Benjamin Asriel

Photo Credit: Yi Zhao, www.yi-zhao.com

Benjamin Ford Asriel has taught at CLASSCLASSCLASS, Peridance, Queens College CUNY, Conduit (in Portland, OR), and the Listdansskoli in Iceland. At the moment, he’s trying to live both in NYC and Portland, OR, which is hard. Locally, Ben has performed with many NYC-based choreographers, including Kyle Abraham, Gerald Casel, Milka Djordjevich, Walter Dundervil, Douglas Dunn, Daria Fain, Gabriel Forestieri, Edisa Weeks, and Pavel Zustiak. As a choreographer, sound artist, and director/creator/performer, Benjamin has collaborated with John Jahnke/Hotel Savant, Juliana May/MAYDANCE, and Basic Assembly, respectively. His work has been seen or heard in New York at Dance Theater Workshop, The Ohio Theater, the Chocolate Factory Theater, Dixon Place, Movement Research at the Judson church, and CPR (Center for Performance Research). In 2008, Benjamin founded Project Paper Trail, a Fair-Trade Dance organization. Learn more/contact him at www.basriel.com.

Class Description Class will begin with simple exercises that warm the muscles, lubricate the joints, and hone the senses. Warm-up utilizes inversion (legs up the wall, or in constructive rest position) to release weight-bearing joints and muscles, recalibrate the body’s orientation to gravity, and foster both mental and anatomical space for movement. Floor exercises establish clear, direct and efficient movement patterns. Building to a warm, sensitive, strong, mobile, and grounded standing state, we will move in and out of the floor with ease, explore energetic connections within the body, and progress to more daring, sweaty, and sophisticated dancing that incorporates swing, torque, suspension, collapse, sequence, and counterbalance. Phrase work will challenge students to dance bigger through space and with more release and abandon while remaining weighted, mindful, and controlled. Ultimately, class seeks to develop/integrate tangible tools for movement while giving students space and time to have fun, celebrating the power, ease, and beauty revealed by a joyful dancing body.