IntelliDANCE
13 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 16 years ago - ★★★★ - 2 ratingsIntelliDANCE is a space for dance professionals—educators, performers and choreographers—to explore their personal and professional growth and creative process. We gather here to post our insights and discoveries with respect to our shared experience studying the Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education and our commitment to integrate somatic strategies into our experiences in the dance studio.
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Episodes
Clarifying the Use of the Foot
April 24, 2008 15:25Greetings! Today's lesson, Clarifying the Use of the Foot, can help to improve the function of the foot. It is a personal favorite of mine and has many interesting applications in the dance studio. As the name suggests, it can be great for improving the stability of the standing foot and articulation of the working foot, but there are many other positive (and unexpected) effects that the lesson can bring about. For example, it can help to: 1) Reduce overuse of the thighs. 2) Help students c...
Just Up
January 01, 2008 17:10Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. We are going to start 2008 with a lesson that I really love. I call it Just Up. I have drawn the movement from a series of Awareness Through Movement® lessons that involve the use of oscillations. I like this lesson for dancers for many reasons. I especially like the way it helps dancers to experience the feeling of being pulled up, without triggering unnecessary tension in the body. I like it for another reason as wel...
Imagining
December 04, 2007 00:11Last week’s blog post and Podcast lesson were inspired by a lecture that Moshe Feldenkrais once gave, in which he discussed Nijinsky. We received a wonderful follow-up post from Daniel Gesmer. If you have not yet read Daniel’s comments, please go to the post titled “Jump Thoughts,” (Nov. 2007) and click the "comments link" at the end of the article. Daniel’s post got me thinking about the use of imagination in the Feldenkrais Method®. Specifically, how Awareness Through Movement® (ATM) lesso...
Jump Thoughts
November 26, 2007 17:08I have been working with the ideas and movement explorations in this week’s Podcast lesson for a number of years. I would like to share the background, for it has to do with a story I once heard about Nijinsky. When I was training to become a Feldenkrais® practitioner, the Educational Director of my program, David Zemach-Bersin, showed a video of a lecture given by Moshe Feldenkrais on Nijinsky. I was not able to obtain a transcript of the lecture, as it was under copyright, so I contacted D...
Taming the Wild Child
October 15, 2007 14:44I have a confession to make. Back in my pre-Feldenkrais® days, when I first started teaching dance, I worked primarily with children. One ballet class stands out in my memory, for it was one of those classes in which a number of the children just didn’t know how to focus. They were constantly talking or fooling around between combinations. One day, feeling totally exasperated and ready to loose patience, I said, “Ok, let's see who can hold their breath the longest.” Suddenly—there was silen...
Re-posting Podcast Link
October 12, 2007 15:37Hi Everyone, I am re-posting the podcast link for the October 8 lesson, Scoliosis and Supporting the Pattern, because for some reason it did not transmit to our iTunes subscribers. We are officially listed in the iTunes Directory, but may not show up in searches for a couple of weeks. You can access our link by clicking here. If you do go to the iTunes Store to subscribe, please consider posting a review! Here it is again: IntelliDANCE Podcast: Lesson 2
Alignment for Dancers—Part Two: Scoliosis and Supporting the Pattern
October 08, 2007 14:53In Part 1 of this article/audio combo, we addressed the lumbar, thoracic and cervical curvatures of the spine, which are vital to our ability to support ourselves in standing. Some of us, in fact many of us in dance, struggle with an unnatural curvature of the spine, which is called scoliosis. This is a lateral (or sideways) curvature that usually includes some degree of spinal rotation. For dancers, scoliosis is an imbalance at the very core of the body that can lead to unnecessary tension, ...
Alignment for Dancers—Part One: The Inside-Out Principle
October 01, 2007 19:02In dance, we have a constant companion—our reflection. Many of us are taught (both implicitly and explicitly) to evaluate our performance in class by what we see in the mirror. Over time, this visually oriented process instills an outside-in model for evaluating alignment—or placement—as it is more commonly referred to in dance class. In order to be effective, this model relies on informed seeing. Informed seeing requires knowledge of human anatomy and the ability to identify skeletal landmar...
IntelliDANCE Podcast Premier!
October 01, 2007 18:40Hold on to your iPods—the IntelliDANCE Podcast has arrived! I’ve been thinking about doing this for some time, but hadn’t really decided when or how. Then, when I was working on the previously promised recap of my presentation at the DanceLife Teacher Conference, it all came together. Since the presentation included two Awareness Through Movement® (ATM) lessons on alignment, and since ATM is best experienced by following verbal instruction (as opposed to written instruction), I realized that...
What I Did on my Summer Vacation
September 24, 2007 19:05Hello Everyone, It has been a busy and wonderfully productive summer for me—I hope for all of you as well. I took a break from writing (hence the quiet blog), but was busy teaching, thinking and planning. I was delighted to present a session at the DanceLife Teacher Conference 2007 at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston this past July. The conference, organized by Rhee Gold, brought together a teaching panel of leaders in various aspects of dance education and the dance studio business with over...
Mark Your Calendars for the July 07 Teleconference
June 25, 2007 17:45Hi Everyone, I have scheduled an IntelliDANCE Teleconference for Monday, July 16 and Tuesday, July 17, 2007 from 10:00 to 11:40 am Eastern Time. The registration deadline is Friday, July 13 at 12:00 noon, but space is limited, so please register early to secure your spot. If you want to get a head start, look for the preview of my new Podcast on the Kinesthetic Edge Welcome Page. It provides background information about the Feldenkrais Method and also includes a short lesson on breathing. ...
How It Started
March 09, 2007 16:50I had been dancing since early childhood and teaching dance for over 15 years when I was first introduced to the Feldenkrais Method®. What immediately drew my attention was the way it improved my comfort, organization and understanding of my own body and movement habits. I should probably mention that I was suffering terrible knee pain at that time and seemed destined for surgery. But from the first lesson, I felt steady improvement. Intrigued by my personal experience, I began introducing s...
Welcome to IntelliDANCE
March 02, 2007 16:32If two individuals get together and exchange a dollar, they each walk away with a dollar. If the same individuals get together and exchange an idea, they both walk away with two ideas. ~Thomas Jefferson I love that quote by Thomas Jefferson, and it gets at the very heart of what the IntelliDANCE Blog is all about. This is a place to share ideas. Our members are dance educators who are pursuing a course of study in the Feldenkrais Method of somatic education. They are classmates in the Intell...