b12 summer | main event
research or die.
© umi akiyoshi
b12 summer main event
— // —locations: eden***** studios & dock11
SAM PRATT & AMADI BAYE WASHINGTON
former dancers with Akram Khan Company / Sleep No More
Taste & Smell
Hearing, sight, and touch are always present in dance training. Our class asks dancers to connect more actively to their taste and smell, using those senses as a literal and metaphorical reference point to engage with movement. Let’s activate all five senses to enlarge the experience of performance, to expand beyond practical execution of movement, to give nuance & idiosyncratic presence to each dancer. Let's step outside the internal and into an externalised experience with vigour and curiosity. Let's attack the warm-up, technical exercises, and phrase work with hungry mouths and greedy nostrils! We’ll research how sensory awareness effects pedestrian and virtuosic movement. We’ll investigate improvisational scores that build awareness of detail and creative decision making. We’ll sharpen our performance techniques and externalise our experience with our eyes, using an active focus to create a dialogue with our environment that invites the possibility of character and narrative. We’ll explore theatrical games that open new potential for expressivity. We’ll play with rhythm to understand its relationship to muscular tension and effort in the body. We’ll challenge the idea that dance should look and feel effortless. We’ll create an empathetic space to tackle phrases with physical courage. Class is sweaty. Everyone is welcome.
the description reflects an artist’s idea which was developed at the time it was submitted to b12. it may have changed by the time the workshop or the performance project is starting. please stay flexible. thank you!
company info
baye & Asa
Baye & Asa is a company creating movement art projects, directed & choreographed by Amadi ‘Baye’ Washington and Sam ‘Asa’ Pratt. they grew up together in New York City, and that shared educational history is the mother of their work. Hip Hop & African dance languages are the foundation of their technique. The rhythms of these techniques inform the way that they energetically confront contemporary dance & theatre. they’ve presented their live work at The Joyce Theater, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pioneer Works, The 92nd Street Y, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Jacob’s Pillow, DanceHouse Vancouver, Blacklight Summit, Battery Dance Festival, and were selected as one of Dance Magazine's 25 to Watch for 2022. their film work has won numerous awards and has been presented internationally. independently, sam has performed with akram khan company, punchdrunk, kyle abraham, kate weare company, and david dorfman.
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