As training to enhance psychological and physical awareness, the “somatic approach” for dancers focuses on the disciplines chosen specifically to generate an experience with very effective results in terms of stimulating the experimentation and the development of a highly sensitive, intelligent and acute body, with the purpose of inducing a maturing process in the interpretative depth of the dancers themselves.
The selection, as established in the project by the Director of the Dance Department Marie Chouinard, was made by means of an international call, to which the applicants responded with the submission of their curriculum vitae, a letter of intent and a one-minute improvisation in a video recording.
A group of fifteen dancers was formed on this essential basis, ranging in age from eighteen to twenty-three (nine from Italy, one from Australia, one from Cyprus, one from Indonesia, one from Canada, one from Singapore and one from Israel), a deeply motivated and united class that was capable of working on two different fronts: somatic techniques, and contemporary dance techniques.
At the close of the three-month programme integrating training and interpretation, the young dancers will perform 24 Préludes de Chopin by Marie Chouinard, and a new creation by Daina Ashbee, conceived specifically for the 2018 edition of Biennale College.
The masters of the College dedicated to the dancers are Judith Koltai (Authentic Movement), Gaby Agis (Skinner Releasing Technique), Tom Koch (Alexander Technique), Ami Shulman (Feldenkrais), Linda Rabin (Continuum), for the somatic approach or awareness of the body; and the former dancers of the Compagnie Marie Chouinard (Lucie Mongrain, Eve Garnier, Jamie Wright, Isabelle Poirier) for the study and experimentation with movement.
