Category Archives: improvisation life

Nov15

softness

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Sarah Hollis with Pony         Photo by Jeffrey Anderson

Here is another share from Mark Rashid.  Again, this is about horsemanship, but really, like most things horse, it is about being more human.  During the symposium I attended, he talked about gaining softness from the inside out as a key to good horsemanship.  I think it is the key to good just about anything.  Here is his five step process for doing that:

Consistency leads to dependability, which leads to trust, which brings us peace of mind, which gives us softness.

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Nov1

wild play

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I am really excited about teaching this workshop.  For one thing, I love the Boston Dance community.  I have deep, old roots in Boston, and every time I go back there, I am reminded of how much that city and those dancers and audiences have given me, and how much of myself I poured into the community.

This workshop is a chance for me to play with some of the brightest dancers and choreographers around and to bring some of the things that excite me about dance and dance-making home.  I have spent my evenings up here in New Hampshire brainstorming, and I have a delicious couple of afternoons planned.

One of my great inspirations was the brilliant Bessie Schonberg, and I still have notes from the workshops and residencies that I did with her as mentor.  Another is the great Robert Dunn, and I have those notes too.  Both of them took me out into the deepest creative waters and let me find my own strokes, my own way of diving and floating.  I thank them all the time.

So dancers, choreographers, directors, improvisers, join me in Cambridge!

Oct22

a reminder: wild play workshop on 12/8

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Re-scheduled!!!!!

 

December 8

2:30-5 pm

$20

The Dance Complex

536 Massachusetts Avenue

Cambridge, MA

WILD PLAY is a workshop for dancers and choreographers interested in deepening and expanding their dancemaking practice. This workshop includes theater and dance improvisation, Laban’s effort shape materials, and formal choreographic ideas, as well as Paula’s experience working with Bessie Schonberg, Robert Dunn and Eiko & Koma.

The workshop includes:

  • taking improvisation into form
  • building a score
  • expanding movement and spatial dynamics
  • finding and developing personal imagery
  • translating concept and image into movement
  • developing clear intention and motivation
  • creating an electric group dynamic
  • playing with sound and text
  • building movement and spatial dynamics

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    to register:  deannapellecchia@comcast.net

    Oct21

    here I am

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    Beautiful sunny drive up to New Hampshire today.  I am staying with the same wonderful family that let me camp in their guest house in 2008.  Got settled in and am gearing up for a full day tomorrow.

    There is something about completely shifting my rhythm, my focus and my geographic that is unsettling in a good way.  No cats, dogs, horses, wife, children.  Odd and lonely.  The daily rituals of home suspended.  A part of that I like – the way that I cannot find myself in familiarity.  The intensification of a single, obsessive focus for a short period of time. Figuring out how to stay balanced in that turmoil.  Listening inwardly while maintaining a sharply delineated outer focus.

    My friends Annie and Stan are on the road too.  Stan is in New Hampshire on weekends, and both of them will go to Ohio on November 1.  More tomorrow.  For tonight, dinner and “The Good Wife,”  followed by a good book.

    More tomorrow. . .