Teaching Dance Practice
Afro-Contemporary Dance Practice
This class integrates African and African diasporic movement philosophies, Western concert dance training, and mindfulness-based practice. Grounded in principles such as groundedness, polycentrism, rhythmic complexity, improvisation, call-and-response, and communal awareness, students explore the body as both an expressive instrument and a carrier of cultural memory. These approaches are combined with elements of ballet and modern dance, including alignment, spatial clarity, and dynamic articulation, to support versatility and technical development. Mindfulness practices, such as breath awareness and somatic observation are woven throughout the class to cultivate embodied presence and intentional movement. Through exercises, improvisation, and phrase work, the class encourages dancers to develop technical precision, cultural awareness, and individual voice within an Afro-contemporary framework.
Lester Horton Technique
This class teaches Horton Technique through the pedagogical lineage of the late James Truitte, former member of the Lester Horton Dance Theatre and a leading authority on the technique.
Classwork builds strength, flexibility, endurance, alignment, coordination, and musicality through progressively challenging sequences that support structural integrity and long-term physical sustainability. Rooted in a foundational American modern dance tradition, the technique is approached as both a historical legacy and a dynamic contemporary practice.
Contemporary Dance Practice
This contemporary technique class integrates Horton, Dunham, flying low, ballet, improvisation, and African Diaspora movement practices with the instructor’s original choreographic language. Grounded in mindfulness and embodied awareness, the course develops technical rigor, versatility, strength, and refined performance quality.
Classwork emphasizes spirals, floor pathways, sliding and rolling, dynamic initiation, and jumping, with attention to safe and efficient floor work. Physically demanding phrases build speed, precision, and connectivity between the center and extremities. Breath awareness and somatic focus support sustained attention, energy management, and kinesthetic sensitivity. Through this approach, dancers cultivate resilience, adaptability, creativity, and expressive clarity across diverse movement vocabularies