OPEN COMPANY CLASS w/Charles Slender

San Francisco Conservatory of Dance

$5

Tuesday               2pm              February 21

Thursday             2pm              February 23

Monday                5:30pm        February 27

Tuesday               2pm              February 28

Thursday             2pm              March 1
Tuesday               2pm              March 6
Thursday             2pm              March 8
Monday                5pm              March 19
Monday                5pm              March 26
Tuesday               2pm              March 27
Thursday             2pm              March 29

Teaching philosophy: I teach dance technique 1.) to provide dancers with a safe space to explore the possibilities of movement and 2.) to challenge dancers to develop an astute awareness of their bodies, thought processes, and relationships to space.  Dancers in my class work towards liberating their bodies by utilizing a variety of tools and concepts from ballet and release techniques, all aimed at promoting a healthy practice of moving largely, articulately, and efficiently.

Charles Slender’s contemporary technique class is based on the principles of classical ballet and release techniques. He combines these practices with the intention of sharing methods for safe, dynamic, and legible movement that utilize quick direction changes and qualitative shifts. By developing a voluminous awareness of the joints, dancers have the opportunity to push past their own boundaries to create massive dancing that is both strong and liberated.

Class begins with exercises to orient, awaken and warm up the body and continues with a series that roughly follows the map of a classical ballet class with pliés, tendus, dégagés, rond de jambes and more. Class culminates in a combination that is technically challenging and viscerally expressive. Those who are fans of FACT/SF, Lines Ballet, Forsythe, Nederlands Dans Theater, Anouk van Dijk, etc., will find this class a challenging and satisfying training opportunity.

Charles Slender, Artistic Director of FACT/SF, has worked as a dance artist — performing, teaching, and choreographing — in Hong Kong and Mexico, and throughout Europe, the United States, and Russia, where he lived from 2006 to 2008. His choreography has been described as “whip smart and sinuously stealth” and as a “balance on the edge of kitsch and something more serious; paradoxical and interesting.” Charles graduated from UC Berkeley with degrees in both English Literature and Dance and Performance Studies; his primary interests include subconsciousness, passive-aggression, and proximity.

For more information, email info@factsf.org