Led by: Bad Goat Dance - Ezra LeBank and Clairey Evangelho
Workshop Description:
This 2-hour workshop explores dynamic, non-traditional approaches to contemporary dance partnering, drawing inspiration from Ezra’s work with boundary-pushing physicality of Pilobolus Dance Theater, Clairey’s experience with the inclusive methodologies of AXIS Dance Company, and principles from acrobatics, contemporary circus, contact improvisation, and release techniques.
Through guided explorations, participants will engage with weight-sharing, counterbalance, and creative lifts, expanding their ability to work with a range of bodies and movement styles. Emphasizing momentum over muscular effort, we will deconstruct conventional partnering roles and discover new pathways for movement that prioritize mutuality, creativity, and biomechanical ease.
Bad Goat Dance is a home for collaborative movement study. Rooted in Contact Improvisation, Acrobatics, Biomechanics & Mindfulness, we believe we all have an innate need to connect to each other and the earth. Our practice is to play more and listen closer.
Ezra LeBank:
Ezra LeBank is Professor, Head of Movement, and Chair of Theatre Arts at California State University, Long Beach. Prior to CSULB he taught at The Juilliard School, The Victorian College of the Arts at the University of Melbourne, Purchase College, Smith College, The University of Montana, and Vassar College/Powerhouse Theatre. He is the founder/director Bad Goat Dance, a vehicle for teaching and performing improvisational and post-modernist dance, and Bossy Flyer, an acrobatic theatre company. Ezra has directed, choreographed, and coached over 100 theatre and dance productions as the Resident Movement Director for California Repertory Theatre since 2011, as well as for TONY-winning South Coast Repertory Theatre, Montana Repertory Theatre, the Wooster Group, PUSH Physical Theatre, Paper Doll Militia, Tempos Circus, and AWOL Aerial Dance Theatre. He is recognized as a specialist in Contact Improvisation, Acrobatics, Biomechanics & Clown. His book Clowns: In Conversation is published by Routledge, UK.
Clairey Evangelho:
With roots in contact improvisation, acrobatics, Noguchi Taiso, apparatus-based and site-specific dancing, Clairey researches, performs, and teaches movement informed by studies of neurophysiology and ecological psychology. She has produced original dance works with ODC Pilot 74, SAFEHouse RAW and danced with Bay Area-based artists Lizz Roman and Dancers, Agua Doce Dance, Amy Lewis, Carol Keuffer-Moore, and Nketchi Njaka with the DeYoung Museum. She recently completed an apprenticeship with AXIS Dance Company where she performed work by Jorge Crecis and toured around California co-creating and teaching curriculum for disability-inclusive dance education.