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Core Dance

Morning Class

Led by established, progressive dance artists, Morning Class is offered to the community for $10 per class.  Registration and payment must be made online before class time. Any questions or concerns, please contact outreach@coredance.org.

Morning Class for Spring 2024 include:

Mondays: Yoga for the Moving Body with Amelia Reiser

Tuesdays: Somatic Inquiry and Contemporary Technique with Ashlee Ramsey

Wednesdays: Capoeira with Professor Dandley

Thursdays and Fridays: Contemporary Modern Technique with Kristin O'Neal

Special guest instructors are noted within the calendar.

Sign up through the calendar below. Click on the date for the registration link.

NOTICE :  Advance registration is required. All attendees must follow the instructions of the class leader with regard to masking. Hand sanitizer is available in the studio and each studio is equipped with a high-powered air cleaner. The HVAC system has also been upgraded to clean and sanitize the air.

Core Dance Morning Class Faculty
Amelia Reiser
Yoga for the Moving Body

Atlanta based movement artist Amelia Reiser, a native of Oklahoma, started
training at a young age at The Classical Ballet Academy. Amelia went on to attend The University of Georgia (UGA) where she completed a BFA in Dance
Performance in 2011. She spent time living in Ireland after graduation working with local artists through an internship with Athlone Arts and Heritage and collaborated on a dance film with visual artist Lesley Wingfiled titled Waters and the Wild (2011). Over her 25+ years of performing and creating, Amelia has had the opportunity to work with numerous dance-makers and artists including T Lang Dance, Nick Cave, Maryn Whitmore, Erik Thurmond, Christina Noel Reaves, Lesley Wingfield, Emily Christianson, Sara Santamaria, Greg Catellier, and George Staib. Her most recent work includes “Sheltered in Place” (2020) in collaboration with sculptor Sara Santamaria presented by Creatives Project and DriveThru ATL, and “pinion” (2021) a solo work in process shown at Excuse The Art presented by Fly on a Wall. Since 2013, Amelia has been a collaborative company member of Staibdance in Atlanta, GA. In addition to creating and performing, Amelia teaches yoga at Tough Love Yoga and Emory Healthcare, and is a trauma informed yoga and mindfulness teacher working with incarcerated youth through local nonprofit Centering Youth. An avid lover of dramatic skies, wild mountains, and trees, Amelia spends most spare moments in her garden, or escaping the city in search of adventure and wilderness.

Class Description:  A creative and mindful approach to increasing strength, flexibility, stability, and balance. This practice is structured for the rigor of professional dancers, and also is accessible to anyone who experiences movement as a part of their lives (hint: we all do!) Incorporating pranayama techniques (breath work) adds awareness, core stability, and lung capacity for increased stamina in performance. Using the nervous system as a guide, this class will have a balance of exertion and rest, layering creative imagining and clarity in the present moment.

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Ashlee Ramsey
Somatic Inquiry and Contemporary Technique

Grounded in the perspective that dance-making lives in the primal, physical, emotional and spiritual consciousness of all humans, Ms. Ramsey-Borunov’s artistic focus centers on collaboration, community participation and making dance available as a creative practice for all people. Ms. Ramsey-Borunov has shown work, performed or taught in North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, Arizona, Austria, the U.K. and India. Her experience as an educator includes teaching dance and yoga courses at Elon University, Wake Forest University, Winthrop University, and Salem College, and she holds a teacher certification with DanceAbility International. Ms. Ramsey-Borunov has been published in the international academic periodical, Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices (2011) and has presented work or research at the NDEO National Conference, The Fifth Annual Somatic Dance Conference and Performance Festival, and Elon University’s Intersect Diversity and Leadership Conference. Currently working in Atlanta, GA, Ms. Ramsey-Borunov performs with Full Radius Dance, a physically integrated professional dance company; Beacon Dance, a performing arts collective focusing on issues of social justice, equality and activism; and as a teacher with CORE Dance’s Dynamic X-Change program that connects under-resourced communities with movement and art as mediums for creative expression. 

Class Description: 

With a foundational premise that a mover is their greatest teacher, this class weaves somatic modalities into dance technique training to foster deep kinesthetic awareness and experiential investigation of concepts. Through a combination of choreographed sequences and improvisational explorations and bodywork, we will engage in movement activities that inform efficient function and creative expression, develop spinal mobility and fluidity, prime the body-mind’s fundamental patterns of connectivity, play with gravity, ride momentum through fascial elasticity and alter the vertical, upright perspective.

Professor Dandley
Capoeira

With more than 20 years of experience training and teaching capoeira, Professor Dandley, a member of Capoeira Maculelê and a capoeira world champion has helped to build a strong and energetic community of students that reflects the rich physical, social, mental, and spiritual elements of the art. Professor Dandley has taught capoeira for over 15 years. His approach encourages discipline, focus, and respect in students and immerses them in Brazilian music, language, and culture. His belief in the positive, lasting impact of capoeira on all aspects of a capoeirista's life permeates his classes.

Class Description: 

These are ongoing classes where anyone can join, no previous experience necessary. It covers all aspects of Capoeira; martial-arts, dance, music, acrobatics, culture, language and more. It focuses on developing the students rhythm, reflexes, balance, coordination and increasing strength and flexibility as they learn. All the necessary skills are taught in class.

We recommend this class for anyone wanting to start in the art of Capoeira. Class prepares each student at their own pace to join into our beginner Capoeira lessons in which they will start getting a better understanding of the art. You will work on basic steps of Capoeira; Ginga, Esquivas, Attack / Defence / Counter-attacks, dance elements, musical skills, and basic acrobatics. Should you wish to go further than just basics, you should then join our Beginner class to start progressing through the different levels of Capoeira. Capoeira is a great form of fitness and exercise that works not only your whole body, but also your mind.

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Mestre Fran
Capoeira

Mestre Fran (Francisco Da Silva) is the founder of Maculelê-Capoeira. He began Capoeira in 1976 under the renowned Mestre Bradesco. 2022 marks his 20th year teaching Capoeira in the US. He has focused on awakening the talents of his students, elevating the awareness of society, and encouraging the practice of Capoeira as an art, fight, and a means of social, cultural, and athletic integration. Mestre Fran is constantly researching capoeira and improving his style. Today, anyone would agree that Mestre Fran has succeeded in these endeavors. He has taken his passion and shared it with thousands of people all over the world and, unintentionally, Mestre Fran has created a reputation as one of the greatest Capoeira Mestres and maintains international recognition for his accomplishments in the field.

Class Description: 

These are ongoing classes where anyone can join, no previous experience necessary. It covers all aspects of Capoeira; martial-arts, dance, music, acrobatics, culture, language and more. It focuses on developing the students rhythm, reflexes, balance, coordination and increasing strength and flexibility as they learn. All the necessary skills are taught in class.

We recommend this class for anyone wanting to start in the art of Capoeira. Class prepares each student at their own pace to join into our beginner Capoeira lessons in which they will start getting a better understanding of the art. You will work on basic steps of Capoeira; Ginga, Esquivas, Attack / Defence / Counter-attacks, dance elements, musical skills, and basic acrobatics. Should you wish to go further than just basics, you should then join our Beginner class to start progressing through the different levels of Capoeira. Capoeira is a great form of fitness and exercise that works not only your whole body, but also your mind.

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Kristin O'Neal
Contemporary Modern Technique

Kristin O’Neal is a performer, teacher and choreographer residing in Atlanta,
GA. She received her MFA in Dance from Hollins University/ADF where she began her research of solo performance and character creation. Her character investigations led to an unfolding series of solos inspired by the lives of her grandmothers, Glenna and Dorothy, as well as aunts and great aunts named June, Helen, Diane, Constance and Nell. Many of these solos live in the repertoire of Sarasota Contemporary Dance in Florida. Early in her career while dancing with Gerri Houlihan, Kristin discovered a love of site work alongside choreographers Dale Andree and Heidi Duckler, which led to performances in various sites, including avocado groves, restaurants, galleries, hotels, and any water resource imaginable. Kristin’s long-time relationship with Andree led her to assist in the operations of Andree’s National Water Dance, which first started as the Florida Waterways Dance Project in 2011. Kristin has been deeply involved with the Bates Dance Festival since 2007 where she has worked consistently as Box Office Manager, participated in its rich community of colleagues & participants, and
taught for the Young Dancers Intensive. Kristin has worked as rehearsal assistant for many visiting artists at the University of Florida and Emory University and worked as rehearsal director for Core Dance in Atlanta. Kristin teaches varying levels of Contemporary Modern, Movement Improvisation, and co-teaches Contact Improvisation at Emory University with her husband, Greg Catellier, with whom she also collaborates in curious dance-making. An avid practitioner of Contact Improvisation, Kristin enjoys organizing CI Jams, classes and workshops for the Atlanta community.

Photo by Christina J. Massad

Class Description: Geared for the intermediate to professional mover who enjoys deepening and clarifying alignment/technique through somatic lenses, we will warm our way from the floor investigating our bodies’ nuances that morning considering the weight of our bones to activate deep core muscles.  Solo Contact Improvisation concepts will invite ease and efficiency while conditioning thoughtfully, readying the body for a myriad of delightful possibilities that contemporary modern dance asks of us.  We will consider all surfaces of our bodies in contact with the floor, noticing anchor points of stability to find freedom of movement in our joints and in space while sliding, swinging, floating, falling, pouring, gliding and all the things that inspire us along the way.  Pants, kneepads and long-sleeved shirt encouraged.

Guest Faculty
Marco Casagrande & Nicolò Giorgini 

The artistic duo casagrande // giorgini was born in 2019 founded by Marco Casagrande and Nicolò Giorgini. Their first work "CUM-LAEDERE" is selected by the "Residanza B-Side" action of "Movimento Danza" and debuts in the "Resid'And" review of the National Academy of Dance in Rome. Together they participate in the project "Dancescapes-in a Landscape" of the Associazione Danza Urbana, starting the search for their latest work "DOT". In 2022 this work was selected by “Alloggiando Art Fest”, “Centre for Choreographic Development SE.S.TA” (Czech Republic), and by the tender “FLIC25–Spazio ai Giovani!”. They are currently part of the CIMD's "Incubator for future * coreograf *" path.

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Class Description: Starting from the research of the "DOT" Project, we will analyze together the main aspects and practices that move this work.

 

The question from which it all begins is, "What would happen if a body was catapulted into a new system apparently foreign to common perception?"

 

Starting from the analysis of celestial bodies and black holes, we will focus on the two types of orbital motions - of rotation and revolution - to construct a motion practice that relates bodies during a continuous state of free fall in space.

 

Through the motion of rotation we will go through the many possibilities of transformation that the body may encounter through its different points of activation.

 

The motion of revolution, on the other hand, will help us seek a careful state of alertness between bodies to maintain balance and never collapse the relationship system.

 

The desire is to develop a singular ecosystem within which the bodies have a perennial capacity for transformation with a multidirectional orientation, in order to generate continuous sudden and surprising shifts in perspective.

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Natalia Chylinska and Katarzyna Pastuszak
Fungi: a remedy for the body-in-crisis

Natalia Chylinska is an artist of Amareya Theater & Guests, vice-president of the Amareya Art Association, and a two-time scholarship holder of the City of Gdańsk. In artistic activities, he moves between work (with) body/movement, text, sound, and visual material. Recent performances and projects: “Anatomie” (2021), “Dom-Bieg-Dom” 『家 - 逃亡 -家』 (2020), “(Po) voices: Bridges between Poland and Japan“ (2019), “As part of the dance: Wrzeszcz “(2021),“ Anatomy of a Process“ as part of the Cultural Scholarship of the City of Gdańsk“, “Invisible Cities 3.0”, movement workshops for people with Parkinson’s disease, Amareya_LAB workshops. She collaborates with Menoko Mosmos (Ainu Women’s Association in Sapporo) and Prof. Hiroshi Maruyama (CEMiPoS), co-creating performances with the participation of Ainu women.

Katarzyna Pastuszak (Poland) - dancer/performer, choreographer, and artistic director of Amareya Theatre & Guests, adjunct and lecturer at the Department of Performing Arts (IAiA - University of Gdańsk), member of Between. Pomiędzy Research Group (UG), member of CEMiPoS (Centre for Environmental and Minority Policy Studies, Sapporo). Holder of numerous artistic scholarships. Her performances were presented, among others, in Japan, Greenland, Norway, Turkey, Israel, Germany, France, and Poland. She also collaborates with the Ainu Women's Association (Sapporo) - artistic projects with Ainu women and with the Park ON Association (Poland) - conducting dance workshops for PD patients.

Class Description: In this workshop, we will explore the body’s ability to adapt to a changing environment. Using choreographic scores, we will explore the possibilities of transforming ourselves into an open communication network. We will stretch time and change our sense of scale by deepening our awareness based on micro/experiential experiences. Can the mushrooms show us new ways to communicate and coexist? Can they guide us in our search for a posthumanist sensibility and a non-narcissistic relational capacity? The workshop will consist of breathing practices, deep listening, choreographic scores, and elements of butoh dance, with a pinch of speculation and new materialism, among others.

Dahyun Kim
Flowing Through the Floor- Intermediate Contemporary Floorwork

Dahyun Kim (she/they), pronounced [Da-hyeon Khim] is a dancer, choreographer, and educator from Seoul, South Korea. She has recently received her M.F.A. in Dance at Tisch School of the Arts and M.A. in Dance Education at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Dahyun is deeply passionate about creating a culturally responsive and research based practice. Her artistry recently has been focused on understanding her cultural identity, and sharing with the world the nuanced beauties that lie in Korean art forms. This can be seen in her works such as ‘흥 | Joy’ premiered in Queensboro Dance Festival 2022, ‘수심가 | Depth of Water’ premiered in Tisch Masters Concert 2023, and ’일엽편주 | Paper Boat‘. A versatile mover, Dahyun has performed in choreographies by Ronald K. Brown, Jesse Obremski, Kaya Wolsey, Deborah Damast, Austin J Eyer, Michele Dunleavy, Esl Kim, Yunjung Jang, Rafael Cañals, David Cartahena Lee, and more. She is currently a company member with Gotham Dance Theatre, and she works as a freelancer based in NYC. Dahyun is a deep believer that dance is for everyone, and they wish to live as living proof. 

Class Description: This class is a contemporary floorwork class focusing on safe navigation in and out of the floor, which in turn gives freedom in movement. The class will consist of a warm up- including pilates-based core activation as well as pulling and pushing activities, across-the-floor movement exercises, and phrase work inspired by the movement explored throughout the class. This is an intermediate-level class with the goal of finding flow on the floor and unlocking various pathways of movement accessible to us. 

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Sarah Konner
Morning Moves

Sarah Konner is a dance artist, improviser and educator interested in dance as a process of evolution, a way to understand our connections, and a means of storytelling. She creates dance-theater work shown at performance venues, universities, and museums across the country including Judson Church, Danspace Project, Dance New Amsterdam, School for Contemporary Dance and Thought, Berkshire Fringe Festival, A.W.A.R.D. Show! Philadelphia, the Kennedy Center, and a site-specific performance at the Detroit Institute of Arts. She has had the pleasure of working with Austin Selden, Jeanine Durning, Jenna Reigel, Sara Shelton Mann, ChavasseDance&Performance, Shura Baryshnikov, Megan Kendzior, Alex Springer and Xan Burley, Headlong Dance Theater, and setGo Performance Improvisation Ensemble. Sarah teaches in the northeast US and internationally— recently on faculty at Wesleyan University, Amherst College, Smith College, Movement Research, Gibney Dance, and the School for Contemporary Dance and Thought. Sarah holds an MFA in Dance at Smith College, a BFA in Dance and a BS in Environmental Science from the University of Michigan, and is certified in Yoga, Pilates, and Body-Mind Centering®. www.SarahandAustinDance.com

Class Description: In this class we’re going to move, improvise, do floor work, learn phrases, breathe, sweat, shake it out, see, be seen, and work with both anatomical forms and imagination to find physical and expressive range. Bring your bodies as they are and invite your images and curiosities to join. We will take time to soften our edges, find our weight bodies, activate into clarity, and to consider alignment is everywhere. 

My teaching draws from release technique, CounterTechnique, contact improvisation, and somatic practices including Body-Mind Centering and Alexander Technique. Using these tools and perspectives we will build more proficiency, ease, and creativity with changing levels, going upside down, balance, moving through space, and articulation. We will play between internal and external; complexity and simplicity; decisiveness and following the unfolding; musicality and risking the weight.

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Marco Palomino 
Senses and Sensations

Born in Cuba, Marco Palomino is a choreographer, dancer, and director, making work for both live theater and film. He graduated from the prestigious Escuela Nacional de Arte with a BFA from La Universidad de las Artes in Havana. Marco has shared his work in 11 different countries across the globe,
created his own dance academy in Cuba called LaCueva, and has worked with Ballet Revolución, Rosario Cárdenas, Acosta Danza, Birmingham Royal Ballet, with revered choreographers such as Juliano Nuñes, Pontus Lidberg, Micaela Taylor, Javier de Frutos, Jorge Cresis, Osnel Delgado, Rosanna Gamson and
Carlos Acosta. Marco is passionate about exploring the connections between the mind, body, and soul through spirituality and emotional depth. His love for immersive dance theatre seeps into his choreography - finding much of his inspiration in character development and world.

Class Description: Build confidence while exploring and developing tools to unlock and expand your body expression including senses and sensations, movement quality, Floorwork, pedestrian movements into dance, immersive experience, Character interpretation, finding and expressing your own movement, phrases & A LOT OF FUN!!


Instructor Bio: Annalee Traylor is a creator, choreographer, director, and educator originally from Huntsville, AL. Traylor's tragicomic worlds orbit the intersection of theatre and dance. Perpetually guided by intuition, her creative practice is nourished by interdisciplinary collaboration and anchored in highly physical, archetypal, and state-based research. Ultimately, she views her work as a continuous exploration of physical expressivity and its boundlessness to elucidate the human experience.  

Traylor's work has been presented nationally and abroad in LA, NYC, Pittsburgh,
Atlanta, Houston, Seattle, Temecula, Brooklyn, Durham, the Netherlands, Italy, and
Portugal, and at venues including Battery Park, Green Space, New Hazlett Theatre,
Ailey Citigroup Theatre, Diavolo, Ferst Center for the Arts, Kelly Strayhorn Theatre,
Gibney, and Highways Performance Space, among others. She has been commissioned by Emory University, Kennesaw State University, Periapsis Music and Dance, Texture Contemporary Ballet, Point Park University's International Summer Dance, REED Dance, The Dance Gallery Festival, Houston Contemporary II, Dance Canvas, Voices Carry Inc and was recently chosen as a choreographer for Dance Lab NY, working with artists of Korzo Theater in The Hague, Netherlands.

Her guest teaching credits include Carnegie Mellon University, Sam Houston State
University, Point Park University, Slippery Rock University with the August Wilson Center Dance Ensemble, Dekalb School of the Arts, The Creative and Performing Arts High School (Pittsburgh), and the virtual international dance school, Ballet Together, among many other pre-professional programs, schools, and studios throughout the US.

Traylor is a high school graduate of UNCSA and received her BFA from Point Park
University and MFA in Choreography from the California Institute of the Arts. She is also a certified Pilates instructor through Romana's Pilates.

Class Descriptions: Drawing on physicality that explores quick-twitch and intricate rhythms, isolations, extremes among tension and release, asymmetry, and idiosyncratic nuance, this contemporary forms class seeks to cultivate an embodied attunement to a range of movement qualities, dynamics, and musicality. We invest in potential, surprise, and interpretation via improvisational prompts and phrase work as we practice adaptability in the kinesthetic synthesis of space, time, and energy.

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Contemporary Forms
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Nuno Veiga
Improvisation Lab

Nuno Veiga, born in Viseu, Portugal is a multidisciplinary artist and teacher whose

practice includes sound art, acting, theater direction, video art, installations, teaching, and arts facilitation. Veiga has been working in professional arts contexts since 2001 and graduated in Theater Studies from the University of Évora in Portugal in 2006.
 
Moving to London in 2011, Veiga continued to work as an actor, audiovisual designer, and arts facilitator, collaborating with various companies and institutions, including Rambert Dance Company’s The Playground, Soho Theater, Knot Theory, Hide Tide, Spare Tire, Battersea Arts Center, Rare Salt and Edinburgh International Festival. As an arts facilitator, Veiga worked with community groups including at-risk youth, the elderly, and people with learning difficulties. As an Associate Artist at Spare Tire, Veiga developed several projects with voiceless communities.

 

In the last decade, Veiga has worked as a sound artist for dance, film, and installations with choreographers including Yola Pinto, Amélia Bentes, Silvia Pinto Ferreira, Romulus Neagu, Miguel Altunaga Verdecia, Jordan Bridge, Luca Bracia, Zjana Muraro, Darren Ellis, Susan Kempster, Anastasia Papaeleftheriadou, and Robert MacNeill.

Class Description: Embark on a dynamic exploration of movement and spontaneity in this Improvisation Lab. This unique experience combines the fluidity of dance with the freedom of improvisation, inviting participants to discover their authentic movement language through sound and music, developing improvisation skills. Guided by the multidisciplinary artist Nuno Veiga and accompanied by live music, this workshop fosters a vibrant space where participants can unleash their creativity, respond to the present moment, and collectively shape a dance narrative that transcends the boundaries of traditional choreography.

Directions: Our back entrance is accessible by way of North McDonough Street, at the intersection of Trinity Avenue and the Decatur Square. Look for the entrance past Waffle House. 

 

Parking: The Core Dance Parking lot is a public, paid lot. If you are visiting the Core Dance Studios, there are instructions in the studio for a stipend toward that payment. A portion of your Parking Fee is donated to Core Dance. Core Dance does not have any control over the lot or parking fee enforcement. 

 

MARTA’s Decatur Station will plop you down right next to us in the Decatur Square. Visit itsmarta.com for details on Decatur Station and for train and bus schedules.

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