Alternative Technique Classes

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We are pleased to announce the lineup of our Alternative Technique Classes season for 2011/12, featuring international artists and homegrown artists with international reputations. Please scroll down to find about the teachers and the workshops, or click on the links above.

You can download our ATC brochure as a PDF file by clicking here.

Be sure to also take a look at our ATC Information page to find out about our loyalty discount plan, how to register and the scholarships that we offer.

For any questions contact the ATC Program Manager Tracey Norman at atc[at]series808.ca.

Photo by Alexa Vachon

This workshop is open to dance professionals, those interested in live creation and performance, improvisors and people in the field of body work practices (i.e.: Craniosacral, Feldenkeis, Zero Balancing, BMC^®, etc.) with a desire to deepen their artistic research or body work practice through this medium.

The dance method Dynamic Expansion is based in connecting with the physical phenomenon of the Craniosacral (C/S) system, and dancing through improvisational forms with this base rhythm.

"The Craniosacral Rhythm, the tidal change in the fluids, moves the bones of the head and the sacrum, these natural changes in pressure cause motion to be felt through the whole body, with slight toning and relaxing, as these fluid pressures expand and relax."

Robert Harris RMT, C/S therapist/master teacher

In the workshop setting, dancers are introduced to techniques to tune into this profound rhythm and go directly and deeply into this calm, profound self-witnessing and take their system in and out of "slack".

The techniques evolve to incorporate fully physical, dynamic and subtle dance forms that are guided into improvisations. The movement extends into structured improvisations to move and dance in connection to others and the space. As it evolves to work in partnerships through the practice of witness/self-witness, these improvisations can increase one's abilities to remain wholly connected to the somatic rhythm while expanding into varied dynamic states of presence.

One is given opportunity to unwind habits on the physical level as well as introducing clear pathways in the brain for release from the mind's habits. With release in the mind, one is given the opportunity to enter into states of presence which can only enhance one's performance skills. The practice of remaining fully present requires training, awareness, and high levels of consciousness. As the Craniosacral system is the environment around the brain and central nervous system, the available somatic/and conscious connectivity is astounding.

The work offers several possible applications to one's personal artistic/creative work practice including: a vibrant palette/range of movement qualities, enhanced depth of focus, heightened and subtle states of presence, refined self-perception skills, released C/S bone motility patterns, new systems of connecting with others and the profound experiences in the field of touch. This workshop will focus on entering states for enhancing one's creative process, and enhancing one's intuitive connections, and sensing skills.

In partnership with Dancemakers, Shannon will also be teaching from the 26 to the 28 September, 2011 - Dynamic Expansion: focus on performing presence. The workshop with Dancemakers will focus on performing presence and the presence of touch. The Series 8:08's ATC workshop is tailor made for dancers, performers and body workers refining abilities to witness and be witnessed in fully present states.

Shannon Cooney – Canadian dance artist received a B.F.A Honours in dance at York University, Canada in 1992. She is a choreographer, dancer/performer and dance educator. Her choreography has been presented in Canada, Europe and in the U.K. She danced and toured extensively nationally and internationally with Toronto's Dancemakers (1994-2006), with the artistic direction of Serge Bennathan. As a performer, she has worked with many esteemed choreographers including Bennathan, Benoît Lachambre, Kim Itoh, Marie-Joseé Chartier, Peggy Baker, and Louise Bedard. Cooney has also performed in installation works by visual artists including; Marla Hlady, Jan Komarek, Signe Theill and performed in numerous improvisational events with musicians, dancers, and actors. Her teaching method Dynamic Expansion is a unique melding of the craniosacral system awareness and contemporary dance. Shannon has recently taught for: Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods, Sasha Waltz and Guests, Cie. Toula Limnaios Dance House Dublin, CDC Le Pacifique à Grenoble, CND Lyon, France, Circuit-Est, Montreal, Dancemakers, Toronto, Tanz Fabrik, KIM Physical theatre, Berlin, and P.A.R.T.S. Brussels.

This workshop is produced in partnership with Dancemakers Centre for Creation.

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Photo by Benoit Dhennin

This workshop is open to all types of movers, however it will not address the basics of Contact Improvisation.

In this workshop, a Skinner Releasing Technique™ (SRT) class will be followed by the application of its key principles to Contact Improvisation (CI) and Scores for Improvisation Performance. The imagery, music and partner graphics in SRT, cultivate creative, technical and personal process in movement. By learning to undo unconsciously held patterns of movement and thought we can become more available to the dances awaiting an opening. We are all born with natural grace and the capacity for multi-dimensional balance. This workshop will guide us deeper towards this state of grace and balance, dancing with a partner and with ourselves; alone or for an audience.

Participants will need paper or journal and writing instrument (pen, pencil, crayons). Please dress in comfortable cotton clothing in layers. No zippers, buttons or belts.

Eryn Dace Trudell is a producer, choreographer, dancer and teacher with an intuitive capacity to inspire movement regardless of the level of experience or physical ability of the participant. Her approach consolidates an accumulated knowledge spanning 20 years in dance. Originally from Toronto, now living in Montreal she is certified in Skinner Releasing Technique, she holds a BFA in Dance from Juilliard, teaches Contact Improvisation, and is the founder of Mama dances (2006).

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Photo by Omer Yukseker

This workshop is open to all those interested in movement and performance.

A workshop for the interpreter/performer, about making artistic choices in process and performance. It examines the fluid relationship between the interpreter's artistic choices and the delivery of a performance work.

In the context of a group choreography, participating artists will be guided toward exploring new artistic territory by cultivating their 'point of view' as a performer within a body of work. Susie will first create a choreographic language in collaboration with the artists. This vocabulary will be used within a structural framework that asks that the artists be present and responsible for making 'in-the-moment' movement and action decisions. The resulting work is a performance piece that encourages the performer to interpret and reinterpret moments, discovering the importance of their role as an interpreter of live performance.

There will be a small showing on Friday January 27^th, at 12:00 pm, at the Dovercourt House Penthouse.

Contemporary dance artist Susie Burpee is based in Toronto, where she works as a performer, choreographer, and teacher. She trained at the Professional Program of Contemporary Dancers and augmented her studies at the Limón and Cunningham Schools in New York, and L'École Philippe Gaulier in Paris.

A powerful and provocative interpreter, Susie was a company dancer with the critically acclaimed Dancemakers, Le Groupe Dance Lab, and Ruth Cansfield Dance. As an independent artist, she performs in her own work, and continues to work closely with innovative choreographers Serge Bennathan, Lesandra Dodson, and Tedd Robinson. As a creator, Susie creates works that showcase 'fully human characters, struggling for connection' (The Toronto Star). She has been awarded Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Performance and Choreography, and in 2006 she received the K.M. Hunter Artists Award for Dance.

Susie teaches technique classes and workshops for professional dancers and students across Canada, notably, Tedd Robinson's La B.A.R.N. Summer XIntensive, Canadian Children's Dance Theatre, and Dancemakers.

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Photo by Julie Perreault

Workshop open to professional dance artists, and dance students in their final two years of a professional dance-training program.

What is the miracle of who we are? This master class is designed to encourage the dancer to rediscover the wisdom of the body. The class has been carefully constructed to reinspire the dancer with the awe and curiosity that initiate movement. The work strives to increase openness for continued experimentation, exploration and understanding through movement. The workshop is based on sensitizing the dancer to the connection between thought, emotion, spirit and body. This is the natural kinetic process whereby our inner "landscape" translates into electrical impulses that move through our nervous system transmitting the message to the muscles and connective tissue as to how and with what quality to move.

Through the use of dance exercises, "games", imagery and guided movement motifs, the dancer is reawakened to the joy of movement. We work with the body's natural impulses towards health and the extraordinary possibilities of expression. The class is designed to be fun but is surprisingly challenging, requiring focus and taking the dancer through a full body warm-up. The dancers are encouraged to "listen" to their bodies, their impulses, their inner conversations and emotions, and to use this information to expand their existing physical, artistic and creative capacities. In this class, dancers learn to hear and trust their inner landscape and imbue the shape, line and articulation of their movement with fuller meaning and beauty.

The motifs used through the workshop are designed to deepen the dancers' performance capacities, their knowledge of the choreographic process and possibilities, and to reinforce and expand the imagery, focus and techniques that they use daily. The dancer learns to move towards health, fuller expression, creativity and the knowledge of how to share, give and be responsible to and for his/her own unique artistry as a "Human Dancer".

Margie Gillis has been performing her solo dance concerts for over thirty-nine years. As choreographer and performer of over a hundred original solo dance works, she has earned rave reviews throughout the world for her intimate, emotional and intelligent portrayals of the multiple facets of the human soul. Margie Gillis teaches masterclasses for dance students and professionals in various cities throughout the world, including New York where she has taught at the Juilliard School. Both the Quebec and Canadian governments named her an Honorary Cultural Ambassador. In 1988, she was the first modern dance artist to be appointed to the Order of Canada. In 2001, she received a Career Grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec for her exceptional contribution to Quebec culture. In September 2008, Canada Council for the Arts announced that Margie Gillis had been selected by a peer assessment committee to receive the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts. Margie Gillis is an artist with social commitments. She has lent her voice to a number of organizations dedicated to the fi ght against AIDS. She has also been a spokesperson for OXFAM and for the Planned Parenthood Foundation. The Stella Adler Studio and Bill T. Jones honoured her relentless social commitments by awarding her the inaugural MAD Spirit Award in the fall of 2008. Her latest creation, "Threads", premiered at the National Arts Centre in March 2010. In 2011, she received the Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award from the Governor General's Performing Arts Award Foundation.

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Photo by Amy Pelletier

Level of Participants: Participants do not need to be professionally trained or even able-bodied, but must have the capacity to focus and concentrate for extended periods of time. The work is not "technically" difficult but is nevertheless, demanding and rigorous. This workshop is for professional dancers, actors, musicians as well as for people who just want to spend time with their bodies, moving and who have an interest in creating work. Participants may choose to take only the technique class.

Do you have an existing piece (or section of a piece) that you want to interrogate?
Do you have a work-in-progress that you want to develop?
Do you not have a piece but only an inkling that there is one somewhere inside you and you want to find a way towards it?

Making dance is a strange and mysterious process and this workshop does not pretend to provide an answer. We will, however, share tools to explore and nurture impulses, consider the gaze of both artist and audience, and delve into the complexities of composing with time, space and the human body as best as we can.

This workshop will consist of a technique class in the morning, followed by an afternoon session that explores composition and creation.

Using a somatic approach, the technique class proposes that through an inquiry into sensation, we can discover and map out the spaces in and around the body to reveal a space that is sentient and in partnership with the body. The work uses breath and imagery – twin tools found in both contemporary somatic techniques as well as traditional qigong methods – to address resistances and blockages while honoring the interconnectedness of the whole body. Special attention is placed on the role and function of curves and spirals, as both strategy and landscape of the dancing body. Participants can expect a range of experiences – from simply lying on the floor breathing, to more formal qigong exercises – to take them into a dance that comes merely from observing the sensations in their body and adjusting with and around those sensations.

Extrapolating from these principles, the afternoons will be spent exploring the creative process as an experience of the whole body – thinking, feeling, observing, adjusting.

Lee Su-Feh is a choreographer, dancer and dramaturge. Born and raised in Malaysia, she started performing in the National Children's Theatre (1980-82) where she was introduced to a range of practices, from traditional South-East Asian performance forms to more contemporary and experimental techniques and ideas. In 1985 she moved to Paris to study contemporary dance. Since 1987 she has trained extensively in Chinese martial arts with an emphasis on the internal systems and presently studies Baguazhang. Currently based in Vancouver, she is Artistic Director of battery opera, whose award-winning work interrogates the contemporary body as a site of intersecting and displaced histories and practices.

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Photo by Laurent Philippe

This ATC is a co-production with Labwork, an outreach program of Harbourfront Centre's World Stage series. Wayne McGregor's National Ballet commissioned Chroma was a big success last year. Don't miss his return to Toronto with Entity, from February 28^th to March 3^rd at the Fleck Dance Theatre, as part of Harbourfront's World Stage 2012 series.

Workshop open to professional dance artists, and dance students in their final two years of a professional dance-training program.

Antoine Vereecken, from the company Wayne McGregor | Random Dance, will lead a fast paced and challenging technique class reflecting the idiosyncratic and dynamic movement style of Wayne McGregor. Participants will then be led through research-based choreographic exercises. These generative task-based choreographic tools reflect the methods used by McGregor in the studio with his dancers and will open new doors to individuals' creativity and facilitate innovative forms of making.

Register now with a $10 deposit:

The Company:    Wayne McGregor | Random Dance was founded in 1992 and became the instrument upon which McGregor evolved his drastically fast and articulate choreographic style. The company became a byword for its radical approach to new technology and incorporating animation, digital film, 3D architecture, electronic sound and virtual dancers into the live choreography. In Nemesis (2002), dancers dueled with prosthetic steel arm extensions to a soundtrack incorporating mobile phone conversations; in AtaXia (2004), McGregor's fellowship with the Experimental Psychology department of Cambridge University fuelled the choreography; in Entity (2008), choreographic agents are imagined to a soundscape created by Coldplay collaborator Jon Hopkins and Joby Talbot (Chroma); and in FAR (17-20 November, 2010), cutting edge design is fused with choreography made from a radical cognitive research process. Wayne McGregor | Random Dance is Resident Company of Sadler's Wells, London.

The Teacher:    Antoine Vereecken was born in Gent, Belgium. He began dancing aged 16 and trained at the Royal Ballet School of Antwerp. Between 1993 and 1997 he performed and toured with Les Ballets C. de la B. under the direction of Alain Platel. In 1997 Vereecken joined Malaika Kusumi's Renaissance de la Danse in Frankfurt, Germany and later joined the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, Israel under the direction of Rami Be'er. During his time in Israel, principal roles were created for him in many new works which he toured extensively both nationally and internationally. From 2001-2003 Vereecken performed with the Richard Alston Dance Company, London and during that time restaged Richard Alston's "Red Run" on the London Contemporary Dance School. After a series of choreographic projects including Maresa von Stockert's Tilted Co. and Dance Nomad, Vereecken joined Wayne McGregor | Random Dance in 2004. Assistant work includes "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" for Warner Brothers, "Dido and Aeneas" La Scala Milan, and the restaging of 'Eden|Eden' for San Francisco Ballet. As a teacher, Vereecken has taught for London Contemporary Dance School, Richard Alston Dance Company, Royal Ballet School of Antwerp, Central School of Ballet, English National Ballet School, D.A.N.C.E and Wayne McGregor | Random Dance among others. He recently completed his first course in Arts Management at Birkbeck University of London.

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Photo by Lizz Danforth

Workshop is open to all professional and pre-professional performing artists with movement experience. Participants should bring paper and pens and layers of dance clothes for times of high and low activity.

A series of classes exploring the meeting of the Skinner Releasing Technique™ (SRT) with Aerial Dancing on the single point low-flying trapeze. SRT is an imagery-based technique that cultivates the letting go of patterns of tension, inhibitions, and expectations, in order to move with suppleness, economy, freedom, and presence. Classes will cover basic aerial skills designed to facilitate improvised play with the trapeze to enhance our releasing practice. We will shift from the floor to the air, exploring a dynamic, multi-directional alignment (wherever we are in space) while moving with an image or a trapeze, and sometimes both.

Nathan Dryden is an independent choreographer/performer/director/ based in Seattle, WA. He holds a BA in Art and Film Studies from UC Irvine and has been exploring and performing movement based art for the last 20 years. Dryden's work shifts through contemporary dance, improvisation, aerial performance, and theatre. He performed with O-T-O, NEW ARTiculations, ZUZI, and Moving Current dance companies and with various choreographers including: Stephanie Skura, Robert Davidson, Charlotte Adams, Greg Colburn, Guido Tuveri, and Jane Hawley. He is a member of The Gravity Project movement theatre company and is a guest faculty artist at Juniata College Theatre Department. Dryden certified instructor of the Skinner Releasing Technique, serving on faculty the annual Skinner Releasing Institute's summer program in Seattle as well as teaching releasing and aerial dance in festivals and universities across the USA, Mexico, Ecuador, Turkey, New Zealand, Australia, and the UK. He is a co-facilitator in Stephanie Skura's Open Source Forms teacher training program that focuses on the deep commonalities of releasing and creative process. His most recent full production, Stories of Grounded Sky (2010) is an evening length work of aerial-mime theatre co-created with Rick Wamer (USA).

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Photo by John MacLean

This is a special addition to our season, organized in partnership with Kemi Contemporary Dance Projects. Jennifer Dallas and Bienvenue Bazié will be teaching this workshop as they embark on a new creation. It is open to professional dance artists, and dance students in their final two years of a professional dance-training program.

Class with Bienvenue Bazié

Bienvenue's classes explore the relationship of music and movement and are rooted in traditional West African dance practices. Classes begin with traditional Burkinabè movement inviting the dancers to enter a new world and physicality. These warm-ups are cardiovascular and guaranteed to leave the dancers' bodies feeling supple and available. Following warm-up dancers are introduced to fresh and original movement in phrases drawn from Bienvenue's celebrated contemporary dance repertoire.

Much of Bienvenue's exploration in contemporary dance has been spent challenging trained dancers to create seamless floor phrases. Dancers have the opportunity to learn long phrases of movement which are fluid, musical and in some cases access the rhythm and dynamics of traditional West African movement. In this part of the class Bienvenue focuses on the development of a relationship to the floor. Bienvenue draws on his experiences to create a class that blends his traditional, European and Hip Hop dance esthetics. Bienvenue's classes are conducted in French.

Choreographic exploration with Jennifer Dallas and Bienvenue Bazié

In this part of the workshop dancers will learn ways of developing material, structuring it and realizing its range of possibilities. We will explore ways of creating and building material through games and experimentation. Working with pulses created in the body and contained in the music we will review some of the physicality from the morning class. Dallas and Bazié will present phrases of movement and a physical conversation will be manipulated and structured into useful sections of dance. These can be used later to seed more personalized movement and inspire further independent creation.

Working in both French and English allows participants to exercise a different part of the brain during creation and disrupts established patterns. Part of the workshop will be spent performing for one another within a positive environment to discover what can learned about our work and ourselves through brief performing exercises.

Born in Didyr in the province of Sanguié, Burkina Faso, Bienvenue Bazié joined a Burkinabe artistic troupe called the Bourgeon in 1993 where he studied multidisciplinary training in dance, theatre, poetry and music. With Bourgeon, Bienvenue travelled through the provinces of Burkina Faso. He later decided to focus on dance and choreography and participated in a number of intensives and training workshops offered by Burkinabe choreographers (Salia Sanou and Seydou Boro) as well as European choreographers (Claude Brumachon, Benjamin Lamarche, Mattéo Molles, Xavier Lot, and Eric Mézino). Bienvenue Bazié is the co-director of Art' Dév / Cie Auguste Bienvenue, the company that he founded in 2000. He is dancer, choreographer, and creator, in collaboration with partner August Ouédraogo for all of the Art' Dév / Cie Auguste Bienvenue 's works, which include: Buudu in 2002, Tin Souk Ka in 2005, Traces in 2007, in collaboration with L'association des plasticiens, le Génie de la Bastille, Tourments Noirs in 2009, and Engagement Féminin 2009-2010 (a training, creation and performance project for West African dancers).

Jennifer Dallas is a Toronto based dancer, choreographer, teacher and costume designer. Hailing from the Canadian Rockies, Dallas began her formal dance training at a very young age in ballet and contemporary dance. She is a graduate of the School of Toronto dance Theatre. In 2010 Dallas was the Metcalf funded intern for 10 Gates Dancing under the direction of Tedd Robinson. She performed in his R3 at the National Arts Centre in October 2010. That year Dallas was also a K.M Hunter award nominee. In 2005 Dallas received a DanceWEB scholarship for study at ImPuls Tanz in Vienna Austria. She currently sits on the board of directors for the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists - Ontario Chapter. Since her choreographic debut in 2005, Dallas' work has been presented by the Nigerian festivals Truefesta and Dance meets Danse. In Toronto she has been co-presented by DanceWorks on two occasions and presented numerous productions of her own. She has created commissioned works for the Scream literary festival, The Crazyfish collective and The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. Dallas has performed in original choreographic works by Tedd Robinson, Marc Boivin, Susie Burpee and Adedayo Liadi. She performed as a solo dancer and choreographer with Juno-nominated afrobeat band Mr. Something Something for four touring seasons from 2005 to 2009 and has presented movement workshops coast to coast. In 2008 Dallas founded Kemi Contemporary Dance Projects (Kemi). Kemi is the name bestowed upon her by her mentor in Lagos Nigeria meaning She who takes care of us. In the winter of 2009, Dallas embarked on her third and most comprehensive tour of West Africa where she performed, taught and created in Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso and Ghana over 2 months.

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