SUNDAY SESSIONS
Beth Gracyzk Productions X Peridance Center
Sunday Sessions is a workshop series inviting participants to explore improvisational tools & tactics in contemporary dance, and through the lens of teaching artists who actively use improvisation in their generative work. A 2-hour workshop will guide movers through modalities that will help develop individual movement invention and lead into ensemble practices that will open up possibilities of connecting with others as we build each moment together.
UPCOMING
OCTOBER 20 • 12:30-2:30 PM
TAJA WILL
BIO
Taja Will (they/them) is a non-binary, chronically ill, queer, Latinx (Chilean) adoptee. They are a performer, choreographer, somatic therapist, consultant and Healing Justice practitioner based in Mni Sota Makoce, on the ancestral lands of the Dakota and Anishinaabe. Taja’s approach integrates improvisation, somatic modalities, text and vocals in contemporary performance. Their aesthetic is one of spontaneity, bold choice making, sonic and kinetic partnership and the ability to move in relationship to risk and intimacy. Will’s artistic work explores visceral connections to current socio-cultural realities through a blend of ritual, dense multi-layered worldbuilding and everyday magic.
​
Taja initiates solo projects and teaching ventures and is a recent recipient of the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, in the dance field, awarded in 2021. Their work has been presented throughout the Twin Cities and across the United States. Including local performances at the Walker Art Center Choreographer’s Evening, the Red Eye Theater’s New Works 4 Weeks, the Radical Recess series, Right Here Showcase and the Candy Box Dance Festival. They were the recipient of a 2018-’19 McKnight Choreography Fellowship, administered by the Cowles Center and funded by The McKnight Foundation. Will has recently received support from the National Association of Latinx Arts & Culture, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.
CLASS DESCRIPTION
Tuning & Attuning
This workshop is a practice of connection with self and others, solo and ensemble, a duet with a ghost or an ancestor, a trio with two movers and the energy of breath/air/space. Imagine improvisation as a decolonial practice and the act of dancing with seen and unseen entities as ritual. Human and mammalian nervous systems like to connect, to entrain, to feel each other and perhaps that can happen with the energetic fields as well.
Choreographer and educator Taja Will is a queer, disabled and indigena ritualist. They invite connection with elements, land and ancestors as a foundation for dance making and improvisational performance. From that foundation they feel it is radical to attune with other humans in coalition.
This workshop is practice in listening to greater unseen energies, deepening connections with each other through improvisation, and together we will use some of Lisa Nelson's Tuning Scores as a proposal for ensemble improvisation.
NOVEMBER 3 • 12:30-2:30 PM
FANA FRASER
BIO
Fana Fraser is an artist, director and producer. Her work is rooted in expressions of power, eroticism and compassion. She is a Visiting Lecturer in Dance at Harvard University for Fall 2024. Fana's short film, ‘nesting’ was commissioned by TBA21-Academy. Her performance work has been presented at several venues including: Brooklyn Museum, New York Botanical Garden, Movement Research at the Judson Church, BAAD!, Gibney, Abrons Arts Center, JACK, Dance Mission Theater in San Francisco, and Trinidad Theater Workshop. She is a 2023-4 Movement Research NYSCA Artist Fellow; and 2021-23 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow in Dance. Fana was shortlisted for the BCLF Caribbean-American Writer's Prize in 2020. She has been an Artist in Residence at The Watermill Center, BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), Petronio RETREAT & RESTORE, and New Waves! Dance & Performance Institute in Trinidad & Tobago. fanafraser.com
CLASS DESCRIPTION
SYMPATHETIC BODIES
SYMPATHETIC BODIES offers a gentle space for connection with self and others. Time in this creative workshop will be spent in breath-work, imagination, consensual touch, movement and vocalizations. This workshop offers a meditative atmosphere for deep internal listening, rest and rejuvenation. Space will be made for altered states of creative consciousness to emerge and be observed. Participants are invited to move with the needs of their nervous systems. We will tend to the water of our bodies and make space for song to vibrate. We will dance together with polyrhythms and music toward the practice of cultivating trust and centering hope.
No previous ‘dance training’ is required for this workshop.
Please reach out with any disability access needs.