Back for the Fall: Virtual Spiral Body Techniques® class with Molly Shanahan
Virtual Spiral Body Techniques®
Small Space / Full Body
Practice with Molly Shanahan, PhD.
$20 per 90-minute session, or all six sessions for $80.
September 12 + 19, October 17 + 24, November 14 + 21
10:30am-12:00noon Eastern Standard Time; 9:30am-11:00am "Chicago" time.
Come as you are.
How do we reclaim fullness in constrained conditions?
How do we move through internal and external pressure without hardening or collapsing?
I keep returning to virtual SBT because something particular becomes possible when we practice this way.
You do not have to get yourself somewhere. You do not have to negotiate a studio, mirrors, other bodies, travel, weather, or the subtle pressure to look as though you already know what you are doing. You can work in the room you actually live in, with the body you actually have at that moment of that day, and perhaps with a little more privacy than a studio affords.
That sense of privacy can change the work we do.
Spiral Body Techniques® asks us to notice habits that can be extraordinarily persistent: ways we brace, grip, organize, contain, protect, anticipate, or perform competence. Some of those habits are useful. Some were once useful. Some are so familiar that we stop perceiving them altogether. The practice is not about forcing them away. It is about becoming able to feel more clearly what we are doing, what else might be possible, and what happens when the body is given enough time and attention to reorganize.
My hope for these 90-minute virtual classes is that they give us room for that.
We will work from the ball-and-socket joints, a fluid and responsive spine, and a pelvis less conscripted into holding, gripping, or rigid comportment. We will return to several foundational SBT ideas and give them more time than a fast-moving studio class sometimes allows. We will work with figure-8s, spiralic pathways, weight, initiation, sequencing, and the subtle distinctions that allow movement to become both more specific and more available.
We will move fully and perhaps more fully; not necessarily bigger because we have more space, but full in the sense that we are learning how much movement is already available inside relatively small conditions, including the magic of our own microscopic intrinsic bodily universe.
I am increasingly interested in what happens when we stop treating limitation as the opposite of possibility. A body can be a studio. A small room can become a laboratory. A chair, a patch of floor, a wall, a body with particular needs on a particular day—these are not failures of the “real” dance environment. They are conditions and sometimes constraints, which can be incredible teachers.
Come with enough room to stand, lie down, and move a few steps in any direction. No elaborate home studio required. Or, just come to listen and improvise without any particular space requirements.Small space. Full body.
SBT engages advanced concepts, in theory and practice. However, all “levels” are welcome and encouraged to experience SBT.
This class is open to intermediate and experienced dancers, dancers returning after time away, dancers recovering from injury, movers who want to become more comfortable on the floor, and anyone wanting to dance more fully, safely, and with less fear of doing it “wrong.”
SBT is especially useful for:
spatial awareness
trusting yourself without a mirror
trusting your body
floorwork confidence
moving with greater fullness, clarity, and ease
retaining material through guided repetition
What to expect:
We will begin on the floor with guided explorations of fundamental SBT concepts, taking time for repetition, momentum, and clarity to build. We will gradually work toward standing and larger movement, all within the space you have available.
The class will end by weaving the exercises and discoveries together into a longer phrase: a chance to hold SBT principles while moving at your own pace, with your own body, inside the actual space you have.