YES AND… An Improvisation/Freestyle Workshop Series
with
Amy O’Neal
MAR 12-17
Improvisation vs Freestyle? What are the similarities and differences? This workshop series will dig into this juicy conversation through sharing movement concepts from hip hop party dances, house, and contemporary dance. You don’t have to have experience in all of these forms to participate. The concepts shared can be explored through any dance form or style. Amy O’s influences come from underground street and club dance culture and contemporary performance where conceptual experimentation with movement, music, and world building are central, not commercial dance routines. Come learn perspective outside of your own by being in space with folks with different experiences and points of view!
SCHEDULE OF THE WEEK:
TUE, MAR 12 | 6-9 pm: Improvisation/Freestyle Methods Drop in Workshop
FRI, MAR 15 | 6-9 pm: Facilitated Class + Open Session
SAT + SUN, MAR 16-17 | 11am-2 pm: Improvisation/Freestyle/Dance Making
PRICING:
Full Workshop | $100
3-hour Class | $35
1-hour Facilitated Class | $15
Open Session | $5
CLASS DESCRIPTIONS
TUESDAY
FRIDAY
SAT + SUN
ARTIST BIOS
Amy O’Neal is a dancer, choreographer, curator, and dance educator. A sought-after artist for over two decades, she teaches and performs nationally and internationally and choreographs for live performance, dance film, music video and virtual reality. From 2010 until now, she creates experimental dance work merging Black social dance practices from hip-hop and house culture and contemporary dance while directly addressing race, gender and the sampling nature of innovation. She premiered her first evening-length solo in 2012 for Velocity Dance Center’s first Made in Seattle program, where she examined her influences, questioned her relationship to Blackness as a white woman, and paid homage to her teachers and dance heroes. As a practicing guest of Black dance culture, she has participated in experimental and all-styles battles in NYC, San Francisco, and Seattle, co-organized and co-produced Seattle House Dance Project, and developed hip-hop curriculum for the University of Washington. Her passion and research meet at the intersection of the hip-hop, house and contemporary dance communities. Within this intersection she explores the complex differences, nuances and layers of hybridized movement vocabularies.
In 2016 Amy relocated to Los Angeles and started The Rhythm Assembly, a freestyle techniques class merging the social and exploratory natures of hip-hop and contemporary dance. She joined the faculty of the University of Southern California Glorya Kaufman School of Dance in 2018 where she teaches hip-hop, house and freestyle techniques, composition and improvisation, contemporary dance, and lectures on Black social dance history, practice, and media literacy. Amy started The Hybrid Lab: Conversations in Merging Dance Cultures in Los Angeles in 2019 as part of the LAX Festival produced by Los Angeles Performance Practices. She feels the most at peace when she can embody her full human experience as an artist and is passionate about creating space for others to do the same.
Friday Facilitated Open Session is an hour of facilitated warm up and improvisation/freestyle concepts followed by two hours of open space to play socially with the ideas and integrate them into your practice. Come for part or all of this session based on what you need.
Tuesday Improvisation/Freestyle Methods consists of a follow along functional movement tune up to activate essential patterns in the body in order to express with efficiency and strength. This practice then leads into improvisation concepts that Amy has developed through her work as a contemporary choreographer and street dance practitioner for multiple decades. We will explore similarities in approaches from both dance worlds while honoring and holding differences. We will experiment with different cultural perceptions of rhythm, abstraction, and play.
Saturday and Sunday Improvisation/Freestyle/Dance Making Workshops will build on improvisation concepts as spontaneous composition and set composition. We will discuss the different mindsets of creating for and participating in different performance contexts: experimental theater performance, concert dance, battles, and cyphers. You don’t have to have experience in all of these contexts to participate in this workshop. Come with an open mind to understand the differences in these contexts and learn to appreciate, create, and advocate for yourself and other dance communities.