The Graceful and the Grotesque INTENSIVE $45 Saturday 10-11:50am
Description: *begins with a short lecture* Learn a dance that marries raqs sharqi and freakish isolations of Tribal Fusion. This class is a moving discussion of the historical influences on today’s bellydance. In different places and times, bellydancers have consciously incorporated weightlessness and grace into their movements as well as grotesque and alarming incongruities. This class includes a discussion on theories of the “grotesque” and how the freak-show and graceful elements have historically made their ways into our modern concept of bellydance.
Beginner/Intermediate
Release Technique INTENSIVE $45 Sunday 2-3:50pm
Description: Using science and visualization to increase your body’s efficiency. Bellydance training regimes often emphasize only the muscular component of strength building; however strength lies in the neuromuscular system and good technique often appears as effortless movement, not muscular strain. Through various “release techniques” developed since the 1960’s, dancers have been learning to move as efficiently and effortlessly as possible by building direct neuromuscular pathways. In bellydance, releasing unnecessary effort from a single movement frees up more muscles and energy for layering and emotional presence. Through guided imagery and hands-on partner exercises adapted from releasing techniques, April Rose leads the class in this approach to movement. Bring a paper and pen for note taking on the history and science behind releasing technique and be prepared for tactile interaction between students.
All Levels Welcome
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An educated and traveled dancer of 14 years, April Rose creates playful and thoughtful choreographies that often seek to find a balance between fused traditions and the ethics of intercultural performance.
Director of Rose Movement Studio in Austin, Texas, she teaches weekly classes at home and currently travels abroad on a monthly basis to teach, speak, and perform at bellydance conferences. In her workshops she teaches a variety of
bellydance techniques, physical conditioning, fusion and the politics of fusion, choreographic method, bellydance history, and adapted psycho-physical awareness practices.
April Rose tours internationally with The Bellydance Superstars and was a performing member of UNMATA for 5 years. She began Egyptian/American cabaret or raqs sharqi bellydance as a child and has since been trained in tribal bellydance and group improv. She is certified teacher in the Hot Pot/UNMATA format of Improvisational Tribal Style.
April Rose has a Masters degree in Culture and Performance from UCLA’s World Arts and Cultures|Dance Department, where she also holds a BA in Dance. Her research explores the transnational history of bellydance since the mid-19th century and the many incarnations of bellydance practice in the post 1960’s US. April Rose has studied choreographic method, the role of dance in the production of culture, and a variety of dance forms (including: ballet, modern, West African, jazz, hip hop, Bedhayo Javanese court dance, Bharatanatyam, Odissi, & Khathak classical Indian dances, contact improv, Skinner Releasing Technique, raqs sharqi, tribal, and fusion bellydance).
Her life is dedicated simultaneously to bringing into bellydance the theoretical, historical, and compositional knowledge she has gained in her academic study and to helping people understand the potential bellydance has for thoughtful self expression, community formation, and challenging of social convention.
Her strategy for life and art is to take risk without taking yourself all too seriously!
-Photo by Reed Burnam
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