artistic directors jamey hampton + ashley roland
Master Classes are available locally or in conjunction with a BodyVox touring performance. Classes are taught by BodyVox company Members.
This is a basic, well-rounded technique workshop with emphasis on contemporary, modern, and ballet. The technique stresses the importance of core strength and inner origin of peripheral events. Some yoga is included for centering, flexibility, focus and strength.
We will use improvisation as a method of gathering materials for composition with emphasis on developing personal strengths, moving beyond self-imposed limitations, and freeing the body from the confines of the intellect. Move from self-judgment to self-awareness. Search for choreographic materials in unlikely places/techniques. Explore fresh territory.
Composition as an extension of the improvisation process: taking material generated through improvisation and assembling it into a structured piece; choosing material (what is “good” and what is “filler”): identifying a valid idea with a personal resonance and exploring that idea, then assembling that exploration into a coherent work. We will use tools such as patterns, retrograding, and canons to create a landscape of a work and play with finding appropriate music/sound as accompaniment to a movement theatre work.
A program designed for a small group of student filmmakers (often offered through a university film department). This class includes hands on film making as well as discussions on camera placement and the role of the camera in the dance, audience point of view, the use of editing to manipulate the sense of time, space in a dance and the integration of live video with live dance.
Recommended for kindergarten through 3-4th grade, this program consists of a video taped introduction to BodyVox and the company’s creative process. Students are introduced to everyday movements and concepts that can become dance, and invited to choreograph their own dance to music provided by BodyVox. A team of dancers will then visit with the students to share BodyVox’s interpretation of the music, view the student pieces and compare choreographic results.
*photos courtesy of Sun Valley Center for the Arts