Teaching Philosophy

Dance

Ballet, Modern and a range of contemporary and global dance inspires me to introduce new dance forms through teaching and choreography.

Teaching dance challenges each individual’s abilities by providing skills to explore their body, imagination and intellect. My lessons create energy, spontaneity and celebration in the classroom.

Considering the age and level of students, my lessons are drawn from traditional dance techniques of ballet, modern, jazz, tap, social and global. Somatic methods such as Yoga, Laban Movement Analysis, Anne Green Gilbert’s Brain Dance and improvisation are incorporated.

Lessons are designed for students of all ages to become wholly aware of their personal space and range of movement. Using music that is energizing, class begins with a full-body warm-up or ballet barre that focuses the group and introduces the lesson’s movement themes and patterns.

The class explores movement through observation, practice and performance. If students create a dance, composition structures such as improvisation, repetition and variation are used to invent, organize and collaborate. Movements are organized musically by thematic repetition and variation, and visually by with attention to space and shape. Technological aspects are explored through the use of video, lighting, projections and scenic elements.

Dance classes conclude with a review of the lesson’s concepts and group feedback. Using Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process, students make personal statements of meaning, ask relevant questions and respond intelligently. The classroom becomes a forum where the group can comfortably experience each student’s perspectives.

Teaching dance with creative structures and vivid imagery promotes a supportive non-competitive environment that provides attention to different age groups and abilities. Through teaching dance, I have seen students become critical, innovative thinkers and more physically aware movers.

Yoga

In Brooklyn, Chair Yoga at St. Augustine’s Church, Restorative Yoga at Spoke the Hub and Dance for Parkinson’s Disease at New York Presbyterian/Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.

Yoga training began with Margaret Hahn, an Iyengar-based teacher in Omaha, Nebraska and continued practicing and teaching Yoga as Teaching Assistant at the University of Iowa/Iowa City.

Currently studying at the Iyengar Yoga Institute/Brooklyn and completed 200 hours of Therapeutic Yoga Teacher Training with Laura Staton and Integrative Yoga Therapy.

Classes are based on classical (Eight-Limbed) Yoga, emphasizing careful practice of the postures with an awareness of breath, a focus on physiology and calm mental stability, while also facilitating the individual needs of students.