Recent Teaching
Associazone Culturale Company Blu June 17 – 21, 2023
Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
Workshop and Final Presentation for DOP Higher Education Course
Workshop OPEN WINDOWS June 24, 25, 10.00 – 16.00 daily
Danza PUCP September 26 – October 1, 2022
Pontifica Universidad Catolica del Peru, Lima
Workshop Daily 9.00 – 12.00pm
Presentation October 1, 17.00
MOVES Workshops January 6 – 15, 2022
Oaxaca, Mexico
Workshop From the Inside Out/Taller Desde Adentro
Daily 11.00 – 14.30
Atlas Dance Festival August 9 – 13, 2021
Guanajuato, Mexico
Workshop from the Inside Out; Daily 15.50 – 19.30
For more information CLICK HERE
Changsha Dance Camp
Young Artists Platform
Workshop August 21 -23, Changsha
August 27 – 29, 2019 Shanghai
For more information CLICK HERE
Shanghai International Arts Festival
Rising Artists Innovation Week
Workshop on Exploring Dance Innovations
October 21 – 24, 2018
Shanghai Theatre Academy
For more information CLICK HERE
Monterrey, Mexico August 20 -24, 2018
Workshop “From the Inside Out”
Mon to Thurs 5.30 – 8pm; Fri 4.00 – 6.30pm
Sala de Ensayos Teatro de la Cuidad
For more information CLICK HERE
For more information CLICK HERE
For more information CLICK HERE
For more information CLICK HERE
For more information CLICK HERE
Class Descriptions
From the inside Out: Incorporating somatic approaches in Contemporary Dance Practice
The contemporary dance classes are influenced by Nelson’s over 30 years of continuing study in somatic practices, particularly in Klein Technique™ as taught by Susan Klein and Barbara Mahler and more recently, consistent studies in the Feldenkrais Method®, as well as other techniques such as Alexander Technique® and Bodymind Centering®.
The focus of the classes is to integrate this investigation and alignment work into movement and the more formal structure of a dance technique class. We work to improve alignment and establish connections through our bony structure – the skeleton – as a source of power and stability, by accessing the deep supporting muscles and allowing mobility and suppleness in the superficial muscles. The class emphasizes the connection to and use of the floor; and encourages a deepening awareness of the whole body as a way to learn and to develop dynamic, articulate and expressive dancing.
We incorporate a variety of approaches including hands-on work in partners, leading into improvisation or simple activities and exercises that help give us the opportunity to really experience some of these ideas in a physical way and find new ways of coordinating movement. The class progresses slowly, in order to allow the process of integrating this new awareness and new co-ordinations into our body’s movement patterns, and finally builds to phrases of set movement that involve moving more boldly and dynamically.
Improvisation and Somatics Workshop with Luis Lara Malvacías
The workshop explores the relationship of the body thinking, the body processing, the body making, and the body performing. Does curiosity and examination of our own process produce knowledge? Using simple exercises, hands on work and improvisational scores we will approach our bodies as places of inquiry where we can examine our movement patterns and interests and open ourselves to the possibility of change. This physical research will be inspired and influenced by several somatic techniques.
Improvisation
The course is intended to introduce students to the practice of improvisation as both a means of deepening the awareness of their own bodies and of expanding their creative and movement possibilities. We will look within our body and ourselves as sources of movement creation that take us beyond the habitual. We will also access our responses to external stimuli such as touch, sound, the space around us, or the movement of other dancers. The classes also have a particular focus on partnering. We will work with improvisational “scores” in duets and groups that provide a compositional framework for using improvisation to create Instant Compositions, with the idea of the performance possibilities of improvisation in mind.
Creative Research
The classes are designed as a laboratory for investigating and expanding our own creativity. We will learn how developing a creative practice can not only facilitate dance making and choreography, but also enrich our role as a creative, thinking, dancer and performer, and as an informed and articulate dance viewer. We will use “scores” and problem-solving tasks to explore ways of generating movement that access our own individuality; and we will investigate different sources and stimuli for inventive movement creation, including looking deep inside our own bodies. We will play with strategies for manipulating this movement and then see how the nature of the material we generate can inform how we compose and structure it.