PRAXISPACE Master Classes: Creative Process and Practice

How to Access Masterclasses:

When you purchase a class, you will receive an email with a PDF that has the password to view either on Vimeo or on this page. You will have 24 hours to download that PDF with the password, but will have access to the video forever. If you do not receive the PDF link or the link expires, please email matthewabdances@gmail.com. Links to purchase recordings below videos. Thank you!

clases focus on topics such as Values, Time, Space, Process and Relationship. Classes are taught by Alexandra Beller, K.J. Holmes, Deborah Black, Kelly Bartnik, and more amazing artists. Masterclasses are free for those who join PRAXISPACE and $25 for individual purchase.

FAQs

Q: How do I access the class?

A: You will be sent a PDF with a password to view the class on Vimeo.

Q: Can I download this content?

A: The class is not for download, but the link to access it through Vimeo will remain valid in the future in case you wish to revisit the class.
Q: Can I share this class with others or use it for teaching?

A: We kindly request that this single purchase class is for your use only. If you wish to license it for academic purposes or group sharing, please reach out and we can arrange an agreement to allow you to use it for large audiences, with the permission of the teacher.

Meaning: Using Dramaturgy to find meaning in movement.

A Master Class with Katherine Profeta

Katherine Profeta leads a seminar/workshop considering "meaning" in choreographic work, a variety of ways in which movement might "mean" something, and the relation of narrative to meaning. It culminates with students devising very short bits of choreography and considering a sequence; students are invited to experiment even further with these ingredients on their own.

Here’s how this workshop works...

This is a one-hour online class that you will have access to in your own time and space, and will be able to access again and again, as you wish, though an internet connection. We ask that you not share this as a teaching tool, or send to others, on an honor system.

What will you experience?

You will leave this class having a deeper understanding of the relationship between movement and narrative. Katherine says that since dance is a time art, the meaning is in motion and can evolve during the dance.

This class explores meaning as it relates to dance-making. Is the “meaning” of a dance what resonates as a performer as they are executing it or is it communicated to the audience? Katherine poses this question along with introducing three modes of relationship that narrative has to movement. Movement that encourages narrative (it is obvious), movement that unfolds an emotional state/state of being, and movement that resists narrative. Participants are then asked to create three phrases that respond to each of these modes of relationship of narrative to movement. 

An important takeaway from this session is the ability to look at concrete examples of dance and decide which mode it falls under. Katherine lists some examples (i.e. Graham’s Lamentation falls under movement that unfolds in an emotional state). From there, participants learn to apply these modes to something that they create themselves. 

About Katherine

Katherine Profeta is a NYC dramaturg who has worked with choreographer/visual artist Ralph Lemon since 1997. She is also a founding member and longtime choreographer with the New York City theater company Elevator Repair Service, having lent her hand to the majority of its productions 1991-2015. Other collaborators over the years, both recent and long-past, include Alexandra Beller, Nora Chipaumire, Karin Coonrod, Annie Dorsen, Julie Taymor, David Thomson, Ni’Ja Whitson, and Theater for a New Audience. She was proud to be a dramaturg with the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Initiative in 2017-18. Profeta holds an MFA and DFA in dramaturgy from the Yale School of Drama, where she is currently a Professor in the Practice of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism. Publications include her 2015 book Dramaturgy In Motion, which explored the nature of dance and movement dramaturgy in light of her extended collaboration with Lemon.

Relationship: more than the sum of their parts.

A Master Class with K.J. Holmes

This Master class, by luminary facilitator, improviser, and teacher K.J. Holmes, tackles the idea of relationship through both body awareness, and environment. Etymology, Physiology, Improvisation are all essential components to K.J.’s approach to relationship in this hour-long movement and improvisation class.

This class plays with the language of somatic studies to create an embodied experience of the mind of physical systems and thinking through image and sensation.

How to make visible the musicality of connection within the body and listen to the confluence with landscape and location.

Here’s how this workshop works...

This is a one-hour online class that you will have access to in your own time and space, and will be able to access again and again, as you wish, though an internet connection. We ask that you not share this as a teaching tool, or send to others, on an honor system.

What will you experience?

You will leave this class having a deeper understanding of the relationships in the physical body between bones, muscles, organs, joints, etc while also bringing this awareness of relationships to individual practices. 

This class looks at the relationship between the different parts of the body (bones, muscles, organs) and uses these parts to stimulate and initiate movement. Throughout the class, participants are led through a movement exploration that invites awareness to specific areas of the body starting in a proximal/internal place and moving to the distal ends. At the end of class, participants are asked to continue to look at relationships (with nature, with the space they are in, etc.) and reflect on the class through writing, drawing and applying this practice to other practices. 

An important takeaway from this session is understanding the relationship of the parts to the whole. KJ leads a series of roll-downs leading with the brain while naming each organ that follows and leading with the skull and naming each part of the skeletal system that follows. This brings awareness to these landmarks in the body while bringing attention to how they function in a specific motion. 

Facts:

A Master Class with Jasmine Hearn

Jasmine will guide a warm up of our bodies using touch, sensation, imagination, and memory. After a short break, we will spend time unraveling and responding to prompts with movement, dance, sound, and writing.

You will be asked to take care of yourself. 

You will be asked to move and rest with the body, voice, experience, and space that you have in the present moment. 

You will be asked to follow the range of your pleasure.

Here’s how this workshop works...

This is a one-hour online class that you will have access to in your own time and space, and will be able to access again and again, as you wish, though an internet connection. We ask that you not share this as a teaching tool, or send to others, on an honor system.

What will you experience?

You will leave this class with a deeper understanding of the movement that lives in your body and have the ability to reference that when responding to open-ended, improvisational prompts. 

This session invites participants to reference every way they know how to move while using memory and imagination to respond to prompts presented by Jasmine. It is a guided practice of awareness of the body in the present moment. Participants are also encouraged to rest when needed and listen to their inclinations as they move while following Jasmine if they feel inspired to. Throughout the class, participants are asked to write or draw an ending, middle and beginning (in that order) and take note of certain shapes that come up as they are improvising. 

An important takeaway from this session is understanding how to use memory and imagination as tools to stimulate movement. Jasmine explains their definition of the word fact. It is a memory that is listened to and trusted - it is eventually brought into history where it is built on an idea or action. This connects to the recurring theme in the class about moving from where we know and referencing what we have learned.