Becoming Tender celebrates the opportunity and necessity of dancers coming together daily to practice, learn with and care for each other. It is also an invitation to get rest from overload and pressure, balancing the nervous system and finding refuge as well as resilience in our dance trainings. Throughout the course, participants will explore the body's materialities, dive into anatomical relationships and create different sensory experiences. One key technique to becoming tender is a method called ‘sequencing,’ which involves moving the body in parts, playing with and harnessing energy within the elastic spectrum of muscles and connective tissue. Sequential movement principles allow for less inertial resistance and promote tonal changes in neuromuscular activity. It gently stretches soft tissues and enhances perception of dynamic processes in a gradual and gentle manner. The use of looping motives enables a heightened focus on nuance and allows the gradual integration of theory and application. Explorations and concepts are made palpable through images, video, models, hands-on exploration, improvisation, partnered exercises and looped movement patterns that lead into more complex phrases.
It is Kira’s objective to prepare participants with useful techniques and tools they can sense, inhabit and autonomously apply in their individual practices and artistic research as well as enjoy deeply resourced and a wide spectrum of physicality and dancing together.
The Axis Syllabus is a somatic approach to dance and movement techniques and a collection of knowledge for learning, researching and experiencing movement. This includes moving with anatomical relationships, physics, bio-tensegrity, ongoing multi-disciplinary research, movement analysis and transmission. An Axis Syllabus class aims to create a collaborative learning environment and effective space for personal research.
Kira Kirsch
