Teaching Practice
Upcoming Classes
stay tuned for summer drop in classes!
Pedagogy Statement:
We see our teaching practices as vital research for both our making and performing practices. Inside of our class spaces, the information we are sharing is tied to our current choreographic makings. We are (constantly) working on decolonizing our class spaces and decentralizing ourselves as the “experts” of the physical and choreographic forms that have informed us. Acknowledging that our formal dance training is rooted in westernized, Eurocentric and post-modern forms which are often appropriated and colonized, we recognize our place in this lineage and continue to interrogate the value systems it upholds. We believe that the way to begin to unseat these long-held traditions is to bring our whole selves into the practice of teaching, acknowledging that this work is often messy and complicated.
Our current teaching practices are informed by our teachers: Gwen Welliver, Stephanie Tooman, Julie Mayo, Kendra Portier, Kevin Wynn, Kazuko Hirabayashi, Pamela Pietro, Stephanie Liapis, Nancy Stark Smith, Neil Greenberg, as well as our peers, our childhoods, and those influences we are actively moving away from. These are our “ghosts in the room” and we honor them in our class spaces. Improvisational scores, set material, anatomical awareness, strengthening exercises, expulsive exercises and space for discussions are all modes we actively utilize in our class spaces.
We recognize that everyone who attends class has knowledge that is vital and necessary for building these class spaces together. We work to craft the container for our classes while making space for varied contents. Our teaching practice does not have definitive answers, but rather leaves us with questions which we are asking of ourselves, the spaces we hold, and the world around us. We have crafted fluid agreements that we share as a way to acknowledge that we are all navigating this class space together.
Class agreements:
- You know your body better than anyone. If something doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. Trust yourself. Take care of your body. Be kind to it. You know your body better than we do.
- Dance is a stolen and appropriated language. We are dancing on stolen lands. We do not have ownership over these forms but we do have authorship.
- As much as we are teaching we are learning: as much as you are learning you are teaching. We are building this space together. It’s not about Hollis/Nattie, it’s about the we, It’s not about you, it’s about us collectively.
Current Classes:
Contemporary Practice
This class is a highly physical, deeply researched and sweaty exploration of our past and present selves. Our movement is rooted in improvisation and our post-modern dance lineage, and we use a rigorous exploration of line, shape, and form as the physical mediums for our research. In class there will be improvisational scores, anatomical awareness, body conditioning, expulsive exercises, discourse, discussion, and phrase work. Our interest inside of a class space is tied into our making and performance practices and everyone who attends class has knowledge that is vital and necessary for building these spaces together.
Decomposing Dances Workshop
In our current research we are “decomposing” dances that have significantly impacted our personal dance lineage- sourcing from music videos, iconic moments of pop culture and our post-modern dance training (ie. Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights, Napoleon Dynamite’s talent show dance, Cats the musical, and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Fase).
In this workshop we will be teaching some of these dances from our lineage as well as sourcing from the group’s collective movement lineage to recompose our own collaged polytheistic dances. We will discuss the impact these movement sequences have on us as movers, allowing for a reimagining of how dance exists in our spaces and in our bodies.
Curatorial Practice
skewl
skewl is an artist run platform responding and adapting to the needs of performing artists. The relaunch of skewl is led by Nattie Trogdon, Hollis Bartlett, Em Papineau, and Amanda Hameline. All are experienced dancers, choreographers, producers and arts administrators who currently volunteer their time to run skewl. In addition, skewl is partnering with Amanda + James, a non-profit multidisciplinary production company which will provide financial security and administrative support such as online sales, marketing, insurance, and the infrastructure to launch skewl into its next phase. skewl’s mission is to keep programming affordable, with no one turned away for lack of funds, and to adequately compensate teachers and facilitators while maintaining the ethos and spirit of our past iterations.
POP-UP Practice
POP-UP Practice was a series instigated during the 2020 lockdown centered around different ideas of embodied practices. Artists were invited to teach virtual classes around their current practices.
By opening up our definition of practice to look holistically at ourselves and understand that everything we do informs our creative process, we wanted to remove any necessity for perfection or completion, and understand that we are all multifaceted people that bring a variety of elements into our creative spaces and our dancing selves. The artists curated for this series were individuals who had influenced our own practices and who shared a deep research within their own practice. Each artist was asked- What are you currently practicing? How do you view practice in your current environment? And how do your practices prepare us to meet the current moment?
POP-UP Practice Artists: Anh Vo. Emma Judkins. Wendell Gray III. Marielis Garcia. Jesi Cook. Gabriella Carmichael. Laurel Snyder. Jordan Lloyd. Doug Gillespie. Jessie Young. Ambika Raina. Colleen Thomas. Remi Harris and Mark Schmidt. Ori Flomin. Brendan Drake. Adriane Fang. Kimberly Bartosik. Adelaide Dicken. rebeca medina. Sydney Mosley. Paul Singh. Lindsey Jones. Anna Sperber. Symara Johnson. Dequan Lewis.
The BIG Pedagogy Festival
THE BIG PEDAGOGY FESTIVAL was a four day (and one evening) Zoom gathering celebrating the one year anniversary of freeskewl. The FESTIVAL was generated from the initiations of freeskewl’s POP-UP Practice and Pedagogy/Poetic Entry series. Each of these freeskewl programs invite teaching artists and participants to consider practice, environment, current moments, and care through practical application and collective dialogue. These considerations spilled through the day and from one day into the next.
The four days offered space for a cross-pollination of ideas through movement preparations, techniques, and collaborative inventions in the moment, open discussions, and a continual space for documentation (a running Google Doc).
Curated by Sofia Engelman, Em Papineau, Jennifer Nugent, Hollis Bartlett & Nattie Trogdon.
THE TEACHING ARTISTS:
Hyp-ACCESS (Audre Wirtanen & Laura Tuthall), Angie Pittman, Jasmine Hearn, Angie Hauser, K.J. Holmes, Jesi Cook, Gerald Casel, Paul Singh, Netta Yerushalmy, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Anya Cloud, Kristianne Salcines, Amelia Uzategui Bonilla, Kimberly Bartosik, Julie Mayo, Christy Funsch
Logo designed by Lindsey Jennings