NY Live Arts Fresh Tracks, and MoMA PS1. She is a 2005 graduate of the SUNY Purchase Dance Conservatory. She is a NYS licensed massage therapist, artist, and mother.
Psychogeography: We will work with sensory, affective, and speculative embodiment approaches in response to the surroundings. First, we will work through the studio to learn about the place and our interrelation anew. We will do this by referring to psychogeographic practices of diversion, drifting, mapping, and mythogeography. You will also invent new choreographic methods along the way. Then, we will go outside and apply these same methods for longer. Working in pairs and ideally getting lost. We will conclude by composing from our experiences and sharing this with the group. What to expect: Prompts will ask you to experiment with improvisation and composing movement within the bounds of the studio and the outdoors, some group conversation, and a final sharing of material.
Jonathan González is an interdisciplinary artist, scholar, and educator whose research investigates the aesthetics, ethics, and social histories embedded in performance. Through choreography, film, installation, and performance studies, his work explores diasporic Black life, postcolonial geographies, and the afterlives of colonialism. Drawing on Black studies, spatial theory, and archival practice, González engages embodiment as a mode of inquiry, creating works that examine how race, power, and memory are choreographed across public and private space. Institutions such as Crystal Bridges Museum of Art/The Momentary, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the River to River Festival have presented his site-responsive and media-rich projects.
Move Hang: Let's gather, move, and make together. We'll start with some warm up and scores to get us grounded to the room and each other. From there, we'll write and compose with our bodies, with and for each other. With a cultivated shared curiosity, bring your own ideas and obsessions or nothing at all. This is a space to move, witness, build, and be in process together.
Leslie Cuyjet is a performer and choreographer in Brooklyn, New York. Her tenure in New York is decorated with performances and collaborations, both formal and informal; with contemporaries, legends, and counterparts; on rooftops, good and bad floors, and alleyways; on stage in film, art. on tour, and on the fly; since 2004. She was awarded a 2019 New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award for her sustained achievement as Outstanding Performer. And her 2021 solo, Blur, earned her a 2022 award for Outstanding Choreographer/Performer.
grooving with jess pretty: in this class we will be grooving: a deep, low key transformational movement meditation and social dance practice steeped in Black Culture. the grooves in this class are informed by; strolling, line dancing, house dance, funk, soul train lines, jazz, afro-caribbean rhythms/grooves, two-step, footwork, and connecting to the community. access to groove is access to life.
intentionality: generate individual and collective groove, activate the energetic body, transform stagnation, to feel good, to build stamina, to discover personal styles/aesthetics, to have fun, and to get down.
class set up: warm up groove, moving our groove across the floor, the get down, and stretching.
content: we will work with complex rhythmic patterns, improvisational grooving, and building groove compositions.
acknowledgement: grooving comes from black bodies, black culture, black life. we honor, we respect, we value, we support, we uplift. please wear sneakers if you have them.
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CLASSCLASSCLASS past and present is an intergenerational ecosystem of artists taking a chance at teaching and learning models. CCC is a blank slate for movement artists to experiment with their artistic practice in some form of student-teacher relationship. CCC values the willingness to investigate ideas without the pressure of product; students and teachers, come as you are. Since 2009, CCC has operated as an artist-run, artist-initiated platform. For its current iteration, we're working within the intergenerational ecosystem of the experimental dance community. CCC promotes pedagogy as an artistic and learning tool and is organized by Mariana Valencia and AUNTS IS DANCE