Photographer: Ascaf
Classes
When: October - 17, 24, 31, 6-7pm, November - 7, 14, 21, 28, 6-7pm, December - 5, 12, 19 (at The Mill), 6-7pm, January - 2 (at The Mill) 6-7pm
Where: Adelaide College of The Arts, Level 3 Rehearsal Studio, 39 Light Square, Adelaide
Cost: $20
About the classes:
Gaga/people Classes are open to people ages 16+, regardless of their background in dance or movement. No previous dance experience is needed!
Gaga is the movement research developed by Ohad Naharin (ISRAEL) over many years, parallel to his work as a choreographer and the artistic director of Batsheva Dance Company.
Gaga/people classes last for one hour and are taught by dancers who have worked closely with Ohad Naharin.
What to expect:
Gaga/people classes offer a creative framework for participants to connect to their bodies and imaginations, increase their physical awareness, improve their flexibility and stamina, and experience the pleasure of movement in a welcoming, accepting atmosphere.
Teachers guide the participants using a series of evocative instructions that build one on top of the other. Rather than copying a particular movement, each participant in the class actively explores these instructions, discovering how he or she can interpret the information and perform the task at hand.
What to wear:
Participants should wear comfortable clothes and be prepared to dance barefoot or in socks.
About the teacher:
-
Lee Brummer is an independent choreographer, international guest teacher and educator based in Sweden. She studied at the Jerusalem Academy for music and dance in Israel where she also completed her BA and teaching degree in 2007. Lee has studied psychology, theatre and pilates alongside her career as a dancer and choreographer. Lee is a certified Gaga teacher.
Lee is the Associate Director and Co Founder of ilDance, an independent and international contemporary dance company and organisation based in Gothenburg, Sweden. Since 2016 Lee also manages GAGA SWEDEN under the umbrella of ilDance.
Lee danced with the Bat Dor Dance Company (Israel), The Emanuel Gat Dance Company (Israel) and with various independent choreographers across Europe. She has worked as choreographer's assistant in a variety of dance productions and musicals in Sweden and abroad.
Over the years Brummer has been teaching and working with companies such as: DV8, Australian Dance Theatre, Sydney Dance Company, National Dance Company Wales and Norrdans to name a few. She has been guest teaching at open professional classes, schools and universities worldwide and has been choreographing her own work within different international structures since 2010.
-
Gaga provides a framework for discovering and strengthening the body and adding flexibility, stamina, agility, and skills including coordination and efficiency while stimulating the senses and imagination. The classes offer a workout that investigates form, speed, and effort while traversing additional spectrums such as those between soft and thick textures, delicacy and explosive power, and understatement and exaggeration. Participants awaken numb areas, increase their awareness of habits, and improve their efficiency of movement inside multilayered tasks, and they are encouraged to connect to pleasure inside moments of effort. The research of Gaga is in a continual process of evolution, and the classes vary and develop accordingly.
“We are aware of the connection between effort and pleasure, we are aware of the distance between our body parts, we are aware of the friction between flesh and bones, we sense the weight of our body parts, yet, our form is not shaped by gravity . . . We are aware of where we hold unnecessary tension, we let go only to bring life and efficient movement to where we let go . . . We are turning on the volume of listening to our body, we appreciate small gestures, we are measuring and playing with the texture of our flesh and skin, we might be silly, we can laugh at ourselves. We connect to the sense of “plenty of time,” especially when we move fast, we learn to love our sweat, we discover our passion to move and connect it to effort, we discover both the animal we are and the power of our imagination. We are “body builders with a soft spine.”
We learn to appreciate understatement and exaggeration, we become more delicate and we recognize the importance of the flow of energy and information through our body in all directions. We learn to apply our force in an efficient way and we learn to use “other” forces.
We discover the advantage of soft flesh and sensitive hands, we learn to connect to groove even when there is no music.
We are aware of people in the room and we realize that we are not in the center of it all. We become more aware of our form since we never look at ourselves in a mirror; there are no mirrors. We connect to the sense of the endlessness of possibilities. Yielding is constant while we are ready to snap . . .
We explore multi-dimensional movement, we enjoy the burning sensation in our muscles, we are aware of our explosive power and sometimes we use it. We change our movement habits by finding new ones, we can be calm and alert at once.
We become available . . .”
Ohad Naharin
Lee Brummer Gaga/people teacher, Adelaide.