Contemporary Dance Workshop In Bangalore: Movement Circle By Atlas Growing

Atlas Growing is coming to Meeraqi to teach her unique and blended dance style with her contemporary dance workshop in Bangalore named Movement Circle. She was born in the USA and has been dancing ever since she was a child. Her base foundation has been in the swift electric movements of jazz dancing, the fluid moments of contemporary and the grooves of hip hop dance. However, after a point in time, she left the comfort of her home to discover her body and train in dancing in the country of Portland. From then on her journey has been nomadic in dance and she has learned almost anything and everything possible to learn in dance.

Her training ranges from African dance to professional training in Ballet. Hence, there is a wide range of knowledge and skill that she has developed by travelling through the world. To gain more release and confidence in letting the body be free, she even went to train stations and local streets to explore the realm of a street. She has also studied the different theories of contemporary dance on her educational journey from different universities. Basically, she has always been a curious learner and has attained immense experience in her career. She then decided to travel the entire world and teach while imparting the knowledge she has.

There is no bigger gift than teaching art according to her. Expression lies at the core of art. Through body movement and exploration she perseveres for people to understand the language of the body more. Each individual has his or her own unique way of communicating and expressing. This individuality is what she emphasizes on and endeavors to bring out of each single student in her class.

Meeraqi is excited to host Atlas Growing for this three day contemporary dance workshop in Bangalore named Movement Circle. This workshop will concentrate on building a warm and enthusiastic environment that strives on group and collective energy wherein people feel the warmth and comfort to explore and experiment with their bodies in depth. There will be a special focus on finding your own way of speaking through the body because each body has its own soul and souls need to express in order to stay alive.

Her workshop, Movement Circle will be divided in three major parts:

1. Movement Circle:

In Movement Circle, the movers of the class will gather together to experience an immersive round of dance exercises. This will begin with guided movement and exercises that will leek into group movement and collective creativity. This will be done in a warm and energetic environment wherein sharing becomes the sole purpose of communicating. In this session, the movers will be encouraged to let go of their heads and brains to be able to let the worries of their daily life drown out into the synchronized energies of the bodies around them.

This is a healing circle that helps one forget or make peace with the tensions or the baggage of sadness they drag around in their eyes all the time. People can also share through movement rather than words because a single honest body action can replace a whole conversation. Many a time, language of the spoken word fails us and our ideas get lost in translation. But a touch cannot lie and through Movement Circle a new connection will be formed between the souls of the movers in an inspiring and satiating process.

2. Contemporary Technique

In this second part of Movement Circle, the students will be encouraged to speak with one another through their bodies and feelings only. There would be creation of choreographies and movement by building on collective energy and by focusing at a larger concentration on free flow of creativity. However the flavor of each individual will be kept alive as each mover explores the impact of different feelings on them and how these feelings lead their bodys different parts, stretching and falling in different directions. Consider this to be a storytelling session through the body using ones innate and instinctual feelings.

You see, at the end of it nothing matters whether technique, knowledge or theory. it is all about practice and feeling. Just like you learn how to drive a car and you have to find the right balance between releasing the clutch and break while shifting gears, learning dance too is about shifting gears between the body and the mind. At first, all your movements might be bumpy and strange, but in this uniformity and dissonance there is an interesting confusion lying as well! Once we learn to accept our probability of breaking abruptly, only then can we learn to drive a car very smoothly. Life is made up of traffic, different moving bodies and how we maneuver our way around them. If a mover gets down on the road, he/ she would definitely make heads turn and find the best way to take!

3. Contact Improvisation:

This last part of Movement Circle is an interactive dance form wherein different bodies come together to sense and react to one another in meditative and explorative ways. This last day of the workshop will start with meditation that will begin with the hands and onto the whole body through touch and exploration of ones own body and mind. Herein people will start work individually but then slowly melt and morph into one another as they do weight sharing, movement and textures through their hands and bodies.

This is a great meditative form of dance that takes from spirituality and soul awakening through dance. Herein we will explore the way each body moves differently and work with characters by studying movement, flow and coordination by awareness of the core. In todays times, we explore all the four senses other than touch and this workshop is a great way of connecting back to our fifth and the most important sense.

There will be a cool down session after a one hour intensive contact improvisation session with sweat rolling down their bodies that will energize their minds and souls. This will close into a sharing session wherein people can express their experience and feelings.

Anyone can apply for this dance workshop and no prior experience is needed as long as people are vulnerable to being open. Beginners add another sort of energy to a classroom and everyone will be more than delighted to explore that with Atlas Growing. Her class is really a special take away as it comes from the entire Globe and brings forth contemporary ways of dancing that add a tinge of life in the dancers.

Workshop Dates:

April 20th Friday Movement Circle

April 21st Saturday Contemporary Technique

April 22nd Sunday Contact Improvisation

Workshop Timings:

7:30 pm to 9:30 pm

Workshop Price:

INR 2,000