Yoga for Dancers
Cultivating physical genius

This workshop is specifically designed for dancers. It is also highly recommended for dance and yoga teachers and will help participants understand how to use yoga intelligently in a dance room context, especially as a warm-up. Careful attention will be given to supporting major joint spaces while weight baring and extending in various poses. Dancers will learn how to transmit "core strength" into their arms and legs so that upside down movement is as comfortable and integrated as upright dancing; breath and mental agility are fundamental to this comfort. While exploring a greater range of yogic vocabulary this class intends to take yoga off the mat and into space. Note: this is not asana dance, but it is intended to bring the vocabulary of yoga into the fold of contemporary dance through set material and improvisation. all dance backgrounds are welcome; strong intemediate level dance technique required.


Yoga
a meditation in physical confidence

In this workshop students will be given the muscular/skeletal fundamentals for the practice of Hatha yoga. Particular attention will be given to the diaphragmatic/psoas complex and how this anatomical region relates to the spine, pelvis and limbs, especially in inversions. Because so much contemporary dance incorporates yoga into its class or choreographic framework, it is essential that students have the physical infrastructure to meet the changing demands of the dance medium. The discipline of yoga cultivates courage and sensitivity, and this workshop will stay true to the practice of yoga by empowering students to move with a greater sense of grace and self-confidence. This workshop will dramatically alter how you perceive yoga as a practise. Open to dancers and non-dancers alike, local yoga enthusiasts will not feel left out!



Sri Louise
Sri Louise is a free lance dancer and independent yoga teacher. Active in both disciplines, she is readily able to translate the practise of yoga into the process of dance. Sri is keenly interested in using yoga as a way of empowering the physical range and personal strength of dancers. She acted as Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's phycial coach for his production zero degrees with Akram Khan and is currently assisting Sidi Larbi on his projects with the Ballet of Monte Carlo and the Cullberg Ballet, where she also teaches yoga to the dancers as a way of helping them access his choreography. She is thrilled to be performing in Sidi's up-coming contemporary project, which premiers in 2007 in Antwerp. To find out more about Sri's travelling yoga extravaganza please visit http://www.undergroundparlour.com/