REACH Student Dance Group

Photos © Alan Alabastro

A collaboration between PNB and Spectrum Dance Theatre, REACH Student Dance Group offers 8-week intensive dance workshops for students to learn different dance styles, create original choreography, attend live performances, and perform at McCaw Hall. REACH is open to students ages 11–15; all abilities and experience levels welcome.

Fall Session, 2012
Brazilian Samba-Reggae with Dora Oliveira Newman

Rehearsals: Saturdays from 3:30–5:00 pm, September 15–November 3
Performance: November 10, 2012, 2:00 pm, McCaw Hall
Space is limited. For more information, or to register, email reach@pnb.org

Students in this class will learn the basic rhythms of African music and movement and how they weave into Brazilian folkloric and urban dance styles. We will take a dance journey that will have students exploring the historical context of Afro-Brazilian culture and the legacy brought by African slaves to South America.  Students will learn combinations of different Brazilian dance movements that showcase the panorama of Bahia dance styles, especially focusing on the Brazilian street rhythms.

Join us and you’ll have fun with this groovalicious South American movement class focusing on urban dance styles based on jobs and activities you would observe in Brazilian everyday life.  Then we will combine these elements using storytelling and improvisation, as we develop our own movements to incorporate into routines to share with the community at the culminating performance.

Dora’s class will excite your heart, strengthen your muscles, work your abs, and shape your body while you have fun.

Dora Oliveira Newman’s career as a professional dancer began in 1976 when she joined renowned Brazilian folkloric dance troupe, Exaltacao A Bahia. Ms. Oliveira has a repertoire that ranges from Afro-Brazilian dance forms through jazz and modern dance. Dora has toured internationally with Olodum and other groups. She holds a degree in dance from the Federal University of Bahia. For over a decade Dora has toured and performed with Occeami – the premier African dance ensemble of the Northwest. She also dances for Show Brazil, a Seattle-based Brazilian band.

Spring Session, 2013
Contemporary Composition with Eva Stone

Contemporary Composition is designed to introduce the technical, choreographic, and performance aspects of modern dance.  Students will learn movement phrases with a focus on the dynamic and performance qualities of those phrases. Designed for dancers of all levels, this session will enhance the understanding and engagement of how dance is learned, created, and then presented to an audience. Eva Stone has been making dances for over twenty-five years and is obsessed with sharing her knowledge on all aspects of dance.  She is an instructor at Spectrum and PNB as well as Artistic Director of The Stone Dance Collective and producer of Chop Shop:  Bodies of Work, an annual contemporary dance festival.

Rehearsals: Saturdays from 3:30–5:00 pm, January 19–March 16 (no class on February 16).
Performance: March 23, 2013 at 11:30 am, McCaw Hall
Space is limited. For more information, or to register, email reach@pnb.org

Eva L. Stone (B.F.A., M.A.) received a B.F.A in Performance and Choreography from Arizona State University.After completing a Master of Arts Degree in Choreography and Choreological Studies from the Laban Centre in London, England, she formed The Stone Dance Collective, a modern dance company.  Ms. Stone relocated to Seattle in 1995, re-established her company and began an extensive teaching and lecturing career throughout the Puget Sound.  Ms. Stone is currently on faculty at Pacific Northwest Ballet School and for Spectrum Dance Theater Academy Division.  Ms. Stone has created commissioned works for Spectrum Dance Theater, South Bay Ballet (Los Angles), Santa Cruz Ballet Theatre, NewDance Company (New York) and part of a collaborative effort with Seattle Dance Project on the critically acclaimed Project Orpheusat ACT Theater.  Her work has premiered in New York, London, Geneva, Montreal and St. Petersburg, Russia.  Ms. Stone also had the extraordinary opportunity to assist Donald Byrd for the Seattle Opera production of Aida.  Her other projects include choreographing over 25 musical theatre productions.  Ms. Stone is the producer and curator of Chop Shop:  Bodies of Work, a contemporary dance festival held annually in Bellevue, Washington.  This highly anticipated event brings the best of local, regional and international contemporary dance companies together for a unique series of performances, lectures and master classes and has been awarded multiple grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Visit www.chopshopdance.org for more information.

Photo © Alan Alabastro

To Enroll

Please download, complete, and mail in the registration form.
For more information, please contact:
reach@pnb.org or 206.441.9411 x: 4229.

Tuition

$125 per session or $200 for both sessions
Scholarships available. To apply for a scholarship, please complete the scholarship request form and return it with your registration form.

REACH Photo Gallery