Caravan of Dreams
Modern Dance in Seven Directions. For all levels, Teens & Adults. $15/class
Sundays 11 am -12:30 pm, MOVE Studio. Email mythmovement@live.com to receive schedule updates
You are invited to the somatic revolution.
MODERN DANCE … in the West began with Isadora Duncan and in the East with Japanese Butoh and in other places in other ways… and became a worldwide force for cultural change.
Both Isadora and Hijikata proposed a ‘new’ form of dance based on the restoration of ancient ancestral approaches. In this ancient-modern way, dance is primarily about exploring the meeting place of space, time and matter and expressing discoveries made there in a poetic language of moving-image.
Dance in this old-new way is our most expansive human language. It is poetic in essence. We need it for celebrating, grieving, and naming as well as communicating with non-human life.
To recover this dance, we often have to heal from our enculturation into dumbed-down interpretations of existence and get back to existence itself. We have to face the destructive shadows of our materialist and idealist culture, which directly impact our relationship to our own bodies. This means healing of the imagination and re-culturing of the body.
In this course you will experience the authentic modern dance of Isadora and Butoh, which have generally not become part of the university system of dance education. Authentic modern dance is completely different from the avant-garde ballet that system calls ‘modern dance.’
Laura Melling is an affiliate teacher and former company dancer with the Isadora Duncan International Institute. Her teacher was directly taught by Isadora’s daughters. She also trained and performed with Atsushi Takenouchi, who was a member of the original Hijikata butoh company. Laura began teaching and performing in 2003 and has extensive training in other fields, which you can read about here. She is also a somatic Jungian trauma therapist.