Classes and Workshops Klein Technique™ w Barbara Mahler

photo by Alice Garrick

UpComing Workshops include: click here for calendar

workshop took place in Santiago, Chile  September 28-October 3 2016

From  my  own process in integrating, changing, relearning, letting go and embodying research, I have developed my own unique teaching style, drawn from my  continuing research of the body in motion, and  37years of teaching my ideas and experience of Klein Technique™.  A large component of the passions of Irmgard Bartenieff, Colette Barry, Dr. Fritz Smith, Dorothy Vislocky, along with the brilliance of Susan Klein, are deeply interwoven into the work I have come to embody, and to love.

Professor Dorothy Vislocky, (my time with her company and teaching) 1971-1981, was the creator of the Dance Major and it’s curriculum at Hunter College, NYC. She was my first initiation into thoughts of re-doing, the pelvis – it’s alignment in relationship to technical development and facility.  From her, I first heard the words “let go.” At that time in my studies it was not an easily understood experience.   Our reading material in our college dance classes were not the usual dance books.  “Zen and the Art of Archery,” the Carlos Castenada stories, and books on how perspectives affect our movement, and moving selves in the world. She was  a pioneer dance kinesiologist, choreographer, visual artist, dancer; a major and deep influence.

These influences, along with movement of all styles and genres come into  my classes and workshops, along with the perspectives and information I have gained from my own movement re-education; my 3o plus years of teaching, dancing, learning and changing.

“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)

Feature Article in DANCE TEACHER MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2017…click the link below.

http://www.dance-teacher.com/2017/01/barbara-mahler-teach-klein-technique/

“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!

COMING UP!!!

May 12-14 Minneapolis…Contact Wendy Ruble…wendyruble@gmail.com

June 3-4 Greene Street Studios, Cambridge,MASS…contact molly@greenstreetstudios.org

SUMMER MELT WITH MOVEMENT RESEARCH, NYC ! week of July 17 1-3, 2017…10th annual workshop

Berlin-September 2017

OCTOBER 19-22 2017…Contact Marcela Ortiz at danzaotux@gmail.com

http://www.horse.org.twTaipei, Taiwan with Horse….June 28-July 3 —RETURN SCHEDULED FOR JUNE 24 2017 …contact:horse.info1@gmail.com

www.tqw.at   Tanzquartier offers training and workshops for professional contemporary dancers, so it is a post-graduated dance place. The dancers are experienced in somatic approaches. 2015

Limerick, Ireland March29-April 1  2015  www.dancelimerick.ie

Minneapolis  MN   May 19-21 and returning December 9-11  2016, returning May 12014, 2017 contact   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

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”.

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 begining again (11 years!!) Thursday September 8  www.movementresearch.org

SATURDAY Morning: 1130-1 Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Clinton Hill Beginning Saturday April 8.- June 24

FRIDAY Morning 10-12 . Dance Technique 280 Broadway at Gibney Studios/ Movement Research beginning September 9 —— This is a movement class/Barre : Our time in this class will be devoted to the application of the essential principles of Klein Technique TM as it relates to moving in a non-pedestrian way. The class facilitates fuller use of the ball and socket joints and their figure 8’s. We work with a barre using simple phrases for clear use of legs, trunk, and shoulder girdle/arms, connecting to the earth with the diagonals, pelvis, and legs. Across-the-floor work aids in integrating us to the space around us. The class is aimed at the integration of movement/dance with the principles of the stretch and placement classes – efficiency, connection, articulation, grounding, clarity.

The basic exercises we do in daily class are aimed at bringing a better alignment and relationship to the lower back and pelvis, working towards transmitting weight and “Energy (movement” between the upper body and the lower, through the sacrum to the hip joints and the legs.  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 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.Through the deep connections within the pelvis, – the psoas, the pelvic floor, the external rotators, and the hamstrings (sitz bones to the heels):  the muscles of deep support which right the pelvis on top of the legs and connect us to the earth, we gain power and strength, we become grounded, and find our own innate body intelligence, often facilitating deep and profound change on many levels. We push into the earth for both uprightness and movement; we find our power. The spine and upper body become free to move with ease and expression. We add clarity of direction in the body, through the bones to help override what no longer serves us. We integrate the upper and lower connections in a non-linear way, again, interweaving theory and movement. Everything exists in relationship; everything affects everything else. We work to let go of the outer muscles which hold our bodies (and minds) in misalignment and misconception, inhibiting our function, creativity, and well being.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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Through the vehicle of daily class we work to make conscious the patterns and choices that are  unknown to us, thereby creating the opportunity to chose. We are working towards a more cohesive integration of body and mind, based on the principles of change, possibilities and a better functioning body..

COMING WORKSHOPS :

SOME RECENT PERFORMANCES AND WORKSHOPS

RAD Festival, the annual dance festival in Kalamazoo, MI…March 9-12 2017

Santa Barbara and LA, November 2016 with ART BARK INTERNATIONAL

Queensboro Dance Festival at The Little Secret Theater October 2016

25th Anniversary of Movement Research at Judson Church..September 12 2017

DANCES at University Settlement House, an evening of Dances curated by Craig H Zara June 2016

Performance MIX 30 anniversary celebration at Abrams Arts Center June 2016

Dance and Process at the Kitchen w Karen Bernard May 2016

Four at Four…Four choreographers April 10, 2016 at Dance Entropy/Green Space, LIC

Brooklyn Studios for Dance December 2015

Schwelle, Berlin Germany annually 201o-2015….Thank you Felix Ruckert!!!

School for Modern Dance in Copenhagen Denmark…annually 1994 – 2015

Yasmeen Godder and company/community – Jaffa Israel September 2015

Independent Dance Agency – London, England October 2015,14

LIFT-OFF Space Residency with New Dance Alliance August 2015

THE PLACE , Maryland   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

Santiago and Valparisso, Chile…2011…Government Arts Funding

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

To further integrate and experience the possibilities which are open to all of us in a workshop, and for each workshop to address the specific needs of the group, there is the additional construct of  improvisation, dance technique, choreography, and any other  creative process for further integration of these principles into one’s unique movement practice. Workshops are created for specific situations and group dynamics.

Iceland, 2012