Hyper Body!

Course Description

Summary

Each class begins with practices influenced by release-based approaches to contemporary floorwork. A fundamental principle of this work is to move as smoothly and efficiently as possible, without unnecessary effort or muscular tension, by allowing the body to make use of its natural mechanics, gravity, weight, and momentum. Through these practices, students learn to let go of unnecessary tension and rediscover their relationship with gravity, the floor, and the body's own responsiveness. From there, we move into center work, investigating how the body organizes itself in relation to space, time, and others.

Throughout the semester, we learn layered movement phrases set to experimental pop music, including hyperpop and avant-pop. Some phrases are delightfully complex—so intricate that you may wonder, “How many things am I doing at once?” Through repetition, these layers gradually become integrated into the body. We also create simple community dances—movements that can be shared, taught, and experienced together. Dance is not only about what you can do, but also about how you connect.

Later in the semester, these technical and perceptual practices expand into public-space experiments inspired by the Walmart Project. Here we explore what I call Invisible Dance: choreographic actions that exist within everyday environments without announcing themselves as performance.

Invisible Dance is not simply about hiding dance from an audience. Rather, it investigates how movement can coexist with the people, rhythms, and multiple temporalities already present in public space. A passerby and a performer may appear unrelated, yet from the perspective of non-locality they may still participate in a shared field of coexistence, subtly shaping the atmosphere of a place without recognizing one another.

Our investigations may take place in Walmart, downtown streets, dining halls, parks, and other public or semi-public spaces. Rather than treating these locations as stages, we approach them as living choreographic environments already full of movement, habits, relationships, architecture, weather, sound, shifting light, and countless individual trajectories. Performers become part of these environments rather than remaining separate from them.

The movement training in this class and the structure of Invisible Dance are inseparable. The coordination, adaptability, spatial awareness, perceptual sensitivity, and responsiveness developed through technique become the very tools that allow dancers to work within these complex environments. The technique is not preparation for the project; it is already the project.
This class is intended for students with some movement experience who want to become stronger, more precise, and more curious about what their bodies are capable of doing.

Expect to sweat a little, think a little, occasionally become confused, and perhaps discover that an entire city can function as a choreographic score.