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photos by Peter Raper- Hatchery Teen Dance Company in READY TO CONNECT- June 2022

TEEN DANCE CAMP INTENSIVE

AUGUST 1-5, 2022

​MONDAY THRU FRIDAY from 10AM TO 12PM
(options for addition workshops with Sara Shelton Mann 12PM-3PM and/or Shakia the Key 5PM-8PM)
33 HAWLEY ST, NORTHAMPTON, MA
​sliding scale $75-$125
REGISTER NOW >>>

Unique in the Pioneer Valley, SCDT offers innovative dance programming for teens with training in contemporary dance forms such as Modern, Improvisation, Contemporary Ballet, Hip Hop, African Diaspora forms, Composition and Dance Production. SCDT's summer dance camp is a good fit for you if you love to dance, move, create, and perform in a non-traditional and non-competitive environment.

SCDT accommodates young artists at a range of levels, where creativity, curiosity and enthusiasm is central, and company members become articulate, dynamic and skilled performers and directors. SCDT's Dance Camp Intensive aims to cultivate personal artistic growth, while striving for excellence in the arts. Teen artists are offered opportunities in diverse styles of dance and performance art that challenge their abilities, while inviting their own creative process to emerge. It is our commitment to recognize that each young artist brings their own unique artistic integrity to the company. Each artist not only feels valued, but is valued.​

This intensive will be IN PERSON in the Workroom at 33 Hawley St in Northampton, MA. Please wear clothes that are comfortable to move in, we recommend layers including long sleeve shirts and long pants in case we are rolling on the floor. Sneakers are recommended, though the dancers will be primarily barefoot. 

Please bring water, snacks, and just in case, a mask. 

*** PROOF OF VACCINATION REQUIRED!  After registering, please email [email protected] with a photo of your vaccine card. Thank you!!!

Scholarships available, email [email protected].
SCHEDULE:
MONDAY- FRIDAY
  • 10:00 - 12:00 PM: Compositional Techniques with Jen Polins (M/F), Kat Adler (W), Alex Davis (T), and Ellie Goudie Averill ( Th)
OPTIONAL ADD ONS​
FULL FESTIVAL SCHEDULE
MONDAY AUGUST 1
10:00AM- 12:00PM   TEEN COMPOSITIONAL TECHNIQUES with Jen Polins- CHAOS AND THE BASICS
12:00 PM- 3:00PM  SARA SHELTON MANN: MOVING ALCHEMY WORKSHOP
5:00PM-6:30 PM SHAKIA THE KEY: HOUSE with SHAKIA
6:45PM-8:15PM SHAKIA THE KEY: JAZZ FUNK with Laura

TUESDAY, AUGUST 2
10:00AM- 12:00PM   TEEN COMPOSITIONAL TECHNIQUES with Alex Davis- QUEER DRAMATURGES/GAY NON-SENSE
12:00 PM- 3:00PM  SARA SHELTON MANN: MOVING ALCHEMY WORKSHOP
5:00PM-6:30 PM SHAKIA THE KEY: CONTEMPORARY HIP-HOP with Allana
6:45PM-8:15PM SHAKIA THE KEY: Hip Hop/ Street Styles with Dashawn  

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3
10:00AM- 12:00PM   TEEN COMPOSITIONAL TECHNIQUES with Kat Adler- CLOUDGAZE
12:00 PM- 3:00PM  SARA SHELTON MANN: MOVING ALCHEMY WORKSHOP
5:00PM-6:30 PM SHAKIA THE KEY INTENSIVE:MAJORETTE with Angelica
6:45PM-8:15PM SHAKIA THE KEY INTENSIVE: HOUSE with Miranda

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4
10:00AM- 12:00PM   TEEN COMPOSITIONAL TECHNIQUES with Ellie Goudie-Averill- TEXT BASED MAKING
12:00 PM- 3:00PM  SARA SHELTON MANN: MOVING ALCHEMY WORKSHOP
5:00PM-6:30 PM SHAKIA THE KEY INTENSIVE: AFROVIBIZ with Jessie
6:45PM-8:15PM SHAKIA THE KEY INTENSIVE: VOP JAZZ with Angelica

FRIDAY, AUGUST 5
10:00AM- 12:00PM   TEEN COMPOSITIONAL TECHNIQUES with Jen Polins- PSYCHIC TRANSIMISSIONS
12:00 PM- 3:00PM  SARA SHELTON MANN: MOVING ALCHEMY WORKSHOP
5:00PM-6:30 PM SHAKIA THE KEY INTENSIVE: HIP-HOP- SOCIAL PARTY DANCES with Shakia
6:45PM-8:15PM SHAKIA THE KEY INTENSIVE: TUTTING/ANMATION/FREESTYLE with Nate



CLASS DESCRIPTIONS:

Compositional Techniques
10:00AM- 12:00PM
This morning technique class is a highly physical class working towards a grounded and direct approach to movement, infused with technical warm ups and combinations and experiential improvisations. Then, let's make dances with bodies and objects and our imaginations!! During these sessions, we will learn basic composition skills and use sound and props both as duet partners and as source material. We will study relationship, emotion, texture, weight, permeability, and more as we create short dances together. We will focus on the volume and weight inside the body and its relationship to the floor, bring awareness to the feet, spine, and pelvic floor, encourage the feeling of release in the limbs, and articulate falling and suspending off-center. Class work explores sensation, instinct, and the inherent musical phrasing inside the body. 

Moving Alchemy with Sara Shelton Mann
Mon- Fri, 12:00-3:00PM
Sara will be reviewing several of her practices, as well as bringing new research from the last year including Chi Cultivation - A series of movement and breath exercises that articulate the spine, work the muscles, touch all the meridians, and will raise your physical energy and your consciousness. It is accumulative, creating long term strength and vitality. You become more aware, alive, ready, and willing. Here are practices that I share that have been passed down by Qigong masters

Hip Hop with Genesis and Shakia the Key
Mon- Fri, 5:00 - 8:15PMShakia The Key is a newly established project-based dance company based in Western Massachusetts that focuses on street dance styles through performance and education. During this summer intensive, Shakia Barron will be joined by professional collaborators on her newest work, Genesis, for her project-based dance company Shakia The Key. This intensive offers an exciting opportunity to train with this collection of artists in one place, as Shakia and collaborators will teach various street dance styles from their unique approach and background. 
Genesis is doubly significant–a dance work and a launching point. This project will serve as the beginning of Shakia The Key, a project-based dance company. After choreographing and directing 50+ dance works for various organizations and educational institutions, Shakia Barron is excited to create with a revolving group of professional dancers to further develop her work as it centers Hip-Hop and other street dance forms to build expansive knowledge, understanding, and love. Genesis will premiere in September 2022, platforming Barron’s artistic values of collaboration and community as a means to generate possibilities for embodied connection, between performers and audience members, investing in the generation of kinesthetic empathy.
TEACHER BIOS:

K Adler is a movement and performance artist whose work ranges from highly theatrical to intimately pedestrian using the body as a vessel for poetry. They self-produce work and engage with a wide range of interdisciplinary arts with the support of Eggtooth Productions and SCD&T. With a BFA in Modern Dance, their practice is guided by a variety of techniques from classical ballet to butoh. Their work in the field of food and fermentation informs their use of duration and time with improvisation as the heart of their artistry; a constant conversation with presence.
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Jen Polins ( Founding Artistic Director SCDT and Hatchery)
Jennifer Polins is a curator, mobilizer, movement practitioner and performance  maker, bridging somatics -performance practices- and contemporary dance  techniques for over 25 years. Jen is the founding director of The School for  Contemporary Dance and Thought,and the director of Hatchery at SCDT. She holds  an MFA in dance from Hollins University/The American Dance Festival and is a 2014  MCC choreographic fellow. Jen is also an assistant programmer for A.P.E.@Hawley.  She has danced professionally in America and Europe, starting with the Joffrey  Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet and then the Zurich Operahouse Ballet companies before  migrating to a professional career in contemporary performance art. Jen specializes  in combining dance technique and composition with rigorous improvisational  practices, influenced by many mentors, most notably- Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen,  Nancy Stark Smith, Steve Paxton, and Lisa Nelson. Jen is certified in Pilates,  Gyrotonic, Gyrokinesis, Yoga, and Massage and studied Body Mind Centering for  over 10 years. Jen's ongoing somatic studies deeply affect her curation, teaching  and making. Jen is guest lecturer in the Five College Dance department and creates  work and guest teaches in many regional colleges and universities. With SCDT, Jen  works collaboratively with A.P.E.@ Hawley, and the Ponderosa TanzLand Festival. She has collaborated most  recently with Jen Nugent, Lisa Nelson, late and great Kathleen Hermesdorf.

Alexander Davis is a dance maker and performer based somewhere between Boston and Northampton as he works his way through the MFA program at Smith College. Davis has performed and presented with organizations across Boston, including Ryan Landry’s Gold Dust Orphans, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Children’s Chorus, Global Arts Live, ART, Company One and Improv Asylum/Laugh Boston. A former company member with Urbanity Dance, Davis was the director of their Summer Choreographer Intensive Program. As a choreographer and fiber artist, Davis received grant and residency support from The Studios at Mass MoCA, The Boston Foundation, Urbanity Dance, New England Foundation for the Arts and The Theatre Offensive. Recently, Davis was awarded an artist fellowship from the City of Boston. With collaborator Joy Davis (The Davis Sisters), Davis received a Bessie Schonberg [Boston] Choreographic Residency from The Yard, Creative Residency at The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Studio@550, Chelsea Theater Works, Run of the Mills at The Boston Center for the Arts, The Croft Residency and the Bates Dance Festival. Davis assisted choreographer Monica Bill Barnes on Greta Gerwig’s 2019 film adaptation of Little Women, which received a 2019 Academy Award.


Ellie Goudie-Averill is a dance artist and educator who works with dancers of all ages on technique and performance. Since graduating with her MFA in Dance Performance from the University of Iowa, she has served as a professor at Temple University, Bucknell University, the University of Kansas and Franklin & Marshall College. In the past, she has danced professionally for Susan Rethorst, Lucinda Childs, Bronwen MacArthur, and Group Motion Multimedia Dance Theater. Ellie is a regular collaborator and dancer with Tori Lawrence + Co. in dance films and site-specific works and has been with the company for nine years. She currently teaches Ballet at Connecticut College and at School for Contemporary Dance and Thought/Hawley Street Ballet in Northampton, MA. Ellie's dance reviews and other writings have appeared online at thINKingDANCE and BAC Stories.
PHOTOS BY ANNA MAYNARD