Photo: Paula Court
Choreography: Karen Bernard
At the Kitchen’s DAP series MAY 2016
Join us for New Dance Alliance’s 30th Anniversary, where I perform my new solo on June 9 at the Aabroms Center “ IT OcCurS to mE”
Choreography, performance and costume: Barbara Mahler
Sound score: Wayne Lopes (1996)
“Within a specific structure, all students work at their own pace, and level. Exercises and movements, done repeatedly with increasing intelligence and awareness, or “resonance” facilitate a path of change and openness.
Feedback from a workshop in London– Barbara Mahler’s morning classes and one-day workshop 2015, 2014
I’d like to give some feedback from this week’s professional classes.
Barbara has been amazing. Her knowledge and intelligence is beyond belief. The technique is so fundamental and there is no possibility for the UK to have it in a regular basis. And her pedagogic approach towards teaching… can’t find the right words but it is so incredible but subtle that it is rather invisible. This is incredible because it is there. I felt (having come 4 out of 5 days) that everybody in the class learned something but not in their heads, on their bodies, including myself on this.
I have certainly been challenged and confronted, but in an environment that allowed me to take the time, space, energy to try things out, without needing to learn, or fulfil expectations, or worry about gaining anything, and as a result I feel all these things happened!
I gained a huge amount, a re-connection to my dancing and moving body. A feeling of it’s potential. I go away with a rich resource to practice and practice. I feel better, positive.
The workshop was extremely interesting and physically engaging. The simple movements/patterns with profound and complex feedback. I feel I will be processing over the next few days, weeks…I would like to do more with Barbara.
What are your reasons for taking his workshop?
‘To expand/deepen theoretical comprehension ‘
‘Curiosity for Klein technique’
What do you think you gained from this workshop and did it meet your expectations?
‘New insights into how the body moves’
‘Awareness of Klein Technique’
‘Deepen practice’
‘Freedom of space in my body’
Did this workshop give you access to work that is difficult to find elsewhere?
‘Special teacher – lovely atmosphere in the studio’
‘Klein workshops only happen very occasionally in this country’
A real appreciation of the hip joint and better appreciation of joints in general. Rediscovery of self as embodied and grounded. Pivotal!
Minneapolis, MN May 20-22 details -my second home with almost annual workshops since 1992———Contact kristalangberg@gmail.com, wendyruble@gmail.com
Minneapolis has been a consistent venue for workshops, almost annually, beginning with New Dance Lab 1993, and Linda Shapiro, and continuing with the University of Minnesota with a Sage Cowles Land Grant, “Dancing Feet” Rosy Simas, Zenon, and now with Krista Langberg. Join us!
Taiwan …June 30- July 3 contact horse.info1@gmail.com: http://www.horse.org.tw
MOVEMENT RESEARCH/ http://www.movementresearch.org SUMMER MELT AUGUST 8-12 2016 10-12 daily! Morning classes
Santiago, Chile Fall 2016 – details to come September 28-October 4
My classes in Klein Technique are grounded in the learning process, and the supportive tools for replacing non useful, inefficient and/or unnecessary movement patterns and tensions. How can we learn movement with a perspective different than copying an external shape and form? How does movement manifest in our unique bodies , from any style and aesthetic? How can we create movement that resonates from our spirit? In class, our work is done on a body level, interweaving theory and practice. As my teacher, and originator of Zero Balancing, Dr. Fritz Smith says “I wish you could, for a moment, see the world through my eyes”. I am still inspired by my learnings and education with Dr. F. Smith (Zero Balancing), Susan Klein, originator of Klein Technique, and my main movement teacher and mentor; and Dorothy Vislocky, creator of the Dance Major and it’s curriculum at Hunter College, NY,was my first initiation into thoughts of re-doing, letting go and re-learning /first mentor). A dance kinesiologist, choreographer, artist, dancer.
I bring to my classes and workshops the perspectives I gained through my own movement re-education, and the information I have gathered and researched through my 3o plus years of teaching, dancing, learning and changing. Classes (and workshops) focus on and provide the tools to support movement of all styles of dance and other activities, as well as everyday life. The essential premise is that the postural and movement support of the body is the same in all activities. The purpose of the “stretch and placement” class is to re-educate one’s body with an interweaving of theory and practice on a physical, intellectual, and organic level. The result is a clarity and sureness of movement, and a new level of understanding the innate intelligence of the body.
Click on link for schedule On-going Classes in NYC
TUESDAY AND THURSDAY: 10-12 at 537 Broadway – Eden’s Expressway. These classes are Sponsored by MOVEMENT RESEARCH . THE MORNING CLASSES ONGOING through AUGUST 18. http://www.movementresearch.org
SATURDAY Morning: In APRIL we return to the beautiful Brooklyn Studios for DANCE, Clinton Hill. Check the calendar ….1130-1
FRIDAY Morning 10-12 at 100 Grand, the awesome studio of Bill Young. This is a movement class aimed at the integration of movement/dance with the principles of the stretch and placement classes – efficiency, connection, articulation, grounding, clarity.
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We make conscious our patterns and choices that are often unknown, thereby creating the opportunity to chose. The Body is equally known and unknown
Some recent choreographic projects and workshops:
Brooklyn Studios for Dance
Yasmeen Godder and company/community – Jaffa Isreal September 2015
IDA – London, England October 2015,14
LIFT-OFF Space Residency with New Dance Alliance August 2015
THE PLACE in DC -Master Classes with Barbara Mahler May 2015
Clancy DanceWorks Silver Springs MD- reworking group dance May 2015
WILSON COLLEGE, Pennsylvania.choreography March 2015
TAKE ROOT -at Green Space, LIC – new dances for 4 women
DEACON School of AUSTRALIA, in NYC JANUARY 2015 winter intensive Klein Technique
SUMMER MELT has been an annual event/workshop 2008-present
ICELAND -2012 sponsored by Dance Atelier, and the National School for Contemporary Dance, the Iceland Academy for the Arts, and classes with the modern dance company, as well as research time for the creation of new solo.
2011…3 weeks in Chile – Santiago and Valparisso, a government funded residency for teaching and performing
MARCH 21-25 Easter-workshop for 5 days 4 hours a day (10 am – 2 30 /1430pm). http://www.tqw.at/en/events/workshop-barbara-mahler-klein-technique%E2%84%A2?date=2016-03-21_10-00
Limerick, Ireland March29-April 1 www.dancelimerick.ie
contact: jenny@dancelimerick.ie with performance
Minneapolis, MN May 20-22 details – Contact kristalangberg@gmail.com, wendyruble@gmail.com
Minneapolis has been a consistent venue for workshops, almost annually, beginning with New Dance Lab 1993, and Linda Shapiro, and continuing with the University of Minnesota with a Sage Cowles Land Grant, “Dancing Feet” Rosy Simas, Zenon, and now with Krista Langberg. Join us!
Taiwan …June 30- July 3 contact horse.info1@gmail.com: http://www.horse.org.tw
MOVEMENT RESEARCH/ http://www.movementresearch.org SUMMER MELT AUGUST 8-12 2016 10-12 daily! Morning classes
Santiago, Chile Fall 2016 – details to come
My classes in Klein Technique are grounded in the learning process, and the supportive tools for replacing non useful, inefficient and/or unnecessary movement patterns and tensions. How can we learn movement with a perspective different than copying an external shape and form? How does movement manifest in our unique bodies , from any style and aesthetic? How can we create movement that resonates from our spirit? In class, our work is done on a body level, interweaving theory and practice. As my teacher, and originator of Zero Balancing, Dr. Fritz Smith says “I wish you could, for a moment, see the world through my eyes”. I am still inspired by my learnings and education with Dr. F. Smith (Zero Balancing), Susan Klein, originator of Klein Technique, and my main movement teacher and mentor; and Dorothy Vislocky, creator of the Dance Major and it’s curriculum at Hunter College, NY,was my first initiation into thoughts of re-doing, letting go and re-learning /first mentor). A dance kinesiologist, choreographer, artist, dancer.
I bring to my classes and workshops the perspectives I gained through my own movement re-education, and the information I have gathered and researched through my 3o plus years of teaching, dancing, learning and changing. Classes (and workshops) focus on and provide the tools to support movement of all styles of dance and other activities, as well as everyday life. The essential premise is that the postural and movement support of the body is the same in all activities. The purpose of the “stretch and placement” class is to re-educate one’s body with an interweaving of theory and practice on a physical, intellectual, and organic level. The result is a clarity and sureness of movement, and a new level of understanding the innate intelligence of the body.
Click on link for schedule On-going Classes in NYC
TUESDAY AND THURSDAY: 10-12 at 537 Broadway – Eden’s Expressway. These classes are Sponsored by MOVEMENT RESEARCH . THE MORNING CLASSES ONGOING through AUGUST 18. http://www.movementresearch.org
SATURDAY Morning: In APRIL we return to the beautiful Brooklyn Studios for DANCE, Clinton Hill. Check the calendar above.
FRIDAY Morning 10-12 at 100 Grand, the awesome studio of Bill Young. This is a movement class aimed at the integration of movement/dance with the principles of the stretch and placement classes – efficiency, connection, articulation, grounding, clarity.
Daily classes are a cohesive integration of body and mind, based on the principles of change, possibilities and a better functioning body. The technique is firmly grounded in the principles that what helps us move and function at our optimum efficiency are simple ideas, exercises and practice, the demands being the same in dance as everyday life. It’s principles go beyond aesthetic viewpoints, being a system, a technique that provides strong grounding underpinnings for all types of movement. The work done in class is to re-educate the body with an interweaving of theory and practice on a physical level, at the level of the bone and the deep internal musculature and supportive connections that move, and ground us – between the pelvis, the legs and the earth and back up to the skull. The result – a clarity and sureness of movement efficiency, fluidity, and a new level of understanding the innate intelligence of one’s body. With these teachings we come closer to realizing who we are as movers – as individuals; unique in our creativity, our movement, our being.We don’t “exercise” yet we become stronger, more articulate; the body more facile and resilient. We learn to use the floor, and work without a specific aesthetic construct, leaving us open to all styles.
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Barbara Mahler 
