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Aynsley and members of the company teach because they love supporting people's innate need to move! Informed by Laban Movement Analysis, Bartenieff Fundamentals, and Embodied Anatomy, classes are both challenging and warm and focus on giving students the tools to continue exploring on their own. Classes can be offered as individual workshops or designed as weeklong intensives. See suggested lengths below.
 
The Poetry of Movement
(All Ages, 1 class or a series of 1 hour sessions)

Poetry and modern dance both look for essences of the human experience. In this workshop, we deeply engage with one poem. This can be T.S. Eliot�s �The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock� or any other poem. We use movement to learn more about the poem, poetry to learn more about movement, and both to learn more about our lives.

Movement Fundamentals (Teen/Adult, 1 1/2 hours)
This class provides an in-depth exploration of both the functional and expressive capacities of movement in our lives. Each class, we take one primary aspect of movement (ex: Space, Time) and investigate it through simple floor exercises, large movements through space, discussion, and contemplation of our own preferences and patterns.

Guided Free Dance (All Ages, 1 hour)
Everyone can dance! This class invites you to listen to the wisdom of your body. All ages and abilities are welcome, including children accompanied by their parents. Working with music from around the world, simple suggestions are offered to encourage you to delve further into the delicious, changing, sometimes challenging experience of following your own movement. Children and adults learn from each other equally in this class, sharing movements, rhythms, and energy.

Guided Free Dance (Teen/Adult, 1 1/2 hours)
This class is faster paced than the all ages one.
 
Laban Movement Analysis As A Choreographic Tool
(Teen/Adult, ideal is 10, 2 1/2 hour sessions)

In this workshop, students are introduced to the Laban concepts of Body, Effort, Shape, and Space. Students explore and integrate the material by immediately applying it to their own choreography. Tailored to the interests of the group, the class can focus on using the Laban material to create, problem-solve, observe or perform movement.
 
Elemental Body
(All Ages OR Teen/Adult, 3-5 hours)

Co-taught with exhibiting artist Amy Shoko Brown, these classes take place outside, rain or shine. We get grounded, exploring movement and art in nature through perception activities and body awareness. With time alone and together, we create an offering for the land we stand (or jump, hunch, twirl) on.

Insight Into The Work
(45 minutes and up- in conjunction with seeing a performance)
This class gives students an opportunity to meet the artists and gain insight into a dance before seeing the work. Members of the company guide students in activities that help them understand the process of creating the particular work they will see. These activities may include movement, writing, drawing, listening to music, and making music.

Community Dance Creation
(Teen/Adult, 3-20 hours)

Using the company’s creative process, Aynsley creates a new dance with members of a community (no dance experience necessary.) Community members are guided in contributing movement material towards the final dance. This experience encourages participants to get in touch with their bodies, share their own stories, and learn about the process of creating a dance.

The company can offer many other kinds of classes including private sessions; inquire for more information.

What is Laban Movement Analysis (LMA)?
LMA is a system for observing, describing, notating, and delving deeply into movement. First developed by Rudolf Laban in the early 1900s and best known for its notation system, it has continued to be deepened by anthropologists, choreographers, actors, physical therapists, psychologists, dancers, and political consultants, among others. Choreographers Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss, Hanya Holm, Pina Bausch, and William Forsythe descend from Laban’s work. A holistic system, LMA recognizes that the way we move both reflects and influences the way we live our lives. It is used to strengthen and clarify the work of professional movers (athletes, dancers) and is also used to offer insight and movement choices to people in their daily lives.