Teaching “Rigorous Basics,” Tuesdays in December

So I’m teaching CI in NYC soon! Four Tuesday nights in December! It’s going to be my most continuous stretch of teaching since pre-pandemic, and I’m looking forward to it a lot.

I’m teaching on the “Contact Improvisation Basics” series that Elise Knudson has been curating, at 100 Grand in New York City on Tuesday nights. I’m taking over from Eryn Rosenthal, who was teaching in November, and will be handing off to Cecilia Fontanesi in January.

My class series is titled “Rigorous Basics.” The idea is to take a detailed, systematic approach to CI basics. “Rigorous” doesn’t mean “strenuous”—you don’t need to possess a high level of physical skills or stamina. But it does mean relatively information-dense, and detailed: my hope is to give you something in each class that’s coherent and fits into a larger system, rather than a set of different ideas that you need to integrate on your own.

I think I may have hand-outs!

Here’s the tentative syllabus:

1. Tuesday, December 6: Falling and weight-sharing
2. Tuesday, December 13: Rolling point of contact
3. Tuesday, December 20: Floor work and surfing
4. Tuesday, December 27: Students’ choice (based on Week 3).

Explanation of “Students’ choice” in Week 4: I think at the end of the Week 3 class, we’ll have a discussion/vote on what topic(s) to cover in Week 4. I know it can be hard to get particular learning needs addressed in CI, so I wanted to let the group have some input into Week 4’s plan. Of course, some folks attending Week 3 won’t show up to Week 4, and vice versa. So I’ll try to manage that in a fair way, and also make sure the class topics still fall within “Basics” and are appropriate to relatively new dancers.

Some details:

• These are Basics classes, so are meant to be appropriate for those new to contact improvisation, although any level of experience is welcome.
• 6:30p – 8:30p. Don’t be late! I think you can get in the doors by 6:15pm.
• Vaccinations are required, masks are optional. (I’ll be wearing a mask throughout.)
• Class is $20, cash or Venmo at the door
• Scholarships may be available—I’m looking into how that works.

Hope to see you there!