Each festival, CHOP SHOP artists teach a series of master classes highlighting different approaches to modern and contemporary dance — a chance for dancers in the region to work directly with choreographers whose work they've just seen on stage.

Who they're for
Dancers ages 12 and up with a minimum of three years of dance training. All classes are taught at an intermediate/advanced level.

How they work
Classes are kept small so every dancer gets real attention. CHOP SHOP has hosted more than 70 master classes since 2008.

April 2027
The 2027 festival will offer 6 master classes, announced in the Spring.

2027 Master Class Series Schedule.

Coming in Spring!

Class Descriptions & Registration.

Contemporary Technique & Repertoire with Nicole von Arx
January 16 (11am - 12.30pm PT)
Nicole von Arx offers an advanced level dynamic contemporary class that incorporates elements of floor work, yoga, improvisation, and her latest choreographic research. She encourages you to embrace physical and emotional effort and explore the extent of your body and mind’s capacity. Her warm-up is a series of challenging exercises focusing on isolating, strengthening, aligning, and balancing the body. This will lead to improvisation tasks emphasizing sensation, timing, and space. The class culminates in a complex phrase allowing dancers to discover Nicole’s movement vocabulary and musicality. Supplies:  Please wear long sleeves and pants. We recommend knee pads if you have them.

Dance Collage with Lauren Horn
Saturday, January 23 (11am - 12.30pm PT)
This class combines arts and crafts, imageboard making, and dance making. Together we will work on creating individual and movement phrases based on given prompts, materials I bring to class, and materials that participants are asked to bring. In this class, we will take all of these materials and use them as inspiration to build unique movement. Supplies:  Please bring paper, pencils or crayons or markers, one picture of anything you like, and one object (this can literally be anything…like a banana, for example).

Movement Research & Choreography with Omar Román De Jesús
Saturday, January 30 (11am - 12.30pm PT)
This class focuses on musicality, challenging the brain to act quickly through several improvisational tasks. The goal is to activate and shift awareness within our bodies, to get rid of negative consciousness, and to discover the infinite possibilities of our individual bodies.

Dynamic Form with Daniel Costa
Saturday, February 6 (11am - 12.30pm PT)
Daniel Costa’s class Dynamic Form begins with a focus on and utilization of the breath and the diaphragm. Warm-up will focus on mobility sequences and move into flows and exercises utilizing movements from yoga and dance. Movement research components of class focus on the relationship of eyes, head, and neck as well as the rotation of the torso and the extremities. As we dive deeper into the practice, we will address our relationship with space, music, tempo, physicality, and quality of movement. We will conclude with learning a phrase of movement.

Exploring the Artist - Tools for Improvisation with Javier Padilla
Saturday, February 13 (11am - 12.30pm PT)
Exploring The Artist is a guided improvisation workshop that explores our choice-making as the main source of inspiration. We’ll start with a guided somatic warm-up to engage and prepare our bodies for the work ahead. We’ll work our way through different levels and transfer through planes of movement while researching and layering textures, tempo, and intention. Through words and choices, we’ll discover how to listen to our bodies and what they crave.

Ballet for Contemporary Dancers with Mark Haim
Saturday, February 20 (11am - 12.30pm PT)
For dancers with some prior experience of classical ballet, this class follows a traditional ballet class structure - barre and center exercises - to a non-traditional and eclectic collection of music. The class flows easily through the progression, warming up the joints and muscles, increasing the range of movement until we're bouncing around, and feeling the joy of moving together in (virtual) space and time!

Pricing.

All classes in the 2021 CHOP SHOP Master Class Series are offered on a pay-what-you-can sliding scale and all proceeds will go to the festival’s artists.

What does pay-what-you-can mean? When you register on Eventbrite for one of our pay-what-you-can events you'll be invited to enter the price of your choice. We offer suggested donation amounts on the Eventbrite registration page, but please select the price that feels comfortable and appropriate to you. All proceeds will be shared by the festival’s artists.