Melecio Estrella & Marcus van Duren

Tuning in Motion

This class is for the contact dancer who is curious to venture beyond the tyranny of the rolling point and see what it’s like to invite some space, travel and momentum into their dance. 
Tuning — First we explore the essential groundwork of tuning to the nervous system of the other, enabling us to sense a shared direction and make joint decisions in the moment.
Arms — Then we investigate the possibilities of our arms to guide, support, invite, and inspire. From here we begin to dance through space and find joy in being “off axis”
Space — We will look at ways to come in and out of contact without dropping the thread of the dance.
Spines — Lastly we will look at possibilities for suspensions (lifts) that travel and engage with moving support and rotational energy."

Melecio Estrella

Melecio Estrella was welcomed into the contact improvisation world in the 90s by many Bay Area luminaries - he gratefully swims in linage streams of folks like Scott Wells, Carol Swann, Nancy Stark Smith, Jo Kreiter, Ann Woodhead, Chris Aiken, Martin Keogh, Ray Chung - and so many more. After falling into love with contact and moving to Oakland to attend the Moving On Center, the Dance spit him into the drama of performance making in dance theater and vertical dance. Now a facilitator of embodied collective endeavors, he is currently Artistic Director of BANDALOOP, co-directs with the Joe Goode Performance Group and creates participatory land/body art projects with Fog Beast. Melecio is always learning and is happy to teach in honor of everyone (ancestors and current bodies) in the room.

Marcus van Duren
Marcus van Duren is a dancer, teacher and musician based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Marcus has intensively studied movement and dance since his discovery of contact improvisation in 2012. He has been teaching CI locally and internationally for more than 10 years. Marcus is an active member of the axis syllabus community and is currently an Axis Syllabus Teacher Candidate. For Marcus, teaching is not just about transmitting information, but also about creating a safe space for participants to explore, take risks and collaborate. The goal is not to give people a fresh catch but rather teach them how to fish, and leave them with a felt sense that can inspire further research. When it comes to teaching dance, Marcus specializes in merging the technical information of bio-mechanics with play, humor and ritual to create engaging learning experiences that aim to serve the whole person, not just the dancer.

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