SOULOWORKS/Andrea E. Woods & DANCERS

Classes and Workshops

Modern Technique • Dance & Percussion • Zena Rommett Floor-Barre Technique® • Dance For the Camera

 

Woods is available as a guest teacher or choreographer and for master classes and residencies. See CALENDAR for dates and locations. aewoodsv@gmail.com

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Teaching Mission

The primary excitement of dance is the human body in motion.  Everything from physical and emotional to intellectual and spiritual sensation is perceived, translated and expressed through the body. This is the delicate yet complex landscape we choose to explore as dancers. Teaching, which is also about learning and observing, brings me great satisfaction and joy because, as we commit to entering the studio/stage/beach/gym/basement space that we call our classroom, we choose to honor the world where the body is both sacred and dynamic. The classroom is a lab where we are protected yet free.  Teaching is an opportunity to facilitate an environment for making movement and enriching the body's physical and kinesthetic resources.

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I teach dance with an emphasis on: internal and musical rhythm, weight, balance, energy changes, speed, tranquility, exhilaration and rest. Movement concepts from the African and Caribbean Diaspora dance as well as modern and post-modern forms have informed my dance experience.  My class is a cohesive movement system that honors those traditions and movement styles.  I have developed a movement system that is codified yet evolves over time. Discovering organic and earthy sensibilities in class includes recognizing ourselves as individuals within the community/group. Everything we need in the quest for movement sensation is already contained within. 

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Modern Dance Technique Class 

Andrea E. Woods/technique class is an independent dancer/choreographer/teacher and artistic director of SOULOWORKS/Andrea E. Woods & Dancers.  She is a former dancer/rehearsal director with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Co. and teaches modern dance technique with a strong rhythmic physicality and organic, subtle movement based on her unique movement invention which is informed by her work Bill T. Jones, SOULOWORKS repertory and dance reflective of the African Diaspora social and cultural experience.

 

Dance and Percussion Class - This is a modern dance based dance class that incorporates playing percussion (shekere and clavé) and learning basic percussion rhythms. Students dance while playing the rhythms and also accompany one another.  Dancers become musicians so that  we "Make a joyful noise" together. Shekeres provided. No musical experience necessary.

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Zena Rommett Floor-Barre Technique®*

Zena Rommett revolutionized dance training with her gentle, yet highly effective, therapeutic method. Floor-Barre® utilizes the floor, without the pressure of gravity, to correct and refine body alignment, strengthen joints, as well as addressing muscular-skeletal functions.  Woods Valdés is a certified Zena Rommett Floor-Barre® instructor.

*Floor-Barre® is a registered trademark of Camille Rommett

https://www.floor-barre.org/

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Dance for the Camera Lecture-Demonstration

Woods presents several of her videodance works and engages audience in discussion regarding:  the creative and technical process, aesthetics, concepts and themes represented in the work.  Audience may participate in informal visual exercises which are used to bring awareness to "seeing" more deeply into the works.  With adequate time and space Woods may perform a short work accompanied by video.  Works by other video artists may be screened as well.  See Media Link for work samples.

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