Percussive Dance Technique & Improvisation Workshop
for intermediate-advanced dancers

Improvisation rests upon technique. Engaging a myriad of step and clog dance styles, this class for experienced dancers will focus on building technical facility with the aim of enriching each dancer's improvisational ability. Through exercises and footwork patterns from many percussive dance traditions, the class will present ways that extemporaneous step dancing can be enhanced and inspired by engagement with technique. In turn, participants will explore improvisation as a means of creating new techniques, re-imagining the physical and rhythmic possibilities of their own percussive dance practice.

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One of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch," dancer, musician, and dance researcher Nic Gareiss (he/they) has been hailed by the New York Times for his "dexterous melding of Irish and Appalachian dance" and called "the most inventive and expressive step dancer on the scene” by the Boston Herald. They reimagine movement as a musical practice, recasting dance as a medium that appeals to both eyes and ears. Originally from what some people call Michigan, Gareiss engages many percussive dance traditions, weaving together a singular dance practice marked by his love of clog, flatfoot, and step dance footwork vocabulary, improvisation, and musical collaboration. In 2020 Nic received the Michigan Heritage Award, the state's highest distinction bestowed on traditional artists. They have performed in seventeen countries with many of the luminaries of traditional music and dance at London's Barbican Centre, the Irish National Concert Hall, the Munich Philharmonic, and the Kennedy Center.
www.nicgareiss.com / @NicGareissLFI