teaching

teaching statement

My teaching practice is predicated on the notion that dance belongs to everyone. It is a right, not a privilege, and while many unjust barriers to dance do exist, I am committed to practices of dismantling those barriers. This is the basis for my unrelenting faith in every mover I encounter. It is through this cherished faith that I seek to support the development of each student’s inherent magical dancing self through dance education.

Dance education offers a resource that many of us are severely lacking within the structures of contemporary life, the resource of embodiment. Amidst Cartesian socioeconomic structures that prioritize the mind over the body, I seek to make room for embodied living to breathe and be celebrated. The ephemeral event of “dance class” is a sacred space where we dedicate ourselves to embodiment. It is a place where we seek to understand these bodies we spend our lives in, expand our notions of how we can use them, as well as cultivate embodied relationships of care with one another.

In my classes I utilize prompts, discussions, scores, and set material so that we may engage with the materialities, the mysteries, the energies, the impulses, the patterns, of the bodies. Creative experimentation and compositional thinking are welcome, as I hope that my classes can be a space for the creative self to be nourished, challenged, attended to. 

I work in opposition to the notion that dance happens in a vacuum. I believe that dance is a vital part of existence, and vice versa, and thus I welcome interdisciplinary practice in my teaching. I teach in a way that honors the lives students lead, the places they occupy, the knowledge they hold, and the challenges they face, in and out of class.

I believe that cultivating an atmosphere of safety and trust is vital for learning and vulnerable creative expression. I manifest this in my classroom by building trust between myself and students, as well as fostering an environment of mutual support among students. I affirm students’ agency, and their ability to choose how to approach (or not approach) any prompts given. The adage “be careful with each other so we can be dangerous together” rings true in my classes, as we holde collective responsibility for maintaining a safe space so that bold risks can be taken. 

My classes often draw from my own training in a variety of classical and contemporary dance styles, including Cunningham, Taylor, Trisha Brown and Release technique, ballet, and a variety of improvisational frameworks. My experiences teaching in Waldorf and Montessori schools has also influenced my teaching style, particularly in the aspects of experiential learning, self-efficacy, and developing mind, body, and spirit in equal measure. 

teaching projects

poster design by K. Annie Bingham

poster design by Sophie Teachout

While living in Essex, NY in the summer of 2023, I developed and lead a series of open movement workshops, called “Reber Rock Rumblings”. I welcomed community members to join me in movement practice, meandering through various sites at Reber Rock Farm. During these workshops I would share the movement research I was doing on the farm, concerning relationality, ecology, gratitude, and horizontality. Participants and I became co-researchers, investigating those ideas collectively.

Vernal Pools began as a research project on the intersection of movement practice and ecological consciousness as a part of my coursework in a class called “Care Work and Climate Adaptation”. I studied ways that movement practice can manifest as care for the self, for the collective, and the living world. I synthesized this research with my own experiences in embodied study to develop practices that I would share in a workshop format with peers, at various locations on our college campus.