Feeling to Form: Mettler-based Dance Improvisation

Feeling to Form: Mettler-based Dance Improvisation

Adults | This class is completed

Adults

5/21/2023 (one day)

10:00 AM-4:00 PM PDT on Sun

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$90.00 USD

Join guest teacher Mary Ann Brehm for an engaging day of movement! Immerse yourself in dance explorations which awaken your kinesthetic imagination and allow you to discover satisfying, expressive movement forms individually and in groups. Based on the work of somatic dance pioneer Barbara Mettler, this Mettler-based Dance Improvisation workshop will include:

-Using the kinesthetic sense as a guide for creating movement

-Discovering organic form, where movements and themes evolve naturally one from another

-Cultivating skills for group improvisation within the force, time, and space elements
-Unifying sound and movement
-Sensing group body movements

  • Barbara Mettler (1907-2002) believed that dance—the art of body movement—is a basic human need, she wrote that “my lifelong goal has been to seek out creative principles of dance in order to revel in its power and make it available to all people.” She explored somatic approaches to both the body as instrument and movement as the material of dance. Her development of creative studies for cultivating craftsmanship in group dance improvisation is recognized as a ground-breaking, unique contribution to contemporary dance.

    A 1933 graduate of the Mary Wigman Central Institute of Dance in Germany, Mettler was a part of the early modern dance world in New York City. For sixty years she directed Mettler Studios, which in 1963 found a permanent home at the Tucson Creative Dance Center. She taught thousands of people of all ages from kindergarten to elderly, including people with special needs. Her intensive summer-long course attracted large groups of students, many of whom went on to teach creative dance in their own communities or integrate her principles into their professional lives. For information on Mettler Studios, which continues development of her approach to dance go to barbaramettler.org.
  • This workshop is partially funded by a grant from Mettler Studio, Inc.

    Participants should bring lunch. We will have a lunch break from 1:00-1:45pm.

    Bring: water, notebook, lunch, dress in layers, we dance in bare feet.


    Financial assistance is available. Email bronwen@creativedance.org for details.

Brehm, Mary Ann

Mary Ann Brehm, PhD is a dance teaching artist/author focusing on creative somatic approaches to dance. President of Mettler Studios, she co-directs their Mettler-based Dance Teacher Trainings in Tucson and for students in Indonesia and Vietnam via Zoom. She is the author of Foundations of Barbara Mettler’s Approach to Dance: Principles and Teaching Guidelines (2021) and co-author of Creative Dance and Learning: Making the Kinesthetic Link. (2008, 2015).  She has taught dance courses for several universities and offers intensive workshops throughout the United States or on Zoom. Her doctoral researched focused on teaching principles of Margaret H’Doubler.