PERIDANCE FACULTY
Current
Gabrielle Lamb
Ballet
BIOGRAPHY
Gabrielle Lamb is a Princess Grace Award-winning choreographer based in NYC, where she directs Pigeonwing Dance, described in The New Yorker as "eccentric...playful...curious". Her work has also been presented by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Whim W’him (Seattle), Ballet Collective (NYC), Ballet Austin, Ballet Memphis, and the Sacramento, Milwaukee, and Kansas City Ballets. Ms Lamb, a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, has won choreographic competitions at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Milwaukee Ballet, as well as the Banff Centre's Lee Award and a New York City Center Choreography Fellowship. In 2018 she was Grand Prize Winner of the S&R Foundation's Washington Award.
A native of Savannah, GA, she trained at the Boston Ballet School and was a longtime soloist at Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. In 2009 she was invited by Christopher Wheeldon to join his company Morphoses in NYC. Her performing repertoire also included new creations by Mauro Bigonzetti, Pontus Lidberg, and Shen Wei, as well as leading roles in existing works by Balanchine, Kylian, Naharin, and Duato. She was described by DANCE Magazine as “a dancer of stunning clarity who illuminates the smallest details—qualities she brings to the dances she makes, too".
CLASS DESCRIPTION
Lamb's ballet class consists of a 45 minute barre (taught in the MUNZ Method) and 45 minutes of center exercises.
MUNZ BARRE® was invented by Paris Opera-trained, former Berlin Opera Ballet principal dancer Alexandre Munz. With its emphasis on functional oppositional movement and fascia regeneration, it is a truly 3D experience of ballet class – one where we feel the body working as a whole, rather than a series of disconnected parts. These organically patterned movements allow the dancer to find functional and organic turnout via sequential spirals through the spine and diagonals that expand and contract across the body.
In center work, emphasis is placed on coordination of the upper and lower body as the basis for holistic and connected movement. Clarity, speed, and articulation of footwork are of key importance. Dancers are challenged to make interpretive choices regarding musicality, phrasing, and focus.