ILANA REYNOLDS

CLASS

Playing the Rebound – This class is inspired by the capacity to jump, propel, lift off, and land. How can the sensation of jumping be sustained as a rebounding quality in the body? The breath serves as a fundamental support for movement ease and body alignment. In space, class evolves into stages of bouncing, running and leaping. Specific improvisational tasks invite a sense of weight, fall/recovery, expansion, and momentum as we move across the floor and into dancing together. The aim is to ignite a sense of vitality and full on dancing that is alive, buoyant and creatively charged.

15% Breath work
15% Physical endurance
30% Building Improvisational dance skills
40% Dancing together

Engaging the Opposites:
The focus of this class is in noticing the duality in our movements. How can this active awareness create a greater range in our dancing possibilities? Filling/emptying, folding/extending, rising/falling and exploring symmetry/asymmetry are some starting points. These elements weave together through anatomical principles (to warm-up and open our articulations), individual and partner work (to engage a sense of play and relationship), and phrase material (to set a frame to explore and transform). The aim is to coordinate complexity in our movement choices by stimulating a sense of curiosity, precision and joy in our dancing.

15% Focused improvisational warm-up based on anatomical principles
15% Partner work
30% Applying theme of class to set exercises/material
40% Phrase Work

ABOUT

Ilana Reynolds‘s influences are based in Afro-Brazilian dance/Capoeira, somatics and dance improvisation. She studied dance at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Escola da Fundação de Dança in Salvador, Brazil. She received her MA in contemporary dance education in Frankfurt a. M. As teacher, performer and choreographer, Ilana is actively involved in the free-lance scene. She also works as dance dramaturge for the company Hennermann & TEAM in Frankfurt.

photo credit: Lydia Bittner-Baird