Morning Trainings for Dance and Performance Artists in November

Throughout the month, the Zagreb Dance Center continues with traditional morning practices for dance and performance artists – Roberta Milevoj, Ana Jelušić, Mia Štark and Silvija Musić present their training programs for everyone hoping to improve their dance skills. The training sessions are free of charge, but spots need to be reserved, by writing to: info@zagrebackiplesnicentar.hr.

DANCE IMPROVISATION by ROBERTA MILEVOJ
4/11 – 8/11, 10:00am – 11:30am, ZPC Grey Studio
During the classes, we will focus on the exploration of our own dance experience and the interpretation of the proposed content through improvisation. We will find ways that help us stay in the moment while we dance, aware of the activity of the inner (bodily) experience, as well as its outer manifestation in a three-dimensional environment.
We will explore different elements of movement support (breath, grounding, body connections, touch, rhythm, space, etc.) that we use as the foundation for comprehensive application in movement and dance. We will observe the body as a communication mechanism that constantly produces movement and emits it into space through different individual or group impulses, imaginative stimuli or bodily actions. We will rely on the inseparability of set factors and the ways in which we can recognise, contemplate, and apply dance material in creating improvisation.
These classes serve to produce and highlight the importance of accepting the knowledge that comes from one’s own experience of movement – movement research – and highlight the development of one’s own dance vocabulary based on the experience and the interpretation of the received instructions and specific improvisational-compositional tools.

JUST DANCE by ANA JELUŠIĆ
11/11- 15/11, 10:00am – 11:30am, ZPC Grey Studio
In this practice, we will deal solely with dance. Based on the premise that movement, sensation, emotion and thought are constantly connected and simultaneous, through continuous movement by which we attune to ourselves, we will focus on a single aspect every day. Separating and then summarising these aspects, we will deal with dancing as thinking that possesses its own logic and stands in contrast to cognitive thinking. We will open up a space for dance, almost as a means of divination, to reveal to us what we experience, individually and collectively, and to be a generative tool in discovering our own interests.

MUSCLE TENSION WITHIN FLOW
18/11 – 22/11, 10:00am – 11:30am, ZPC Grey Studio
We approach the body as a connected system where, through certain exercises, we investigate how the movement of one part of the body (in)directly affects the movement of other parts. Shifting weight from one focal point to another helps us become more attuned to the moments with the greatest potential for a particular movement.
We continue practicing this vigilance through improvisation, which makes us more precise in our movements and creates a better and more efficient use of weight as a force in the kinetic chain of motion. We try to perform tasks that focus on muscle activation over a longer period of time, which we then reduce to shorter intervals. This way, we work on purposeful increase, as well as the release of muscle tension in order to better sense our weight and gravity. We play with this idea in different parts of the body and in different rhythms.
Finally, we shift our focus to facial muscles and explore them in relation to the rest of the body. We finish with the set material, with which we a gradient the polyrhythmic movement formed by activating and releasing the tension of certain (groups of) muscles.

SOMATIKUM PRACTICUM
25/11 – 29/11, 10:00am – 11:30am, ZPC Grey Studio
Lessons consist of: 25% somatic research, 15% visualisation, 15% dance sequences, 20% anatomical research, 15% improvisation, and 10% warming up and calming down.
Bodily connectedness, somatic approaches, and freedom of movement and dancing (or simply standing still). The classes are based on the exploration of anatomy, the possibilities and impossibilities of our bodies. The focus is on the connection between the complex anatomical system and the experience of movement, finding one’s own limits and breaking through them.