Contemporary dance, improvisation
Solo, in pairs and in groups
Contemporary dance made its appearance at the beginning of the 20th century. It’s a dance style which focuses on a dancer’s personal interpretation, the movements coming out of the expression of his/her inner feelings.
Contemporary dance, through improvisation, encourages dancers to use their feelings and their moods in order to design their own movement vocabulary. It’s not unusual for dancers to invent new dance steps.
Some characteristics of contemporary dance include the intentional use of gravity, the use of the dancer’s body weight to enhance movement, the choice of doing some movements on the floor.
During the lesson, movement is created by the use of Laban’s Efforts, where there is a correlation of time, flow, space and weight. Any changes in the above elements will change the movement’s quality and feel.
Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis is a system for observation, writing down and analysis of human movement. The initial research was done by Rudolf Laban. His theoretical work was classified in a) “Labanotation” – a movement notation system, b) “Choreutics – Harmony of Space and c) Eukinetics or, as it was later called, Efforts (spontaneous effort or Intent)
Efforts denote an inner motive to urge, encourage, desire, prompt, move or, in a word, express. Understanding Efforts will lead to a release and development of the motor vocabulary of the participants. Individual improvisation and improvisation in pairs and groups will help to develop the participants' inner expression.
Tanya Vasdari
Tanya Konstantina Vasdari was born in 1984 in Athens. She started rhythmic gymnastics at the age of 5 and at 10 years old she continued to dance classes. She has graduated from the Rallou Manou professional dance school and holds a diploma of modern dance teaching from the ISTD University in the U.K. She has studied montage and film direction at the ANT1 Channel workshop. She has been taught the hip-hop locking technique in seminar for locking-popping teachers in 2014. Between 2016 and 2019 she did her three-year post-graduate course in dance movement therapy.
She teaches contemporary dance since 2005, using elements from the Limon, Release and Cunningham techniques of contemporary dance as well as old-school hip-hop techniques, combined with acrobatics and contact improvisation. She gets a lot of inspiration from the dynamics of each group and believes that a well-knit group can showcase the personality of each member. Since 2020 she teaches at the applied dance arts section of the professional school Enosis.
She is founding member of the dance-theater group diZgravity which, from 2006 until today, appears in dance festivals and standalone performances in Athens and in the province. She has created choreographies for theatre artists as well as acrobatic dances for events.
She has collaborated with the dance, acrobatic and dance-theater groups Urban d.c, Footsteps, Rallou Manou’s Hellenic Choreodrama, Nefeloptera (finalist at Greece’s Got Talent 2019), Play and Fly, Dancers, Eltekasta, Global Arts, Iasis, Paramythohora, as well as with choreographers, directors, singers and actors Apostolia Papadamaki, Alexandros Kouzitskin, Eleni Katzola, Maria Papageorgiou, Vagghelis Tsaousopoulos, Konstantinos Yorgos Hatzipavlou, Christina Mitropoulou, Chrysa Katsarini, Dimitris Christofidis, Markos Seferlis, Ralleia Christidou, in shows, theatrical performances, video-clips, TV shows and dance productions.