_ Choreography is the Heart of my Teaching
Choreography is the art of making dances; movement-making comes from improvisation, with or without music, alone or with others. My approach to choreography parallels my approach to teaching composition: it is an organic, creative process. I have made dances for myself, small groups, large groups, dances that told a story and dances that were simply movement for movement’s sake. A complete list of my work is listed in my resume.
Although my background is in Modern Dance I have branched out to include other genres. I had the pleasure of re-staging the original Jerome Robbins choreography for Fiddler on the Roof in 2009 at Shadyside Academy. In my six years teaching dance at Winchester Thurston I was responsible for the choreography for twelve lower school performances each year between the two campuses. The language of modern dance is the language of Isadora Duncan; my expertise in dance history, specifically Duncan, lead me to stage movement for a play at Clarion University. This unique experience involved setting movement to a biographical monologue and working with the actors to capture the essence of the original modern dancer.
All of my students work with the premise of beginning, middle and end; I teach the building blocks of dance, then we create movement phrases, phrases become paragraphs, paragraphs become chapters and chapters become full length works. Composition is the essence of what I do as a teacher.
Choreography is the art of making dances; movement-making comes from improvisation, with or without music, alone or with others. My approach to choreography parallels my approach to teaching composition: it is an organic, creative process. I have made dances for myself, small groups, large groups, dances that told a story and dances that were simply movement for movement’s sake. A complete list of my work is listed in my resume.
Although my background is in Modern Dance I have branched out to include other genres. I had the pleasure of re-staging the original Jerome Robbins choreography for Fiddler on the Roof in 2009 at Shadyside Academy. In my six years teaching dance at Winchester Thurston I was responsible for the choreography for twelve lower school performances each year between the two campuses. The language of modern dance is the language of Isadora Duncan; my expertise in dance history, specifically Duncan, lead me to stage movement for a play at Clarion University. This unique experience involved setting movement to a biographical monologue and working with the actors to capture the essence of the original modern dancer.
All of my students work with the premise of beginning, middle and end; I teach the building blocks of dance, then we create movement phrases, phrases become paragraphs, paragraphs become chapters and chapters become full length works. Composition is the essence of what I do as a teacher.