BIOGRAPHY
Ashley McQueen is a New York City-based performer, choreographer, and teaching artist. She holds a BFA in Dance from Webster University and an MFA in Dance from Hollins University. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Smashworks Dance, a New York- based nonprofit dance company dedicated to accessible dance performance and confidence-building education. She currently performs as a company member with Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre and teaches as an Adjunct Professor of Dance at Manhattanville College. Hailed as “a dancer with the grace of a ballerina, the groundedness of an Isadora acolyte, and the impetuous musicality of someone who dances because she must” (Oberon’s Grove), McQueen has worked with choreographers such as Shawn T. Bible, Maurya Kerr, Jennifer Medina, Jennifer Huffman-Olivas, Omar Olivas, James Robey, Uri Sands, and Amanda Selwyn; and performed as a company member with ShawnBibleDanceCo, Common Thread Contemporary Dance, and Arova Contemporary Ballet. Her choreography has been commissioned by Peridance Youth Ensemble, Hamilton College, Minnesota Ballet, Big Muddy Dance Company, Arova Contemporary Ballet, Alabama Dance Theater, and Southern Danceworks; and presented at festivals such as Dance St. Louis Spring to Dance, Midwest RADFest, NYC Transit Museum, Westfest: All Over Westbeth, and American College Dance Festival. “Smashworks . . . what a perfect name for these powerful sisters. McQueen’s company is tightly precise and fearless” (Front Row Center). Smashworks Dance was named a Village Voice “Voice Choices" for their evening length performance of City Stories at Center for Performance Research, and their evening length political satire For Which It Stands - featured in Time Out NY and Brokelyn’s “Top 20 Cheap Things To Do” - toured to St. Louis in Fall 2018. Smashworks Dance partnered with Rebel Girls Productions to write movement activities for their chapter book, “Alicia Alonso Takes The Stage,” published worldwide August 2020; and were invited as a local community group to hear Michelle Obama speak on her Becoming tour at the Barclays Center. They were awarded the Theaterlab Hotel New Work residency in collaboration with Hope Salas and Justin Cimino (where they spent 40 hours exploring the fusion of dance and clown). Smashworks currently teaches dance workshops for Troop 6000, a Girl Scouts of New York program specially designed to serve girls in the New York City Shelter System.
CLASS DESCRIPTION
This class introduces students to the fundamentals of the Horton technique. The class will focus on cultivating musicality, flexibility, alignment, and percussive syncopation. Students will explore their own movement sensibilities while strengthening the dynamic range of their body. The class consists of corrective exercises and simple combinations that incorporate beginning level movements, such as flat backs, lateral stretches, release swings, and T positions. The Horton technique was created with a knowledge of human anatomy and is known to fortify, stretch, and strengthen the body.