Sunday Sessions
Join us in the studio!
Take class with different celebrated dance artists who share their practices through a 2-hour workshop in NYC. In partnership with Peridance Center.
Sunday Sessions is a workshop series inviting participants to explore improvisational tools & tactics in contemporary dance, and through the lens of teaching artists who actively use improvisation in their generative work. A 2-hour workshop will guide movers through modalities that will help develop individual movement invention and lead into ensemble practices that will open up possibilities of connecting with others as we build each moment together. All levels are welcome.
Winter 2025
In this class we will work with improvisational prompts that bring us closer to our autonomy and liberation. We will move through scores provided as well as co-created that bring us in proximity to our desires and wants. The class will warm us up to be in our full body and then open into improvisational practices created and led by Symara Sarai.
BIO
Symara Sarai(They/She), a Portland, Oregon native currently residing in Brooklyn, has immersed herself in interdisciplinary and choreographic studies globally. A 2023 Bessie Winner for Breakout Choreographer, Symara is also a recipient of the Dai Ailian Foundation Scholarship based in Trinidad and Tobago. The scholarship led her to Beijing, China where she spent two years gaining an associate degree in modern choreography at the renowned Beijing Dance Academy. Symara is a 2019 graduate of SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Dance Program. She was a resident artist for Bearnstow, Gibney 6.2 Work Up, Gallim’s 2022 Moving Artist’s Residency, BAX’s Fall 2022 Space Grant Program, Center for Performance Research’s 2022 AIR Program, New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks Artist 23/24 as well as a 23/24 Women in Motion Commissioned artist. They are currently a Abrons Arts Center Performance AIRspace Resident. Their work as a performer and maker has been reviewed and featured in the NY Times, Dance Enthusiast, Fjord, as well as promoted through Forbes. She has had multiple film works commissioned by Berlin-based choreographer Christoph Winkler. They have presented work at New York Live Arts, The Clarice at UMD, The LGBT Center in NY, Judson Church, BAAD, Kestrels, and other venues throughout the United States, China, and Germany. She is currently an Urban Bush Women company member. She has also notably worked with Jasmine Hearn, Ogemdi Ude, Pioneers Go East Collective, Kevin Wynn, Joanna Kotze, Nattie Trogdon+Hollis Bartlett, and Slowdanger, among others.
Symara’s choreographic practice is multifaceted and draws from a variety of sources. At present, they are particularly interested in combining the methodologies of folk, improvisation, and modern dance to explore their American and West Indian heritage. Symara merges these practices with rigorous archival research. This research results in a spontaneous performance practice that creates space for her to access ideas quickly, generate on the spot, and move with a sense of abandon allowing for nuanced variation and a constant state of fresh play. This is a practice of immediacy, not thinking of consequences or premeditated problem solving, opening the channel for a momentous present. The arrival at ultimate play is an indulgent practice of surrendering that she is steadily in as a Black, queer, radical, wildass maker in the field. Through their work they aim to embody the destruction of normalcy and known structures. Symara is eager to exchange thoughts on fearlessness and radical vulnerability centered on empowering uninhibited desires and wants.
Tuning & Attuning
This workshop is a practice of connection with self and others, solo and ensemble, a duet with a ghost or an ancestor, a trio with two movers and the energy of breath/air/space. Imagine improvisation as a decolonial practice and the act of dancing with seen and unseen entities as ritual. Human and mammalian nervous systems like to connect, to entrain, to feel each other and perhaps that can happen with the energetic fields as well.
Choreographer and educator Taja Will is a queer, disabled and indigena ritualist. They invite connection with elements, land and ancestors as a foundation for dance making and improvisational performance. From that foundation they feel it is radical to attune with other humans in coalition.
This workshop is practice in listening to greater unseen energies, deepening connections with each other through improvisation, and together we will use some of Lisa Nelson's This workshop is practice in listening to greater unseen energies, deepening connections with each other through improvisation, and together we will use some of Lisa Nelson's Tuning Scores as a proposal for ensemble improvisation.
Bio:
Taja Will (they/them) is a non-binary, chronically ill, queer, Latinx (Chilean) adoptee. They are a performer, choreographer, somatic therapist, consultant and Healing Justice practitioner based in Mni Sota Makoce, on the ancestral lands of the Dakota and Anishinaabe. Taja’s approach integrates improvisation, somatic modalities, text and vocals in contemporary performance. Their aesthetic is one of spontaneity, bold choice making, sonic and kinetic partnership and the ability to move in relationship to risk and intimacy. Will’s artistic work explores visceral connections to current socio-cultural realities through a blend of ritual, dense multi-layered worldbuilding and everyday magic.
Taja initiates solo projects and teaching ventures and is a recent recipient of the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, in the dance field, awarded in 2021. Their work has been presented throughout the Twin Cities and across the United States. Including local performances at the Walker Art Center Choreographer’s Evening, the Red Eye Theater’s New Works 4 Weeks, the Radical Recess series, Right Here Showcase and the Candy Box Dance Festival. They were the recipient of a 2018-’19 McKnight Choreography Fellowship, administered by the Cowles Center and funded by The McKnight Foundation. Will has recently received support from the National Association of Latinx Arts & Culture, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.
Fana Fraser
Nov 3rd, 12:30pm - 2:30pm
SYMPATHETIC BODIES offers a gentle space for connection with self and others. Time in this creative workshop will be spent in breath-work, imagination, consensual touch, movement and vocalizations. This workshop offers a meditative atmosphere for deep internal listening, rest and rejuvenation. Space will be made for altered states of creative consciousness to emerge and be observed. Participants are invited to move with the needs of their nervous systems. We will tend to the water of our bodies and make space for song to vibrate. We will dance together with polyrhythms and music toward the practice of cultivating trust and centering hope.
No previous ‘dance training’ is required for this workshop.
Please reach out with any disability access needs.
Bio:
Fana Fraser is a Trinidadian artist, producer, director and performer. Her work gravitates to expressions of power, eroticism and compassion. Fana is a Visiting Lecturer in Dance at Harvard University for Fall 2024.
Fana’s short film, ‘nesting’ was commissioned by TBA21-Academy in 2023.
A Spring 2023 faculty guest at Northeastern University - College of Media, Arts and Design; Fall 2023 Artist-in-Residence at The Watermill Center; Petronio 2022 RETREAT & RESTORE resident; 2022 BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) Artist-in-Residence; 2021-22 Abrons Arts Center Performance Artist-in-Residence; and 2021-23 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow in Dance, she is a 2023-2024 Movement Research NYSCA Artist-in-Residence.
Her work has been presented at several venues including: Brooklyn Museum, New York Botanical Garden, Movement Research at the Judson Church, BAAD!, Gibney, and Dance Mission Theater in San Francisco.
From 2020-2022, Fana taught as an adjunct professor at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. At NYU Tisch and Adelphi University she has led workshops in BFA Dance Programs. Fana has also taught workshops in the MFA Dance Program at Sarah Lawrence.
She was shortlisted for the 2020 BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writer’s Prize.
Fana served as Rehearsal Director for Ailey II from 2016-20. As a dancer and collaborator, she originated roles and toured internationally with Camille A. Brown & Dancers and Ailey II. She has also done performance work with Samita Sinha’s ‘Infinity Folds’, Nia O. Witherspoon’s ‘Priestess of Twerk’, Sidra Bell Dance New York, The Metropolitan Opera, Bard SummerScape Opera, Andrea Miller for Hermès, The Francesca Harper Project, Raja Feather Kelly and the Feath3r theory, Miriam Simun, Jonathan González, Roya Carreras, Ryan McNamara, and many others.
A certified Gyrotonic® Instructor, Fana has extensive experience in Yoga, Pilates, Alexander Technique and Somatic Experiencing®. She is also a full spectrum doula.
Summer 2024
zavé martohardjono
Aug 11, 2:30-4:30pm
zavé martohardjono is a queer, trans, mixed race Indonesian multidisciplinary artist. They use dance and ritual as primary languages across projects that center liberatory memory and metabolize questions about decolonization and demilitarization. Born in Tiohtià:ke territory (Montréal, CA) in 1984, zavé grew up in and lives in Lenapehoking (NYC). A 2022 Bessie/New York Dance and Performance Award nominee for Outstanding Performer, zavé has presented at the 92Y, BAAD!, Boston Center for the Arts, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Center for Performance Research, El Museo del Barrio, Gibney Center, HERE Arts, Issue Project Room, The Kennedy Center, and Storm King Art Center. Their work has been written about in the New York Times, BOMB Magazine, CultureBot and Hyperallergic.
Class Description:
Dance, gesture, collective gathering, and non-verbal protest are embodied resiliency technologies used by activists demanding peace in an increasingly surveilled, carceral world. This class will introduce research from zavé martohardjono's 2023 dance work "three finger salute" that combined dance improvisations using global activist gestures and political education on community resilience. Participants will work with gestures as collaborative scores, explore choreography’s powerful role in activism, and improvise as means to re/connect to the body, tap into resilience, and foster collectivity.
Photo: Cindy-Trinh
Leah is a choreographer, dancer, and teacher currently based out of Brooklyn, NY (Munsee Lenape and Canarsie land), and originally from Durham, NC (Eno, Lumbee, Shakori, Sissapahaw, and the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation land). At times, she is also a gardener, elder-care companion, musician, facilitator, end-of-life companion, and writer. Leah has taught and shared her work in a variety of locations including the American Dance Festival, Elon University, University of Michigan, Ponderosa Tanzland festival, Gibney Dance, the Hemispheric Institute, and PROTEO|media+performance’s Post/Futures Festival. She holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where she received awards for teaching and choreography. Leah has collaborated/performed with a variety of artists including Okwui Okpokwasili, Alexis Blake, Kendra Portier, Tatyana Tennenbaum, Anna Barker/Real.Live.People, and Tommy DeFrantz/SLIPPAGE. She was a 2023 Artist in Residence at MOtiVE Brooklyn and a 2023 MacDowell Fellow, as well as a 2024 Associate Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts.
Leah Wilks
Aug 18, 2:30-4:30pm
Class Description:
How might non-human life cycles, decay, electrical impulse, plants, and dancing all be the same thing? Can we put seemingly disparate ideas side by side in our bodies and invite ourselves out of a movement rut? This improvisational laboratory will begin with physical rituals for warming up the body and letting things go/end/decay, will continue with practices of attention/sensation, allow time for deeper play/investigations/research, and then offer space for new discoveries to be shared and reconfigured when placed next to each other. Together we will utilize creative decision making that bypasses the frontal lobe, and encourage the unknown in each other. We’ll disorient, reorient, let our moves lead us elsewhere, make things, maybe touch, definitely sweat. We will utilize contained time and space parameters to encourage deep and specific embodied research. We’ll move away from the question:
- “What is interesting to other people in my dancing/how does this look?”
and, instead, towards:
- “What is interesting to me about this prompt?”
- “How can I trust that my technique is there supporting me without it becoming my dominant driver?”
- “What new qualitative details and dynamic states of movement can I uncover in myself when I work from embodied intuition?”
