Class 3 began with a long warm up again. At this point, the students are used to the idea and begin their movements easily and with a sense of knowledge. It is really amazing how quickly they are becoming more comfortable in moving their bodies after only two full days of dance class.
After the warm up, he went on to have them do some movements with the intention of having them pay attention to the other bodies around them in space. He talked about walking in NYC and how tourists have a different sense of space in terms of their bodies in space in correlation to others' bodies in space than we New Yorkers do. With that, he did some exercises that asked the students to sense each other without directly looking at one another. They did them as a large group first and then he split the class in halves and had half watch while the other half moved. These were very thoughtfully constructed activies and the students had a lot of say about how they could sense each others' presence even without looking directly at each other.
Peter concluded his time with the class by showing some of his work as a choreographer. He intentionally left his own story for last; he explained that this was because he didn't want the students' experience to be about him and his work. He showed several videos of work he performed in and discussed the music, the movements, and the costumes with the students.
The class concluded with a group picture. Overall, it was a great three days of dance, there was continuous engagement by the students, and--for three days--the students were contemporary dancers.
The serious photo:
Striking a pose:
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