Summer Aboriginal Dance Training Intensive
AUGUST 9 – 29, 2010
Kaha:wi Dance Theatre is pleased to announce the 2nd annual Aboriginal Dance Training (formerly named the Summer Aboriginal Dance Training Intensive), to be held at Canada’s National Ballet School studios in Toronto, Ontario. KDT’s Aboriginal Dance Training is the first and only program in Canada offering a comprehensive technical course to dancers of both western-based and indigenous dance techniques.
Based on feedback from our inaugural year, we are offering one more week as part of the pre-professional program – three weeks to train with our incredible faculty. For the first time, we are also offering a one-week intensive program for recreational/beginner dancers who are seeking an introduction to the dance styles offered or deepening their dance practice. This year, there will be even more variety of classes offered, participants can choose to take the entire session or one daily class per week, and weekend workshops are offered separately from our 5 day sessions. Pre-professional dancers have the option of taking one, two or three weeks of intensive training.
The PRE-PROFESSIONAL program offers up to three weeks of intensive physical training for individuals pursuing or considering a professional career in contemporary and/or Aboriginal dance with classes in Ballet, Contemporary, Traditional Aboriginal and Contemporary Aboriginal. This program is also open to working professional dancers who are interested in training intensively and expanding their training and movement vocabulary.
The FOUNDATIONS program offers recreational or introductory dancers an intensive one-week of technique classes with the same faculty as our pre-professional dance students. Perfect for the avid part-time student of ballet, modern, traditional powwow, hip hop, salsa, ballroom, belly dance, capoeira… An amazing experience for anyone who loves dancing.
The WORKSHOPS take students of dance and/or theatre deeper into both theoretical and physical techniques. Acclaimed actor/director/choreographer Michael Greyeyes returns to teach Viewpoints I again – as well as Viewpoints II. Viewpoints II is open to participants with previous Viewpoints training.
Registration is limited in both programs. International applicants to both programs are welcome. Please register early to guarantee your place. Check back here for ongoing updates on the final program schedule and for more information as details are finalized.
THE PROGRAM
Our Intensive is designed for professional, pre-professional and participants possessing a foundation in dance. The purpose of the Intensive is to maximize a dancer’s physical training, body awareness, technical strength and to increase exposure and investigation into Aboriginal dance forms both traditional and contemporary. The Intensive is open to dancers of all cultural backgrounds however Aboriginal, Inuit and Métis participants are particularly encouraged to apply.
OUR GOAL
KDT aims to develop artists and educate participants about the genres of Aboriginal dance while fostering creativity and excellence.
[back to top]FACULTY AND CLASSES
KDT faculty members are outstanding, highly experienced teachers and practitioners of professional dance working within Aboriginal and mainstream performing arts.
- Michel Faigaux (Ballet)
- Johanna Bergfelt (Contemporary)
- Santee Smith (Artistic Director of KDT, KDT Repertoire/Contemporary Aboriginal Dance)
- Michael Greyeyes (Viewpoints I and II)
- Guest Traditional Aboriginal Dance Instructors:
Rosa and Crystal John (Powwow Styles)
Michel Faigaux: Ballet
Michel is an experienced and subtle teacher who regularly teaches for the National Ballet of Canada, Ballet Jorgen, and Dance-teq. He is a graduate of the National Ballet School and former soloist with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. After returning to Toronto, Michel danced with the National Ballet of Canada, in numerous soloist and character roles as well as performing in numerous company and world premieres. He joined the Alberta Ballet as a principal dancer, dancing lead roles such as in the Nutcracker, Rubies, and A Mid Summer Night’s Dream. Michel has also had an extensive career as a Guest Artist, performing with ballet companies in the USA, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Europe, China, Egypt and others.
The Class: Michel has been lucky throughout his performing career to have worked with many renowned directors and choreographers and to have danced in many styles, from classical to modern, flamenco to musical theatre. He brings his myriad experience and passion for dance into every ballet class, calling on students’ full range of musicality, ingenuity and precision. Michel’s Ballet class will focus on the development of strong technique. You will experience a well-designed, fast-paced class that presents challenges regardless of your level of ballet experience. Michel loves teaching all levels and brings a sense of excitement to each class
Johanna Bergfelt : Contemporary
Johanna Bergfelt began her dance training at the age of four, attending the Ösmo Dance School in Stockholm, Sweden and later The Royal Swedish Ballet School. She has an extensive performance background beginning with the Royal Swedish Ballet and Östgötabaletten. There she was given the opportunity to dance in works by Vlado Juras, Mats Ek and Cristina Caprioli. Johanna has also been a dancer and company class instructor for the Barents Dance Ensemble and a company member of NorrDans. Since coming to Canada in 2000, Johanna has worked with The Chimera Project, Kaeja d'Dance, Kathleen Rea, Darcey Callison, Louis Laberge Cote, Kate Alton, ProArteDanza, and Toronto Dance Theatre where she was a company dancer for six years. Johanna has been nominated three times for a Dora Mavor Moore Award, for her role in Sly Verb with Toronto Dance Theatre, Scharachnia by Louis Laberge Cote, and as part of the ensemble for Unfinished 32 by Roberto Campanella and Robert Glumbek.
The Class: This contemporary class will focus on understanding and experiencing various movement principles: centering, alignment, articulation, clarity, and musicality, as well as the use of energy, breath, weight, and space. Several sources of movement are explored, with a strong attention to the relationship between internal and external motivations. The class comprises work on the floor, at the barre, in the centre, and a few sequences of movement traveling across the floor, including a variety of falls, turns, and jumps.
Santee Smith: KDT Repertoire/Contemporary Aboriginal Dance
Santee Smith is from the Mohawk Nation, Turtle Clan and lives on Six Nations Reserve, Ontario. Smith is the founding Artistic Director and choreographer for Kaha:wi Dance Theatre. She holds a Masters Degree in Dance from York University and is committed to dance and creative expression. Since 1996 she has created her own choreography and developed a movement style that reflects who she is as an Indigenous artist. Smith creates, produces and presents her choreographic work nationally and internationally. She is the recipient of the K.M. Hunter Award and Chalmers Awards for Dance administered by the Ontario Arts Council. She received Canada Council’s Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for the most outstanding mid-career artist in Dance (2006) and the John Hobday Award for Arts Management in (2008).
Smith attended the National Ballet School (1982-88) and holds a degree in Kinesiology from McMaster University. She choreographed for The Gift, a NFB documentary (1996) and was an integral part of the Aboriginal Dance Project at the Banff Centre for the Arts (1997-2001). She has taught dance at Canadian Children’s Dance Theatre, Iroquoian Indian Museum, York University, Red Roots Theatre, George Washington University, Hartwick College, Nipissing University, Brock University and gives workshops regularly.
My work is a response and a reflection of the world in which I live. Through dance I am able to express my dreams, visions and stories historical and contemporary.
The Class: During the Intensive participants will explore signature choreography of KDT and Santee Smith’s contemporary Aboriginal Dance style. Classes will incorporate Aboriginal dance and cultural sources of inspiration for her movement language. Dancers will explore the use of breath, body awareness, centre of gravity, contraction and release, dynamic range of physicality, musicality, performance quality, use of energy, individual and ensemble expression. Dancers will learn Iroquoian social dance steps such as the Ehsga:nye: gae:nase: (New Women’s Shuffle Dance), Gada:tro:t (Stomp Dance) and Gayowaga:yoh (Old Mocassin Dance).
Michael Greyeyes: Viewpoints Workshop
Michael Greyeyes is an actor, director, choreographer and educator. A member of the Muskeg Lake Cree First Nation, he is currently the co-chair of the Aboriginal Council at York University, where he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and where he has taught ensemble creation and movement for actors in York’s undergraduate and graduate theatre programs since 2004. He has taught numerous workshops for independent artists through the Volcano Conservatory since 2006, at the Canada Dance Festival, and at the Banff Centre for the Arts, as a guest instructor for the Opera as Theatre program. Formerly a professional dancer with the National Ballet of Canada and the company of Eliot Feld in New York City, Greyeyes now choreographs and directs his own theatre work, which appears in festivals across Canada and Europe. As an actor he has worked on stage and extensively in film and television for the last 15 years. Recent credits include Passchendaele, The New World, Skinwalkers for PBS Mystery! and Tecumseh’s Vision, part of the PBS American Experience mini-series We Shall Remain.
Greyeyes has choreographed and directed a number of theatre and film projects, including The Threshing Floor (co-choreographed with Santee Smith), Untitled #1535 for Dusk Dances, and Triptych, a dance film that explores the fallout from Indian residential schools, which aired on Bravo Television in 2007. In 2008, he directed the first Cree opera, Pimooteewin (The Journey), with music by Melissa Hui and libretto by Tomson Highway.
The Workshop: The Viewpoints is a system of improvisation that examines performance through the dual lenses of time and space. Over the last twenty years it has become internationally recognized as a major form of movement training and is now part of the curriculum at many universities and professional training programs, including: York University, Juilliard, MAT at Harvard, the Volcano Conservatory, NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, and the Banff Centre for the Arts, to name a few.
Viewpoints I (2 days)
This workshop is intended to offer participants an introduction to the Viewpoints, created by Mary Overlie and subsequently developed by Anne Bogart and the SITI Company. The Viewpoints is valued as part of contemporary performance training. This highly structured form of improvisation addresses essential concepts in terms of staging and performance, which include spatial relationship, shared energy, active listening, and offers theatre artists a common language by which they can communicate a wide range of concepts and create collective work. The 9 physical Viewpoints are introduced through grid-work, the Flow, culminating in Open Viewpoints. This workshop is ideal for dance artists interested in collective creation and for choreographers, designers, actors and directors, who wish to find a new means of creating work and investigate ensemble-playing. Instructor Michael Greyeyes trained with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company.
Viewpoints II (2 days)
Viewpoints II is available for students who have already completed Viewpoints I and would like to go deeper. An extension of the work offered in Viewpoints I, this workshop examines the seven Vocal Viewpoints and the integration of voice and movement in Open Viewpoints. This workshop is intended for participants who have taken a previous workshop in Viewpoints improvisation and would like to examine its application as source-work for creating theatre work. Viewpoints II offers theatre artists a chance to use Open Viewpoints as the basis for developing movement vocabulary and to examine performance on an individual level.
GUEST INSTRUCTORS: Rosa and Crystal John: Powwow Styles
Rosa John is of the Taino Nation and she and her husband Melvin from the Kehewin Cree Nation are the founders of the Kehewin Native Dance Theatre. She has been using performance as a teaching tool for Native culture and history since 1981. With their four children and two grandchildren they have toured throughout Canada and internationally to the U.S., Mexico, New Zealand, Switzerland, France and Italy.
She has trained thousands of Native youth in Canada and the U.S. in theatre, music and dance to provide a venue for Native youth to express themselves.
The foundation of her work is to keep providing Native youth with a positive alternative to negative lifestyles through training in the arts. She does this by using traditional forms such as storytelling, dance and mask to educate and entertain Native and non-Native audiences.
Crystal (Beany) John is Taino and Cree from Kehewin Alberta. At 17 years of age she is a champion Grass dancer and Hoop Dancer. She is one of two women in Canada given permission to be part of the Grass Dance Society and was initiated in 1998.
Beany has been teaching Hoop Dance to youth in Alberta and Ontario since 2004. She has taught at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre, Anishnabe Health Youth program, Trent University, Toronto Native Canadian Centre youth program and the Kehewin First Nation.
Her mix of Hoop Dance and Hip Hop has been called "dynamic" and "exciting". Her contemporary style is one of a kind and she has a following of young Native people throughout Canada and the United States.
HOW TO REGISTER
Class sizes are limited. Early registration is encouraged. Please check back here on January 1rst for downloadable and online application.
Application Requirements
All applicants must be 16 years of age and older (no exceptions).
TUITION FEES
OPTION A: Full intensive experience
You are a pre-professional dancer with significant dance training and/or professional performance experience. You would like to take the full complement of classes for one, two or three weeks with our knowledgeable professional faculty and attend the audition at the end of the course. All participants who audition will be given an evaluation sheet. We highly recommend taking all three weeks of the intensive to get the most benefit from our course – it’s also the best deal. If you can take it, add one or more weekend workshops to go even deeper.
| Week 1 | $400 | August 9 – 13 (5 days) |
| Week 1 & 2 | $800 | August 9 – 13, 16-20 (10 days) |
| Week 1, 2 & 3 | $1200 | August 9 – 13, 16-20, 23 – 27 (15 days) |
Or, you are a recreational dancer who wants to immerse yourself in dance for a week. Study with the same teachers as our pre-professional program.
| Foundational Week | $500 | August 9 – 13 (5 days) |
OPTION B: Pre-register for one course
You are interested in taking the full session but unfortunately your busy schedule does not permit you to dance all day. Or, you only want to focus on classes in one or two styles.
Participants subscribed to one or two weeks in option A may also extend their experience in the following weeks by continuing their preferred class in Option B (for example, to take one full week of classes followed by two weeks of only Contemporary).
| Available classes: Ballet, Contemporary, and KDT Repertoire | ||
| Week 1 | $85 | (5 classes) |
| Week 1 & 2 | $170 | (10 classes) |
| Week 1, 2 & 3 | $255 | (15 classes) |
Note that placement for Option B classes is subject to full program subscription. Priority is given to Option A subscribers.
OPTION C: DROP IN
Drop in classes are NOT permitted for ballet, modern, Traditional Aboriginal or Contemporary Aboriginal classes as these classes are progressively more advanced over a three week period. Drop in classes are indicated in PINK on the schedule. Drop in spaces are extremely limited and available on a first-come first-serve basis beginning 30 minutes before the start of the class. Cash only. Drop in classes are $18/class.
OPTION D: WORKSHOPS
We are offering three weekend workshops throughout the intensive. You must pre-register for workshops. Workshops will run from 10 am – 6 pm with a one hour break for lunch. Workshops are $200 each or 3 for $500.
Special Rate for Option A subscribers: Each workshop is $150.
| Viewpoints I : Michael Greyeyes (Canada) | August 14-15 | $200 |
| Viewpoints II : Michael Greyeyes (Canada) | August 21-22 | $200 |
| Alternative Dance Training - Francisco Carrera (Mexico) | August 28-29 | $200 |
Refund/Cancellation Policy
All fees will be refunded (less $100 administrative charge) only if written notice of cancellation is received on or before March 31, 2010 or in case of non-admittance to program. Cancellations made, with written notice, from March 31– July 1, 2010 will receive a 50% refund of fees paid (less $100 administrative charge). Withdrawal due to illness or injury, after July 1st, 2009, will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and will only be considered with a written doctor's note. No refund, partial or whole, is guaranteed after July 1, 2010. Submission of an application to this program certifies that you understand this policy.
Teachers, classes and schedule subject to change.
Payment
By mail: Cheque/money order, VISA, Mastercard
Online: Paypal
Cheques should be made payable to Kaha:wi Dance Theatre
[back to top]
2010 CALENDAR
Location
All classes will be held at:
National Ballet School
400 Jarvis Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4Y 2G6
FINANCIAL AID
Download the Financial Aid & Scholarship Package
Please contact KDT if you have any questions about financial aid options. This package includes information about bursaries appropriate for 2009 or 10 as well as the application form for KDT's own Aboriginal Youth Scholarship.
If you are applying for funding and require a letter of support, proof of application or pre-approval, please contact the General Manager, Julia Dow at gmATkahawidance.org.