Moving, Sounding & Acting Improvisation Workshop with Janis Brenner

About the workshop:

This workshop explores the process of integrating movement, voice and speaking by delving into the mind/body connection, sensations and experiences through structured improvisation. The classes are geared toward the specific participants in each class; from professional dancers to singers, actors to non-performers who want to increase their range and means of expression, to take risks as performers and discover their own holistic sense of creating art together. We will be engaged in "Serious Play!" Each class incorporates both a brief physical as well as vocal warm-up.

This interdisciplinary and improvisational movement form is a synthesis of Janis Brenner's many years working with such artists as Meredith Monk, Murray Louis and Alwin Nikolais and the development of her own, unique teaching aesthetic and multi-faceted choreographic approach over the last forty years. Workshops have been conducted with communities throughout the U.S. and in such diverse countries as Russia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, France, West Africa, Indonesia, China, Singapore and Taiwan.

About the artist:

Janis Brenner is a renowned, multi-award-winning dancer/choreographer/singer/teacher, and Artistic Director of Janis Brenner & Dancers in NYC. Beginning as a child, Ms. Brenner studied Dance, Voice/Music and Theatre simultaneously, then performing with a local dance company and singing in a rock band in high school. She then majored in Dance with a minor in Voice in college before studying with Alwin Nikolais, Murray Louis and Phyllis Lamhut, and then touring throughout the world with the Murray Louis Dance Company before forming her own company, Janis Brenner & Dancers. Since then, she has always looked for ways to connect the art forms to further both her own creative path, her dancers' performing range, and to share these integrated forms with the wider Dance community.

Her work has been commissioned/re-staged on more than 55 companies and colleges worldwide. Brenner worked closely for years with Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble (recording on ECM Records), Michael Moschen (including PBS’ Great Performances), Annabelle Gamson, and with Murray Louis Dance Company working with Rudolf Nureyev, Placido Domingo, Dave Brubeck Quartet, Joseph Papp, Bat Sheva Dance Company and Alwin Nikolais.

She was an esteemed faculty member of The Juilliard School, serving as Choreographic Mentor for the Choreographers & Composers course, and also teaches at Steps Conservatory and Marymount/Northeastern Univ-NY.

Be sure not to miss Ms. Brenner's performance of "Inheritance: A Litany" at The Dance Complex on November 1st at 7pm!