Kathy Westwater: SHAKE/WALK Workshop at Temple University

Kathy Westwater: SHAKE/WALK Workshop at Temple University

On Friday, April 1, Kathy Westwater will teach her Shake/Walk Workshop at Temple University. The workshop is a platform for an aspect of her creative practice as a choreographic dance artist. What began as a therapeutic effort to alleviate strains that arose in the choreography she made, over time became compelling for the formal possibilities embedded in it. Shake/Walk was and has remained something that feels good to do.

Westwater will work with students during a one-week intensive Aug 22-26, and perform work in the Reflection/Response Concert on September 16-17, 2016.
The first Shake/Walk Workshop took place at Movement Research in NYC in 2012. Subsequent workshops took place at Gibney Dance Center in 2013 and 2014, and again at Movement Research in 2015. The last workshop at Movement Research also included a culminating performance with the students at Movement Research at Judson Church on November 9, 2015.

Westwater is eager to share this workshop with Temple dance students in anticipation of her Reflection:Response Commission and Premiere in September in the Cornwell Theater. This workshop will serve as an “audition” to participate in the concert.

Workshop Description

When: Friday April 1, 1:45-3:45PM

Where: Conwell Dance Theater

Taking two everyday forms of movement, we will allow these forms to disorganize within, and be disorganizing of, our bodies. As we explore in solo, duet, and ensemble improvisations, moving periodically in contact and/or with eyes closed, lines between states of order and disorder will be at times stark and at others blurred. The sensations that arise within this unstable and unbound matrix range from chaotic to cathartic, and from disorienting to freeing. We will shift our attention from sensation to function to composition as the workshop unfolds, delving deeper into the formal potential found within experiential states of disorder.

 

Photo Credit: Tod Steelie