My students teach me .-
Barbara’s Blog
- MY Movement Research Classes Fall 2022
- These past few months AND catching up!!
- WHAT A YEAR – 2020
- what goes on in class anyway? #1
- WHAT A YEAR – 2020
- My rambling thoughts on recent teachings…
- re-post Still Stay Home -Less! Still Stay Connected! KEEP moving!
- repost What’s now going on
- re-post Still Stay Home -Less! Still Stay Connected! KEEP moving!
- repost What’s now going on
- My rambling thoughts on recent teachings…
- My rambling thoughts on recent teachings…
- What´s been happening!
Calendars
Connections
Calendars
Connections
JUNE!! Performances Workshops Classes
photo by Kathee Miller
June brings a multitude of travels teachings performances! Classes at Movement Research continue through mid=august…..
A QUOTE ABOUT MY WORK:Okay. Here we go! I loved the stillness in the beginning. You were in a striking shape that really sparked the curiosity of the audience. I loved how long you stayed on the floor. What stays with me most from the piece is the clarity of focus in both your face and body; the pauses and syncopated rhythms in the movement; the sudden ending with the strong toss back of your head. I should have written some notes for myself to give more specific feedback than this, but what I always love about your work is the care you take with crafting your body-the space-your body in space. Your minimalist approach to sound magnifies the texture and qualities of the movement – movement which is highly developed and often unexpected. And there’s a directness or honesty in this sparseness that is centering for the viewer ” COME AND SEE!!!
SATURDAY June 17 730 pm SOLTICE at UNIVERSITY Settlement House, Manhattan, NY —an evening of dances by Frances Rosario-Puleo, Stephanie Schwartz, and Craig Hoke Zarah
SUNDAY QUEENS OUTDOOR DANCE FESTIVAL – DANCE CHOREOGRAPHED BY BARBARA MAHLER, PERFORMED BY JAMIE GRAHAM
Jamaica Performing Arts Center front steps clearing
PERFORMANCE slot 2-3pm….with 4 Queens based Choreographers
SATURDAY June 24=July 3….HORSE dance COMPANY, Taipei ,Taiwan…
For movement classes/Workshop in Klein Technique and zero balancing sessions
SUMMER MELT 1-3 WITH MOVEMENT RESEARCH JULY 17-21
LAST SATURDAY CLASS AT BROOKLYN STUDIOS FOR DANCE JUNE 17…
Barbara Mahler: How I Teach Klein Technique
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play5:32Barbara Mahler Teaches Klein TechniqueWatch and learn how Barbara Mahler teaches the Klein Technique #TechniqueTuesday #TuesdayTip
www.dance–teacher.com
New Things/This Month of May
Returning to my “second home” _Minneapolis, MN for a long week=end workshop – Klein Technique May 12-14..My almost annual visits to Minneapolis began in 1992, first with New Dance Lab (Linda Shapiro), Dancing Feet (Rosy Simas), a Cowls Grant from the University. Dancers in the city still use the technique to help with care for their bodies, and lengthen their dancing career. Annual/ semi annual workshops are now organized by Wendy Ruble and Jennifer Arave. Come and join this amazing community!
For movers of all types and styles, for interest in exercises to help support the lower back and pelvis, and to be more aware of the body we live in.
https://www.facebook.com/events/488415261490365/
Also check out the article in February Dance Teacher Magazine:
http://www.dance-teacher.com/2017/01/barbara-mahler-teach-klein-technique/
For ongoing classes and other workshops please check the calendars
On the last Horizon, coming on the next horizon
Classes are taking place 3 times a week, and zero balancing and other hands on/one on one sessions are available in New York.
September was full of activities including participation in the 25 Anniversary of Movement Research at the Judson Church (I was a first participant in 1992) as well as their 25 Anniversary of the AIR (2000-2001, and 2007-8)
I performed an excerpt of “It oCCurS to mE”, 2016 https://www.dropbox.com/s/uh3gu3z6scukb4p/BarbaraMahler.9.12.16.CLIP.m4v?dl=0
September also brought me back to Santiago, Chile for to teach an intensive 4 days of Klein Technique as part of Marcela Ortiz’s Cuerpo Inteligencia 
YOUTUBE.CO
Travels to Santiago, Chile were enriching, exciting, and filled with the excitement of new learners.
Marcla
Great to be part of the 3rd Queensboro Dance Festival at the Sectret Little Theater in LIC, along side the rich and vibrantness of the Queens Dance Community featuring dance of all styles ! Congrats to Karesia B for the organization and vision of the event.
Coming in a short time will be my second participation in ARTBARK’s dance events in Santa Barbara, and LA, California including a master class 
with performances of many at the venues listed below
December (brrrrr!!!) brings me back to the dance community of Minneapolis, since 1992 many return visits….join us! December 9-11
February to Boston at Green Street Studios and Boston Conservatory, and hopefully a creative retreat time at EARTH DANCE!!!!
join the mailing list! enjoy the fall
By Trina Mannino/Follow @Trinamannino on Twitter
View Profile | More From This Author
Barbara Mahler on the Intersection of Choreography and Teaching
Performer, choreographer and educator Barbara Mahler returns to the Performance Mix Festival with her solo IT OcCurS to mE. Mahler has known festival founder Karen Bernard for years, beginning when they shared their work in the same program in the ‘70s. They continued to bump into one another in their Tribeca neighborhood where they both lived and worked at that time.
The two came together again this past May when they revived one of Bernard’s works Vinyl Retro (1999) for a Dance and Process performance at The Kitchen. “It was rare for both of us,” Bernard says. “For me, to be working with someone and for her to be dancing in another person’s work.”
“I was on another planet,” Mahler says with a chuckle. Bernard’s dances are peppered with props and video while Mahler is drawn to work where the body alone is the focal point. Despite their contrasting approach, the two veterans had great fun working together.
Mahler didn’t grow up dancing like her counterpart. Instead, she stumbled upon it while studying at Hunter College. “I walked into the dance club which was on Wednesday afternoons. There was Dorothy [Vislocky] and her infamous drum.”
Barbara Mahler in Bellas Dance. Photo: Rachel Thorne Germond
She soon enrolled as a dance major, taking any classes available. It was at Hunter where she first learned of Susan Klein’s Klein Technique™ through Vislocky — both of whom had a deep impact on Mahler.
After graduation she began studying at the Klein/Barry Studio while working a host of jobs including as a bank teller and house cleaner. “The technique was the only thing that gave me a language that I could understand myself as a mover,” she says.
Today, she continues to teach in the Klein Technique tradition in New York and abroad, describing it as “an original method of developing movement and posture through deep understanding of skeletal and muscular structure of the body and its expressive possibilities.”
The venerable artist has trained hundreds of dancers and non-dancers while continuing to create solos and dances for small groups that are pregnant with nuance and skill. She spoke with The Dance Enthusiast about how her teaching and choreographic life intersect. Here is an excerpt from the conversation.
Barbara Mahler in We Do Weddings Too. Photo: Julie Lemberger / julielemberger.com.
Trina Mannino for The Dance Enthusiast: What parallels, if any, do you find in your teaching and choreography?
Barbara Mahler: All of my work and research in the realm of re-educating my own body has laid a foundation for me… My teaching, in turn, inspired my dancing and choreographic life. In the beginning of my dance making, I was choreographing mostly solos. And those dances were usually too hard for me. I was constantly challenging myself to get better.
TDE: Does Klein Technique™ influence your choreographic process?
BM: I’m not sure it informs my process, but the work is in my body which is what I use to create the movement. I work best with people and dancers who have studied with me. There is a particular clarity that I look for, self-understanding and grounded-ness [that comes from studying the technique].
Barbara Mahler
TDE: How has your choreographic work evolved?
BM: It started off being more emotional, simple and sparse. I went through a narrative period. It’s continued to grow technically, but it supports the simplicity and preciseness of my early work. At its best, it develops slowly.
TDE: Over the years, you’ve taught hundreds of dancers and non-dancers. In what ways, has “taking class” changed?
BM: Taking class has gone through many phases; from being a purely physical practice to a conceptual practice. Yoga, Pilates and weight training have had strong influence on dancers. Financial stresses have created more teachers in the dance community for that kind of work, and in turn, have affected the bodies and minds of many — which is neither good nor bad. Survival has become more and more difficult.
The time for the development of work is not as available and so the artistic process has changed for many to accommodate these real life situations. In some ways, I see the mind and intellect has — at the present time — a stronger emphasis than the body or the spirit.
http://www.dance-enthusiast.com/features/view/Barbara-Mahler
Very Soon!
Ongoing classes beginning September 8….Tuesday Thursday Friday and Saturday…check link ongoingclasses
Zero Balancing and Movement private sessions are ongoing
Performances as part of the25 Anniversary of Movement Research at Judson Church AND the 25 Anniversary of their Artist in Residence Program September 12 in works by Karen Bernard and myself. www.movementresearch.org and the http://www.Queensborodancefesival.com, at the Secret Theater in Queens October 18 and 23,
Workshop and Performance in Santiago, Chile September 28-October 2
Barbara Mahler on the Intersection of Choreography and Teaching …interview for Dance Enthusiast, by Trina Maninno
Performer, choreographer and educator Barbara Mahler returns to the Performance Mix Festival with her solo IT OcCurS to mE. Mahler has known festival founder Karen Bernard for years, beginning when they shared their work in the same program in the ‘70s. They continued to bump into one another in their Tribeca neighborhood where they both lived and worked at that time.
The two came together again this past May when they revived one of Bernard’s works Vinyl Retro (1999) for a Dance and Process performance at The Kitchen. “It was rare for both of us,” Bernard says. “For me, to be working with someone and for her to be dancing in another person’s work.”
“I was on another planet,” Mahler says with a chuckle. Bernard’s dances are peppered with props and video while Mahler is drawn to work where the body alone is the focal point. Despite their contrasting approach, the two veterans had great fun working together.
Mahler didn’t grow up dancing like her counterpart. Instead, she stumbled upon it while studying at Hunter College. “I walked into the dance club which was on Wednesday afternoons. There was Dorothy [Vislocky] and her infamous drum.”
Barbara Mahler in Bellas Dance. Photo: Rachel Thorne Germond
She soon enrolled as a dance major, taking any classes available. It was at Hunter where she first learned of Susan Klein’s Klein Technique™ through Vislocky — both of whom had a deep impact on Mahler.
After graduation she began studying at the Klein/Barry Studio while working a host of jobs including as a bank teller and house cleaner. “The technique was the only thing that gave me a language that I could understand myself as a mover,” she says.
Today, she continues to teach in the Klein Technique tradition in New York and abroad, describing it as “an original method of developing movement and posture through deep understanding of skeletal and muscular structure of the body and its expressive possibilities.”
The venerable artist has trained hundreds of dancers and non-dancers while continuing to create solos and dances for small groups that are pregnant with nuance and skill. She spoke with The Dance Enthusiast about how her teaching and choreographic life intersect. Here is an excerpt from the conversation.
Barbara Mahler in We Do Weddings Too. Photo: Julie Lemberger / julielemberger.com.
Trina Mannino for The Dance Enthusiast: What parallels, if any, do you find in your teaching and choreography?
Barbara Mahler: All of my work and research in the realm of re-educating my own body has laid a foundation for me… My teaching, in turn, inspired my dancing and choreographic life. In the beginning of my dance making, I was choreographing mostly solos. And those dances were usually too hard for me. I was constantly challenging myself to get better.
TDE: Does Klein Technique™ influence your choreographic process?
BM: I’m not sure it informs my process, but the work is in my body which is what I use to create the movement. I work best with people and dancers who have studied with me. There is a particular clarity that I look for, self-understanding and grounded-ness [that comes from studying the technique].
TDE: How has your choreographic work evolved?
BM: It started off being more emotional, simple and sparse. I went through a narrative period. It’s continued to grow technically, but it supports the simplicity and preciseness of my early work. At its best, it develops slowly.
TDE: Over the years, you’ve taught hundreds of dancers and non-dancers. In what ways, has “taking class” changed?
BM: Taking class has gone through many phases; from being a purely physical practice to a conceptual practice. Yoga, Pilates and weight training have had strong influence on dancers. Financial stresses have created more teachers in the dance community for that kind of work, and in turn, have affected the bodies and minds of many — which is neither good nor bad. Survival has become more and more difficult.
The time for the development of work is not as available and so the artistic process has changed for many to accommodate these real life situations. In some ways, I see the mind and intellect has — at the present time — a stronger emphasis than the body or the spirit.
HORSE DANCE COMPANY, Taipe, Tawain
July 10th 2016
The Klein Technique is an ever-evolving technique designed by dancers and for dancers to promote a healthy and efficient ways of moving with and through the major structure of human body. Wu-Kang Chen, the Artistic Director of the Horse Dance Company, invited Barbara Mahler, a MASTER TEACHER, CONTRIBUTOR and internationally known teacher of the technique as well as a professional dancer/ choreographer, to Taiwan for a four-day workshop with a simple and fundamental impulse, to learn. Chen also invited me to translate for the workshop for we share the same interests of wanting to learn more about the technique and hope to share this interest to dancers in Taiwan.
This workshop attracted dancers, actors, dance teachers, athletes, and dance therapists alike to participate and evoked discussions from various point of views. However, Mahler was able to acknowledge all questions and curiosities and guided all back to the basic focus of the technique. As a result, the experience addressed individuality, differences, and simplicities meanwhile sparking greater curiosity about the Technique and its applications.
Speaking from my own experience alone, as a translator learning the Klein Technique for the very first time, I had the opportunity to process the theory and its principles mentally before practice it physically. Mahler knew the complexities and difficulties of my job and deliberately simplified the theory and made her instructions succinct enough for me to follow, and our collaboration allowed participants to also focus and work deeper. As a result, not only COULD I embody the technique BOTH INTELLECTUALLY AND physically as an individual, BUT the workshop as a whole also generated a positive and profound experience as a community. The feeling is that there remains a great space to learn and dance, or live, – an amazing realization.
This workshop, made possible by the generous support from the Asian Cultural Council and the National Cultural and Arts Foundation, is a great introduction of the Technique for the community in Taiwan. We all have anticipated to continue the practice and to invite Mahler to come back for further explorations. We also look forward to sharing the knowledge and experience.
RETURN SCHEDULED for April 2017
Posted in barbara mahler/klein technique
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The upcomings
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)
.Profoundly physical exploration of a defining moment.”
bio: Barbara Mahler has been an active member of the New York City dance community as a choreographer, performer, body-worker and movement educator for over 30 years. She is a recipient of BAX 10 award for as a movement educator,a master teacher of Klein Technique. Consistent with her teaching vision, her choreography seeks to explore the endless possibilities that the body can reveal. Her work as a guest artist has taken her around the globe, most recently to Tel Aviv, Vienna, Ireland, Chile and London. She has received support from the Gothenburg Cultural Council, a Sage Cowls Land Grant UWN; Hunter College; Wilson College, PA (March 2015) and for the resetting of “Etched Sketches” on the Company of Adrienne Clancy in Silver Springs MD. Barbara was also a chosen artist for EMERGE 2014, LIFT OFF (August 2015) and Movement Research artist in Residence for two seasons.
“Mahler, a noted teacher, views dance training as a voyage of self-discovery. Barbara Mahler roots her choreography in distillation, as if she aims to extract the essence of her ideas, making them calmer and purer.”(Village Voice)
“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
nce place. The dancers are experienced in somatic approaches.
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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Time Marches …..
In the late 1970’s ” release” classes began popping up south of Houston Street to just below Chambers Street in small and not so small live/work loft spaces. There are sooo few, if any, left in Manhattan. 110 Chambers Street was were Ellen Webb began her classes of lying on the floor and letting go. Very few other such alternatives were available to besides more strict and form oriented dance techniques. New Ideas had begun permeating through the dance scene of NYC in the mid 70’s, with Bonnie Cohen, Susan Klein, Colette Barry, Gail Stern, Jenny Kapular (BMC). Irene Feigenheimer (spelling please!!) had a studio on Laight Street, where small classes happened because folks were afraid of coming to Tribeca then! It was here I first met Art Bridgeman. I did classes with Jeannette Stoner as well at her Leonard Street loft, the work of Lulu Sweigard, I believe, and Open Movement was happening first at 99 Prince Street and then PS 122. Of course there was contact improvisation happening, growing, developing. I was not, at that time, aware of the Judson Movement. The Susan Klein School of Dance opened in 1979, downtown on Beach Street.
The floor barre work of Zena Rommett’s was an alternative at that time. Ellen Webb”s live work space, over a bar, became completely commercial, and so was passed on to Betsy Hulton, with a handshake from both Ellen and the bar owner (also a renter in the building). It was a space with no classes but became a place where dances and art and performance were being created – an affordable rehearsal space with easy access. Betsy moved to Italy, and Rachel Thorne Germond and I took over the lease, also with a handshake from the bar owner, and we continued to provide affordable space to work because it was possible. We continued working, making, dancing. Rachel Thorne Germond moved away for her MFA and the lease was then mine, (late 90’s?) also with a handshake with the bar owner, and the dancing creating performance work and Zero Balancing work continued. I also thought of it as a glorious oasis where time could stop, and things would happen. Art was made, dancing happened. We had no classes as there were many other places to participate in that activity. In 1999 or so, the bar owner passed away and the lease was then in the hands of the building owner. No more handshakes, and of course a doubling of rent. Still, manageable. From here I saw the Towers hit, felt the plane practically touch the roof of my building. I saw the flames and sounds, the screams; felt the buildings shake and tremble. In 2002, the space was no longer available – no handshakes, no lease. When I left I took with me the 100 year old Seth Thomas plug in clock, which had ticked away for many, going, going, going and incrementally time continued, much as the creative process goes – sometimes just going on its own. Upon my return from London, United Kingdom, in 2012, my first time there since 2000, the clock, (unpugged because I was away), began, to move slower. For three days, the 114 year old or so clock went along, dying just about at the beginning of the New Year. Fraught with metaphor this is (delve in, day dream, open up your mind.) I have stories and stories, superstitions and experiences, with clocks, time, watches and other similiar objects. In this situation I was simply reminded, one again, that everything changes, time marches on, creativity is a part of one’s (my life), every one and everything changes. Things and people die and others, born
Happy New Year and may it be filled with love, compassion, creativity,forgiveness and community.
Barbara Mahler
with Jamie Chandler and Jamie Graham..2012
Thoughts on Klein Technique tm Stretch and Placement
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Teaching, Studying, Being, Learning – Finding center.
Excerpts – “When she Stumbles” – Judson Church as part of Movement Research Presenting Series w Jamie Graham, Alissa Horowitz, Barbara Mahler
I teach almost daily, for more years than I would like to say, ! I move daily. I explore. I still come home to the work I have been studying and practicing since 1977, continually deepening my experience to better communicate to my students, and my dancers as well as to keep myself connected to all that matters.
Special acknowledgements to Dorothy Vislocky for being the force that brought me onto this crazy path called “dance/bodies/moving/seeing.”
My homes are Klein Technique, first certified teacher, contributor, student since 1977, and Zero Balancing, certified as faculty and practitioner since 1986.- Profound and deep thanks to Dr. Fritz Smith and Susan T Klein.
I am honored to be a recipient of a BAX 10 Award for Arts Education this year, 2013.
BERLIN- ah!
September once again brings me me back to in Berlin with a large and wonderfully diverse group of movers and shakers! It will be a fourth time with Felix Rukert and Schwelle 7, and my sixth time teaching in Berlin.
We work alone, in pairs. We are still, we move. We use imagery, anatomy, and draw on time and process.
I was surrounded by familiar faces, and new faces. The path to learning new ways to move and new ways to work to increase technical range and facility, prolong the length of one’s dancing/moving career by lessening pain, and increasing self knowledge as well as joy in the process is my aim.
Come join us in Berlin, or elsewhere in Europe, Canada or the US.
AHH!
Barbara Mahler 
