"It all about living and dancing from the inherent beauty of the body’s natural ability." - Marge Barstow, the first graduate of F. M. Alexander’s original training course in 1933.
Ballet
As you increase your awareness of your physical structure and your tendencies, you easily develop better habits for faster, more satisfying results, with fewer injuries.. Your body needs to last a lifetime and you want to surf your waves not hold muscle. Cross training strengthens your ballet or dance of any sort. Our ballet methodology is based on the fluid strength of circles and pendulums so natural to the body and once that is understood, then ballet is less strenuous, more organic and your line improves with less compromise to your body..
Modern
Gina Buntz’s workshops develop the movement methodology, “cooperative opposition,” where the torso works in a constant state flux: shoulders and hips maintain a vertical relationship to each other where the sternum/upper body softens, tail bone lengthens stretches simultaneously, thereby creating an ebb and flow articulation throughout the torso.
Unlike the yin/yang systems such as the contraction-release in Graham or the fall and recovery in Limon, where the body is in a moment of suspended animation, for cooperative opposition the torso sustains a perpetual motion of “precision and flow” in the vertical undulation that radiates out to the arms and legs. The process fosters a cyclical rhythm in the body where the legs ‘buoy’ the torso the arms respond in counter-stretch to this metrical propulsion.
The realization is that authentic movement has no beginning or end… it is continuous. Kinetic impulse flows and transfers from one of the body to the other. Energy and alignment work in concert to create an evolution of shapes that feed into the next moment with each gesture, shape and dynamic.
Traditional systems in modern dance are coupled with the pure geometry of classical ballet: the body defined as a stretched canvas which the landscape of the dancer’s physicality casts a unique terrain of contrasts that show both a dancer’s uniqueness and universal way of moving through various dance idioms.
Argentine Tango
Argentine Tango is the original form of tango that developed in the streets of Buenos Aires around 1870. Mostly created by immigrants that came to BsAs to escape economic hardship in other parts of the world. When they arrived in BsAs, they found that the conditions were no better there and most were unable to raise money to bring their families to join them. The music they wrote was melancholy, as was the dance that they did to it. Tango was considered a dance of the lower class and was not accepted by the middle class or elite of Argentina until many years later. Around 1910, Argentines discovered that the Parisians loved tango and, taking their cue from the French, began to embrace tango.
Tango continues to develop and is danced very differently today than it was more than a century ago but authentic Argentine tango retains it’s very unique and improvisational style to this day, both in how it is danced physically and with how it encourages musical interpretation. Though it sometimes strays from subtle connection, the essence of tango is conversation- a call and response, Tango is staying present in the moment and hearing thru listening.
Today, you find communities of Argentine Tango in every major city where you can attend ‘milongas’ and learn to dance tango the way it is danced in Buenos Aires.
See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5D_ZirP1B4&feature=youtu.be
“All I am trying to do is show a little bit of nothing and you are all trying to do something and that something is your habit.”
