Workshop Description

The uniqueness of my workshops lies in my approach, which I see as my greatest strength. I utilize a combination of careful preparation and keen vigilance in maintaining a creative atmosphere for my students, in order that they may feel safe enough to experiment. The methodologies I utilize come primarily from five different people. Each one of these artists have taught me something special about how they use their bodies to communicate with their environment, and I have then taken what I could and filtered it through myself in order to come to my own approach and understanding.

- Anna Halprin, a master facilitator who taught me to be sensitive to each person’s needs, to facilitate group work, and who also taught me to always remain aware of and relate to the environment around me.

- Sherwood Chen, who taught me volumes about sensitivity and clarity, as well as providing me with the basic workshop format which I follow.

- Min Tanaka, Oguri, and Tadashi Endo have each given me gems of wisdom from their long years of teaching and performing.


For close to 20 years I have taught movement in one form or another, to kids and adults alike – in the pool teaching swimming lessons, coaching teams and leading water aerobics, outdoors teaching Japanese martial arts, in the studio teaching ballet and modern dance, and finally, structured improvisation in the studio, forest or out on the street. I have a natural aptitude for teaching kinaesthetically – a gift. If the energy wanes, I bring it up. If it waxes strong, I know I can take a bigger risk. Closely observing each participant as well as the group as a whole, I use my experience and intuition to make sure everyone is well-served. My ultimate goal in teaching is to offer every participant tools they can use in their daily lives, and my greatest satisfaction comes from seeing the smiles on people’s faces as they leave.


There is always a two-part structure

1st part: Mind informing body …
We give explicit instructions to our bodies – very useful for technical training, yoga, sports.
• line training (playful but strenuous repetitive exercises)
• guided relaxation and stretching
• explanation of scores
• discussions

2nd part: Body informing mind …
We let the body, along with its own intelligence and sensitivity, lead our movement in exploration, and give our cognitive mind the role of witness, rather than leader. In this way we find movement range and other possibilities otherwise unimaginable.
• explorations: we set limitations over an improvisation in terms of timing, space, people and activities;
• études: more advanced sorts of explorations;
• improvisation: (to do anything, with anyone or no one, at any time and with any timing, anywhere, for as long as you wish)



Simple example of the above-two parts:

a. Group meets.

b. We do some simple, often silly game-like activities to loosen everyone up and break the ice.

c. Then everyone comes to one side of the room to begin line-training. This is similar to a typical dance technique class, but; instead of focusing on aesthetics, we focus on movement range and brain-teasers – patterns which challenge one’s concentration and control over multiple parts of the body moving at the same time.
i. Depending on the length of the workshop, this might last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour or more. It also depends on who is participating. I try to pay close attention to the mood of the group and organize (and reorganize) accordingly.

d. After line-training comes more quiet and focused work. The basic premise here is that once the body has become tired through focused, ‘mind-informing-body’ dancing, then the mind more willingly gives up the driver’s seat, and enables a deeper exploration to occur.

e. Examples of ‘quiet’ work:
i. ‘Image walk’ – To walk from one end of the room to the other with an image or set of images which are then taken into the body (e.g.: smoke body)
ii. To explore the relationship between tailbone and head through movement.
iii. ‘Foot-awareness raising’ – To follow a line of very thin thread, with the soles of the feet, while blindfolded.
iv. In pairs, mirroring each other’s movement.
v. etc.

f. After a score is finished, there will very often be time given for discussion between the partners or groups.

g. At this point, I try to either extend the previous score so that participants can deepen their experience, or I introduce a new score which is intimately linked with the last one and which will organically follow.

h. At the end I like to have études if it’s appropriate, so that everyone gets the chance to perform as well as to watch the others’ interpretation of the same score. * For many it is like seeing a fresh new dance piece.

Thank you.