• Language: English
• Duration: 2 weeks
• Monday to Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
• Location: Mousonturm Rehearsal Stage 3 (4th floor)
• Rehearsal Stage 3 is open from 9:30 a.m.

Costs

• Single lesson: €6
• 10-lesson card: €35
• Free for MA CoDE, MA CuP and BAdance students 
• Cash payments only

Santiago is a contemporary dancer, dance artist and dance educator from Bogotá, Colombia. He has worked as a dancer for over 10 years across South America and Europe, collaborating with companies in Colombia, France, Equator and Germany. He holds an MA in Choreography and Performance from the Hessische Theater Akademie and Justus-Liebig Universität. He taught ballet for professional contemporary dancers in varied contexts such as Künstler:innenhaus Mousonturm, Hessisches Staatsballett, Stadttheater Gießen, Teatro Mayor Dance Company and National center for the Arts Bogotá. Santiago's teaching approach is person-centered, taking the time to actively accompany each dancer's process. His understanding of technique is that of physical sensations and anatomical coordination, so instead of following a particular style, he focuses on what structured movement languages provide as an integral kinesthetic experience. He holds pedagogical spaces where hierarchies of teaching are revisited and knowledge can be constructed and shared horizontally, circularly. 

1. What specific skills from classical ballet do you find most beneficial for contemporary dancers to master?

I think ballet as a language facilitates a technical comprehension of the verticality of the body, and therefore of its alignment in the space. It is a type of work that makes the body supple and strong at the same time, by focusing the load on specific muscles. In ballet we deal with finding the right effort and sensation to execute every movement and I think that leads to a clarity when performing any other movement in contemporary. I by far don’t think ballet is the core of contemporary, nor do I believe that as a dancer you need to do ballet in order to prove your worth. But it is a technique that, once de-hierarchized from its gendered politics and body hegemony, can provide for a great physical practice for movers.

2. What aspects of ballet technique will be emphasised in a contemporary way?

As a contemporary dancer myself, ballet has allowed me to sustain my technical training over the span of my career. I never had the pressure, nor the physicality to pursue a professional career in ballet. Perhaps that freed me from the anxiety of with which ballet is at times taught. Instead, I started researching it as a movement language that has allowed me to understand the dynamics of my body in a better way, and access new physical states in which the precision of my movement has been enhanced. Teaching it to dancers from different background, I’ve learnt to build up a training that is nurtured by somatics and Vinyasa Yoga, and that while following the classical structure, facilitates the ease and clarity of movement.