Authentic Bodies in a Fractured World: SUMMER INTENSIVE

a LIVE NYC Summer Intensive

@ Mark Morris

June 2-6, 2025

10AM-4PM Mon-Thurs/5 pm Friday

$500

Plus a free year of PRAXISPACE

About this Workshop

Authentic Bodies in a Fractured World is a five-day LIVE workshop in which we will spend time both being deeply introspective, vulnerable, personal, and intimate, and also spending time considering relationship, community, global context and environmental impacts.

Each day will feature a 75 minute Bartenieff Fundamentals class taught by Alexandra. This is followed by a 90 minute rigorous, full-bodied movement class by a rotating guest teachers. The afternoon is a 180 minute Choreography and Directing workshop in which you will build a piece. You are welcome to have dancers join you, or work on either a solo or in collaboration with other members in class to create a duet or larger piece. Overall, the week is meant to invite us back into our bodies, collaboration, creativity, flow, and generation, while leaving behind models that do not serve us.

The final day will culminate in a Choreolab informal showing at the end. That day will be an additional 30 minutes long.

Here’s how this workshop works...

10-11:15 AM:

Bartenieff Fundamentals with Alexandra

This opening class will take students through a comprehensive series of both concepts and physical exercises aimed at increasing awareness and functionality, articulation in both moving and talking about movement, and deepening observation skills.

We will be working both physically and intellectually to use the concepts of connectivity to relate to our larger environment and integration not only to ourselves but our full life. 

This juicy, floor-based class is a gentle, personal, and profound daily exploration of the body as it is, and an invitation towards kinder, more efficient movement patterns. It is a chance to examine habits that may not be serving us, recover from trauma, including injury, and engage in healthy, mindful movement.

11:30-1:15 pM:

Movement Technique with Guest Artists

Each class will be taught by a different luminary in the field. This year’s guest teachers are Tendayi Kuumba, Thryn Saxon, DualRivet, Urban Tribe, and Caroline Fermin.

This class, taught by a different luminary in the field each day, explores the qualities of released and off-balance dancing while daring students to find disparate qualities of stillness and explosion.  Students are encouraged to develop an individual style driven by their internal life and the specificity of their bodies. By researching movement tasks as opposed to recreating shapes, students will begin to solve kinesthetic problems in a profound and personal way. We will focus on becoming compelling and magnetic performers, and working within a broad range of movements, from vigorous and athletic, to gestural and theatrical. The movement is approached from many systems: muscular, skeletal and nervous systems, inviting dancers to work with versatility, intuition, strength, flow, stamina and ease. Multi-cultural inspirations are drawn from a broad range of musical styles and rhythmic complexities.

2-4 PM (5 pm on Friday):

Choreolab with Alexandra

This is a chance to create work within the supportive structure and gentle pressure of a community. Strong attention is given to creating an environment that fosters individual growth and artistic fertility. Prompts will be given to further each day’s work, and a low-stress sharing/feedback session will end each session. Feedback methods are drawn from “Critical Response Process,” with additions and deletions based on the artists’ needs and the evolution of the work.

To support your creative process, I’ll offer myself as a witness, guide, colleague and mentor, as needed and requested. The group is there to support your choices and goals, and help you find your most profound, and unique, voice. You are welcome to invite dancers to the afternoon session, work on a solo or dance film, or collaborate in duets, trios, or more on a shared work with other members of the class.

2025 Guest Teachers

TENDAYI KUUMBA 

One of Dance Magazine's "25 to watch 2023" &

Chita Rivera Outstanding Female Dancer on Broadway 2022 as Lady in Brown in the Tony Nominated Broadway Revival of "For Colored Girls Who have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf". International dancer, choreographer, singer, songwriter, & Spelman College grad. Tendayi formerly performed as a background vocalist/dancer & original cast member of Specal Tony Award Winning David Byrne's America Utopia on Broadway as well as its World Tour since 2018 and HBO Film adaptation directed by Spike Lee. 

Previously a touring company member of Urban Bush Women, Tendayi is longtime collaborator with partner Greg Purnell as the alias UFLYMOTHERSHIP. Their sonic/choreographic projects include, The Mixtape, Incog-negro, and other works that have been featured at AfroPunk, Gibney Dance, Stephen Petronio Residency Center, New York Live Arts, Movement Researches’ Spring Festival, Czech Republic of NY, “ Prague Effects” , Dancespace "Collective Terrains " platform, Spelman Colleges' "Toni Cade Bambara Scholar- Activism Conference, Harlem Stage, Hi-ARTS, BRICLab, Dance Mission Theaters' D.I.R.T Festival 2021 & Park Armorys' 100 Women/ 100 Years and Lincoln Center's Restart Stages.

She's also worked with choreographers T. Lang, Marjani Forte'-Saunders (7NMS), ASÉ Dance Theater Collective, Nathan Trice, & Philadelphia Operas’ We Shall Not be Moved directed by Bill T. Jones. She continues to build her pedagogy as a teaching artist & B.O.L.D Facilitator for Urban Bush Women. She recently premiered a new choreographic work "NYSea", Co-created with Greg Purnell/ ÜFlyMothership, in "The March"  Dec 2023 at the PerlmanArtsCenter under Big Dance Theater alongside Annie-BParson, & Donna Uchizono. She gives thanks and blessings for life, love, breath, and the pursuit of happiness through creativity

THRYN SAXON 

Thryn Saxon is the director and choreographer of her NYC based dance company SAXYN Dance Works and holds performance credits with Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More, Kate Weare Company, Helen Simoneau Danse, and Doug Varone and Dancers. Saxon’s choreography has been performed at The Perez Art Museum in Miami, FL, Windhover Performing Arts Center in Rockport, MA, Arts on Site in NY, RADFest in MI, Kingsland Wildflowers in NY, Triskelion Arts Theater in NY, and 92Y where her solo “lorelei” was selected for the Future Dance Festival 2022. Residencies for Saxon’s work include Windhover Performing Arts Center, RADicle 22/23 AIR at The Croft in MI, Baryshnikov Arts, and The Moss Center in FL.  Saxon also acts as co-director of Homeport Art House, a rural dance residency in mid-coast Maine. As a dance educator Saxon has taught at Gibney Dance Center, SUNY Purchase, NYU, George Mason University, Connecticut College, and Peridance.

URBAN/TRIBE

Mathew James Talaugon, an enrolled member of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, earned an MFA in Performance & Choreography from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and a BA from Loyola Marymount University. He has been on the faculty at Peridance Center for a decade and has performed works by acclaimed choreographers such as Sonya Tayeh, Barak Marshall, and Bill T. Jones.

In 2015, Mathew founded URBAN/TRIBE, a contemporary dance theater company known for its project-based performances at venues like Bryant Park Dance Festival and NYC’s Center for Performance Research. The company has received support from the Steffi Nossen and Jonah Bokaer Foundations.

In addition to his creative work, Mathew serves as National Director of Individual Giving at Room to Grow, and previously held leadership roles at Free Arts NYC and the Guggenheim Museum. His career reflects a commitment to both artistic and community impact.

FAQs

Q: Can I drop into classes?

A: In an attempt to come back to community, and build relationships moving forward, we are keeping this workshop a registered workshop, and asking people to attend for the full week. The Choreolab will be cumulative material, building a piece, potentially in collaboration with other students, so attendance is important.

Q: I have an injury. Will this be too much for me?

A: The Bartenieff class is an amazing way to come back to dancing after injury, and help you to assess the underlying structural or biomechanical underpinnings of your injury.. The technique class would likely require a bit of modification on your part, but all of our teachers are extremely sensitive, empathy-driven facilitators who will work with you as you are. The Choreolab will allow you to make what you are able to, and wanting to, create, be that a film, work on other bodies, small kinesphere work, or more theater-forward work. So.. not too much is the short answer…

Q: I am short on funds, but really want to do this. What are my options?

A: We don’t want money to be the deciding factor in a creative opportunity. While we have a very limited number of scholarships, you are welcome to reach out to inquire about one of our partial scholarships. We prioritize BIPOC and LGBTQ artists for these scholarships. We also are happy to work with you on a payment plan that fits your financial situation and cash flow.

Q: I haven’t choreographed in a while and I feel anxious. Will it be a high pressure environment? Is everyone very advanced?

A: I don’t believe in creative hierarchies, and I construct classes to meet everyone where they are. I believe the facets of art we discuss about the most famous work hold equal value for someone’s first piece. The passage of time, the use of space, the telling of a story (emotional, literal, or abstract), and the creation of meaning are all ubiquitous to the creative process. You know yourself best in terms of how much pressure you place on yourself to catch a phrase or compare yourself to others. I trust you to decide if a professional dance class will feel overwhelming or deliciously challenging. You are welcome, as long as it doesn’t bring you stress or tension.

What people have experienced in previous workshops…

It is a refreshing (and mind blowing) experience to be guided by Alexandra in creating without judgment, but not without decision making. Her articulations around choice have helped me create with more ease, depth and joy, as well as both receive and give artistic feedback in a more generous and generative manner. Alexandra champions the work and prioritizes the artist. She values the artist’s perspective over her own and is incredibly skilled at navigating the delicate balance involved in one on one mentorship between providing support and sharing wisdom.

--Sophie Allen 

“In her weekly Bartenieff Fundamentals classes, Alexandra creates a space for engaged exploration that is collaborative and filled with kindness. I always feel both seen and heard in her classes. “

Joe Bowie, Lecturer at Northwestern University and former member, Mark Morris Dance Company (student of Anatomy of Choice and BF)