Return to September Classes with New Skills!
Summer is the perfect time to deepen your knowledge. Balance some time off and fun in the sun, with profound learning.
Sessions are paced out so there is never too much of a time commitment infringing on other plans. And yet, in just a single Series Session you will come away with new ideas that will super charge your new season.
The content in these sessions are NOT typically taught in dance classes during the regular season.
Summer Series Sessions
For the first in 17 years, Mariah-Jane will be LIVE in the Vancouver area (Tri-Cities). Due to recovering from a broken ankle thanks to an ungraceful fall off a curb, she has had to curtail her typical summer travels of guest teaching and being a tourist!
The healing is going well and while jumping may not happen until the new teaching season, the content of the summer sessions is not hampered by the lack of jumping.
Live in the Lower Mainland ?
Attending live is ideal. When live you can receive hands on support for discovery and exploration and be able to handle bones to further deepen visualizations and knowledge.
Live Elsewhere?
You do not need to miss out!!
The sessions will be live streamed AND recorded.
Anyone live online will be treated as an active member of the class, with the ability to ask questions and be viewed.
Recordings will be for everyone to be able to refer back to throughout the season to review and refresh at your leisure.
Who are these Summer Sessions For?
Teachers
Enthusiastic teachers will find this work truly transformational. By deeply understanding the functional anatomy and how to apply it to dance movement efficiently and effectively, teachers can help students to unlock the potential in their students and will therefore have an easier teaching year than ever before.
Teen Students
Teen students who are serious will love this programme. Without the taxing full out classes that they love during the regular season, teens can still progress massively with this profound information. Often a block is revealed because a student has not updated how they think of a topic since it was first learned before they could understand the complexity. For example, imagining your spine needing to be straight can be blocking ALL function from feet and knees to the ability support the arms. And yet a 7 year old could have easily heard this as all that was available.
Adult Students
More than teen students, adult students who are keen are the very embodiment of "knowledge is power". By tapping into bodily wisdom thru functional anatomy, adult dancers progress amazingly fast with the right knowledge. It is like unlocking their bodies for them and they will love you for it!
Port de Bras: Elegant and Fluid OR Stiff/Floppy
Port de bras that is effective is not just beautiful and communicative, it is supportive to the coordination of the rest of the entire body. Arms done well aid in elevation and momentum as well activation of the core.
Unfortunately, most dancers start young with a lot of cuing to "hold" their arms without any actual methodology to do so. Couple that with "keep your shoulders down" (which is actually not congruent with anatomy) and the whole upper becomes confused and both held and unstable simultaneously.
Key Ideas
- How the spine is involved in raising the arms above shoulder height
- The essential and often unknown movement of the clavicle
- Why "keeping your shoulders down" is a very limiting cue
- How the scapula dictates arm movement
- How each finger affects the placement and openness of the entire shoulder girdle
- Why the eyes leading, not matching or following is essential to coordination
- What supporting the arms from the back really means that young dancers can feel and do
Need CPD Hours?
Each topic will give you 6 hours of CPD, with a certificate given upon completion.
If you do the entire series you will have 24 hours!
Posture: The Key to Freedom of Movement NOT Locking and Holding
The cues for posture are many and varied. And, often incorrect and completely against the natural and essential function of both the spine and the breathing apparatus.
When posture is attempted to be "held" there is confusion through the whole body. The body understands and is designed for motion, not holding and stillness.
Long term incorrect holding of posture and over lengthening of the curves of the spine, will have a cost to the body long term.
Key Ideas
- What "Pull Up" really means, and what it does not
- How to allow the curves of the spine to express movement properly
- Why to include the pelvis as part of the curves of the spine
- Why an overly lengthened spine is dangerous for the spine AND confuses the entire body
- How to breathe 3D and still have supported pelvic alignment
- Why pelvic alignment is MORE about the hamstrings than the abdominals
- How teaching sensing of the thighs and feet is the key for even young kids to understand and feel upright pelvic posture
- What posture feels like when the pelvis is tilted, such as in an arabesque
Feet: Overworked and Mis-understood
Dancers have a love-hate relationship with their feet quite often. Dancers are always trying to improve the feet and yet rarely actually understand how their feet work. The belief that it is all about pointing and trying to increase the curve of the arch, is a narrow focus that ironically limits not just the flexibility of the foot, but the strength to actually use the feet effectively.
The fact that many dancers roll leads to some very dangerous and anatomically inaccurate corrections, such as "lifting the arches". Chronically lifted arches become tight and weak.
Key Ideas
- Understanding the magnificent design of the feet: 33 joints per foot so there is a lot of subtle movement!
- How the foot spirals with every plie/fondu
- Why brain integration directly effects the ability to use the deepest layer of the intrinsic foot muscles
- Why Pronation and Supination are essential movements of the foot in every single plie and rise
- Learn to trigger your feet to naturally respond with pointing for allegro: now more working to remember!
Turn-Out: Understanding and Discovering Your Full Potential
Turn-out is such an essential element of dance training, with it being a primary focus of ballet training. However, since it is so often simply copied by young students there is a strong chance of deep and long held misunderstandings. When positioning comes before the ability to sense and notice with nuance, there is of course, the chance for this. And, the use of the mirror and simply looking down at your 5th position means that there is an easy encouragement to "cheat" turn-out. Many hard working students believe that the can successfully push and force turn-out to accelerate their progress.
This workshop series will help you to discover what is really going on, and it is more complex than thinking of simply being sure to only rotate from the hips.
By the end of the series you will understand how turn-out is a full body expression and is constantly changing through every movement you do. You will no longer try and "keep your turn-out" but you will understand how adaptability is actually the key.
Key Ideas
- Dynamic Turn-Out: increasing on flexion/decreasing on extension
- Spiral on Retire
- Staying centered in the socket
- Avoiding initiation in the Sartorius; which causes hip and knee flexion
- Link to Toes and weight placement ie. Big toe triggers inward rotation
- Working with Turn-Out while stationary vs traveling
- The effect of a retained Moro Reflex
What Will the Sessions be Like:
- Functional Anatomy
- Application to Dance Technique
- Effective Cuing and Imagery
- Common Misunderstanding and Myths
- Q and A about Content
You will learn AND move.
You can move at home and not need a studio.
**These are NOT like your regular dance classes. You are attending to understand your body better which means you will be moving and applying to dance, but there will not be exercises to learn and choreography to rehearse.
All exercises are for exploratory purposes.
You will gain strength and more mobility, but you will not need to learn a series of specific exercises.
Schedule of Sessions
All Sessions will be:
LIVE IN PERSON for those who can attend in person in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver
LIVE on ZOOM for those from other areas of the world who can come live due to complimentary time zone
Zoom Recordings will be supplied to ALL those registered to be able to refer back to throughout the season to review and refresh at your leisure.
Ports de Bras
Tuesday July 7
Thursday July 9
Tuesday July 14
Posture
Thursday July 16
Tuesday July 21
Thursday July 23
Feet
Tuesday August 4
Thursday August 6
Tuesday August 11
Turn-Out
Thursday August 13
Tuesday August 18
Thursday August 20
Pick your Subject OR Take All
You can choose which topic most interests you. Each series is a stand alone topic, however, if you take all 4 your will see how each relates to and connects to the other.
After all...the body is ONE system and everything is connected.
Here are a few examples:
Proper Upper Body Placement = Ability for Pelvic Alignment without Tension
Honouring the Tripod of the Foot = Honesty and no more forcing of Turn-Out
Including the changes of the Spinal Curves into changes in the Pelvis = Proper Kinetic Chain thru the legs into the Feet for Good Elevation
Full Programme Bonuses
Imagery Course
