Tuesday April 30th thru Saturday May 4th, 2013
All Classes run 10-11:30
Location: Sugar Foot Ballroom 10545- 81 ave
$75 for full workshop (5 technique classes)
$20 Drop In
[column_12 position=”normal”] [/column_12] This week long technique workshop with Sasha Ivanochko addresses a multiplicity of tools needed for an artistic practice in contemporary dance. Focusing participants towards inner and outer spatial awareness, kinetic and kinaesthetic alignment and on an embodied presence, the class supports physical and mental integration, strength building and performance clarity.Internal alignment is initiated as participants are asked to consider the pelvis and thoracic cage as the two central axes of the body working in continuous relationship to each other. The pelvis is in constant dialogue with the floor, acting as an anchor and reference to the outside space. A fluid column of energy is accessed within the torso and the limbs are placed dynamically forward of the body to promote awareness of the back-body.
Exercises move between horizontal and vertical floor work, standing, through to an exultant and virtuosic use of space across the floor in extended, choreographic phrases, acrobatic work and jumps. Participants are continuously asked to attend to pathways and intentional impact of movement. As the week of classes progresses, the exercises are developed and strung together, creating a long flowing dance sequence by the final day of the workshop. As exercises are mastered, more subtle details of coordination are introduced-including the relationship of fingers, eyes and toes to core- facilitating an intricate and fully embodied physicality.
The class is responsive to the level of the participant, and Ivanochko’s personal sense of experimentation, openness and sharing encourages intensity and play among participants. The goal of workshop is to enable participants to attend to, and invigorate their practice in an atmosphere that is serious, creative and humane.
Sasha Ivanochko developed this method of training through the support of The Chalmers’ Family Fellowship (dispersed through the Ontario Arts Council) which was awarded to her in 2009. The work is based on the artistic values and demands of the repertoire Ivanochko has created for her company, blackandblue dance projects. Dramatic, bold and delicate, her choreography is concerned with making physical the internal complexities of the human condition.
Sasha Ivanochko is an acclaimed choreographer, teacher, dancer and artistic director of blackandblue dance projects, a contemporary dance company she founded in Toronto in 2005. Her oeuvre is renowned for its unflinching candidness, detailed craftsmanship and dark beauty. The company has toured across Canada, Japan and the Dominican Republic. Ivanochko has been commissioned by Toronto Dance Theatre, Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers, Calgarian Helen Husak, and Toronto’s Crazyfish Collective. A highly sought-after teacher and creative facilitator, Ivanochko has worked at all the major universities, dance schools and festivals across Canada, was a guest teacher at Kobe College (Japan) and Ballet Mannheim (Germany) and she teaches regularly at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre and at l’ecole de danse contemporaine de Montréal. A rigorous and serious teacher, her highly physical and challenging teaching has propelled and inspired many young dancers towards high levels of artistic achievement. Ivanochko’s artistic contribution to the Canadian milieu has been acknowledged through awards and bursaries, including; 5 Dora Mavor Moore nominations for Outstanding Performance and Best Choreography; 2007 K.M. Hunter Award and two Chalmers Family Fellowships dispersed by the Ontario Arts Council. She was recently invited to take part in Canada’s National Arts Centre’s Associate Artist circle, an esteemed position representing the best of contemporary Canadian dance.
Photo credits:
photographer: Sam Baardma
Piece title: The future memory heartbreak junction, diptych
Choreographer/Performer: Sasha Ivanochko