Gabriele Christian

Single Class Co-Teacher

Class Description

Participants in this class will explore the intersection of contact improvisation, partnering, and professional wrestling. Much like in contact improvisation, professional wrestling is rooted in mutual cooperation and responsibility for both one’s own and the other person’s safety. The foundational skills of professional wrestling are rooted in grappling.

In this class, participants will learn basic grappling skills and chain wrestling sequences which will be used as points of departure for exploring lifts and flow. In exploring these skills and their underlying philosophy, participants will learn new ways to relate to the limbs and center of gravity of dance partners to create new movement opportunities.

Biography

Gabriele Christian (they/them) is a San Francisco-based conceptual artist and descendent of stolen folk experimenting within somatic practices, language, performance composition, video production and community arts facilitation to locate and center BlaQ (Black and Queer) experience, vernaculars and aesthetics as wellsprings for radical futurity. Gabriel is currently a co-director of GRAVITY, and a founding member of Bay Area performance collectives and land projects RUPTURE, OYSTERKNIFE, and BlaQyard. They’ve presented and collaborated with NIC Kay, jose e. abad/fugitivity labs, LXS DXS, Sherwood Chen, Lenora Lee Dance, SAMMAY, Skywatchers, and more. They strive to excavate oral tradition and movement as conduits for urgent and equitable conversations around belonging, spirit, desirability, abundance, and care.

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