Workshops

To Accompany any Residency

Comp Yourself 
Creating a dance, there is not one formula that fits all.  How do you straddle the zone between the organizing mind and the unruly body, between the unruly mind and the organized body, between formalism and informal-ism. We will tap into our unique physical imagination through improvisational structures that are ever evolving, splicing the moves towards a composition that is original. Warm up included.

Upsidedownside Up/Technique: Master Class
A thorough warm-up utilizes variations on yoga, release technique, gymnastics and Pilates. Improvisation is inserted as dancers resource their own unique energetic coils. Inverted movement will be emphasized leading to off center tull-tilt dancing and the freedom to negotiate being upside-down without fear. Dancers will find their way through phrases from the company's repertory that ease from upright into inverted moving.

Hands on Dialogue / Technique: Partnering Taught by Jody Oberfelder and Company
Springing from the idea of relationships as interactions between humans, this workshop will explore how partnering in movement relates to relationships in life. The workshop will survey basic contact skills, levers, momentum, and creative process for partnering in duets and ensemble works.

Physical Imagination / Improvisation towards Choreography
Kneading ideas as physical ingredients gives rise to fresh perspectives in our process of learning, improvising and creating movement. Improvisations will cover spatial mapping, internal and external motivations, time and timing, energy, and shape shifting.

Crash Course
(tailored for students 3rd-5th, 6th-8th, or high school level)
A class geared for exercising the brain and the body, designed to bring out the pure athleticism of dance, how human energy reveals passion, focus, strength, and commitment. Exploring creative expression of physicality, moves from games, extremem sports, and spatial challenges (how high, how fast) will be composed by the students.

On-Site
Workshops available in on-site locations
What is the nature of a site? How can dance bring forward and deepen the way we experience a place. Finding the place and excavating its essence. And allow the movement and theatrical juxtapositions to evolve. This workshop could culminate in the integration of local dancers, communities, into a site specific performance event.

Partnering with Camera / Physical and Visual Imagination
This workshop will explore how the interaction of camera and movement creates kinetic imagery capable of expressing something beyond the frame. We will cultivate the relationship between movement and visual elements , creating dance films that explore relationships. This workshop will allow participants to work with physical imagination, storyboarding, and hands on camera work, finding an individual expression of vocabulary. A physical class will be followed by afternoons developing studies for film: investigating site specific locations, and choreographing for the camera to find a unique language in dance/visual vocabulary realized through the lens.
All levels of experience are welcome. Video-cameras recommended.

I Tube They Tube, We All Tube for YouTube 

Presenting an array of stunning clips ranging from hilarious "fall" videos to bloopers to video-blogging--including a few dance-centric films, and questioned what captures our attention? What gets the most hits and why? How do we perpetually quote and comment on each others work? How can the immediacy of YouTube translate to something artistically fulfilling? (Check out Jody's playlist of video clips from the event here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=11FDBC67490540C4)  

 

Read about Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects' recidency with Edgartown Elementary School in the Martha's Vineard Gazzette.
Click here for the article.

 

To Accompany LineAge:

What's my Line? available to writers and movers
Workshops available for age specific groups (ex: children, adolescents, mid-lifers, seniors) exploring Ageing, Relationships, Change, and Personal mapping. Writing and dancing journals will be kept.
 

To Accompany Dido and Aeneas

For A Song—in Action
For Dido and Aeneas, workshops available for actors/singers who want increase the physical scope of their character.. Jody will work with large groups of singers and musicians, or privately, and more intimately with lead singers/actors as movement coach, to develop alternative physical approaches, allowing the integration of character and identity with sound, imagery and plot.