Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre Announces Standing Down Straight® Workshops with Billy Siegenfeld
Company:
Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre/Notes in Motion
Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre announces upcoming Standing Down Straight® workshops with Billy Siegenfeld, scheduled for Sunday, October 4 at 2PM and Monday, October 5 at 7PM at Amanda Selwyn Dance Studio, 412 Broadway, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10013. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at https://amandaselwyndance.networkforgood.com/events/103672-standing-down-straight-workshops-with-billy-siegenfeld?hid=MTg3NTIxMDg=&utm_campaign=dms_email_blast_4815165.
In Part 1 of this workshop, explore the joys of moving and feeling like a kid again by STANDING DOWN STRAIGHT® (SDS). Created and developed by Billy Siegenfeld, Standing Down Straight® (not standing up straight) is an anatomically fact-based, injury-preventive approach to body-mind health. SDS guides us to use the relaxing force of GRAVITY rather than the straining force of MUSCLE to move and vocalize with less effort and more energy, whether on a stage or in everyday life.
In Part 2 of this workshop, think: science meets art. By fusing nature-made relaxation with human-made imagination, we use SDS to partner up with pals and use eyes, hands, and rhythm-singing voices to dance together to that great, infectiously joy-making music called swing. Think Ella. Think Sinatra. Think yourself, bouncing around and not giving a hoot about what you look like – only about what the kid in you feels like!
Billy Siegenfeld is a rhythm-charged actor-dancer-singer; the founder of the theatre company Jump Rhythm®; a professor of vocalized theatre-movement at Northwestern University; and a writer of essays and a book-in-manuscript titled How to Make Gravity Our New Best Friend. He created Standing Down Straight®, an anatomically fact-based, relaxation-powered, joyously rhythmic approach to performing arts training and body-mind health. He wrote the currently touring two-character play Enough Is Enough that he performs with artistic partner Jordan Batta about both a rehearsal for a variety show and how awful and wonderful life is. He is also the director of the currently touring, multiple-award-winning play, In Some Dark Valley, written and performed by Robert Bailey.
The Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre creates dynamic dance theatre that activates emotional expression. Through an interplay of athletic and articulate motion, they present theatrical and immediate works that engage audiences from start to finish and beckon a response of thought, feeling, and soul.
Amanda Selwyn founded Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre/Notes in Motion in 2000 and, in 27 seasons, has directed over 275 productions, developed a network of artists, and created Notes in Motion’s dance education program. Amanda’s choreographic works include: Exposed, Awaken, Habit Formed, Threads, Hindsight, Crossroads, Refuge, Renewal, It's a Game, Detour, Five Minutes, Passage, Undercurrent, Hearsay, Interiors, Disturbance, Salut, Tilt, Tidal, Shift, Siren, Contradicting Unity, Save My Spot, Hold On, Momentum, and Behind Us. Her work has been presented twice on Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out Stage, twice by the CUNY Dance Initiative at Tribeca Performing Arts Center and Baruch Performing Arts Center, in the American Dance Guild Festival, DUMBO Dance Festival, APAP Conference, COOL NY Dance Festival, Wassaic Dance Festival, WestFest Dance Festival, Movement Research’s Performance Series, Earth Celebrations, Dixon Place, and Pushing Progress at Peridance. Amanda has taught workshops and residencies at Peridance, Hofstra University, Bucknell University, Temple University, New York University, New Women, New York, the New York Gender Conference, Baruch University, SUNY New Paltz, Borough of Manhattan Community College, the Arts in Education Roundtable’s Face to Face Conference, Dance Teacher Summit, Women and Theater Conference, and more. In addition to her choreographic work, Amanda has directed Off-Broadway theatre in NYC at John Houseman Studio, 30th Street Theatre, Grove Street Theatre, Kraine Theatre, Center Stage, and the Producer’s Club. Amanda has been on faculty at The Brearley School, Brooklyn Friends School, Beit Rabban School, Solomon Schechter School, the New Acting Company, the Berkshire Institute for Music and Art, and the Israel Museum. She is the recipient of grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Harkness Foundation, Hyde and Watson Foundation, MetLife Foundation, Friars Foundation, Dizzy Feet Foundation, Bronx Council on the Arts, O’Donnell Green Foundation, Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation, Laura B. Vogler Foundation, MidAtlantic Arts Foundation, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Cultural Development Fund, NY City Council Members, and Manhattan Borough President. Amanda participated in the Choreographer's Lab program at Jacob's Pillow. She has a 500-hour yoga teacher's certification from Laughing Lotus Yoga Center in NYC and teaches yoga privately and at Crunch Gym in NYC. She has a Master's from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in performance studies and a B.S. from Northwestern University in theatre, women's studies, and dance.
Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre/Notes in Motion programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. The company is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
