Mid-Week SEEDS

K.J. Holmes: Weathering
10am to 1pm
The body is the soil of our thoughts and imaginations. This workshop will devise the use of somatic explorations through the lens of Body-Mind Centering ® and improvisational dance tunings to discover, enrich, and explore how we are landscapes for our ideas. The workshop will be supportive and challenging—to embody our experiential knowledge with the uncertainty of what has yet to appear, manifesting trust in the unknown. We will spend time inside and outside.

SEEDS Research Project
During this four-day mini-festival, we invite you to create a SEEDS Research Project of your own design. For the Research Project, you are welcome to come with an idea fully developed, or arrive and see what grows from being amid the rich landscape of SEEDS @ Earthdance. You may meet others at SEEDS with whom you would like to collaborate or attend with a collaborator of your choosing. Through the SEEDS Research Project, we are fostering eco-somatic experiments to develop through the festival.

If you like, you can present your research on Saturday, July 18 during the SEEDS Community Day, a full day and night of presentations/performances/workshops, plus a green m-art, offered by the SEEDS artists and participants. It is a low-fee public event for regional folks to experience the fruits of the festival as well as a culmination for festival attendees.

Pedro Alejandro: Soft Body/Soft Terrain (Open Artist's Project)
3pm to 6pm

The eco-imagination is the gateway, if not the destination, of our creative powers in movement making and place-making. The “soft body” creates inroads from streams of sensations/perceptions to tap the eco-imagination and expand the pleasures of the performative body everywhere. This open artist's dance-making project includes a soft sculptural/architecture outdoor component-building with mud, straw, sand, as well as scavenged earth materials-and a site-specific movement/performance component that includes an indoor/outdoor “threshold practice” of the soft body. Threshold practice includes embodiment of skills/pleasures to ensemble oneself with others in making at large. No previous dance-making experience necessary, just a willingness to make space to discover new inroads for shaping performance; to define and upscale a self-study of the soft-space in continuity; AND a willingness and desire to get muddy and dirty while dancing.

K.J. Holmesis an independent dance artist, singer, and actor exploring improvisation as process and performance since 1981. Her influences include Contact Improvisation, BMC®, Yoga, Authentic Movement, Release techniques, Martial Dance, world vocal studies, and contemporary dance and theater. She teaches and performs throughout the world and has collaborated with Simone Forti, Image Lab, and Steve Paxton, among many others. K.J. is a 1999 graduate of the School for Body-Mind Centering® and has a private practice in Dynamic Alignment and Re-integration in Brooklyn, NY, where she lives. She is adjunct faculty at NYU/Experimental Theater Wing, and continues to teach through Movement Research. She finished a two-year acting training in the Sanford Meisner technique at the William Esper Studio in NYC in 2009, and is currently developing an evening length piece This is where we are (or take arms against a sea of troubles) , which looks at where language and the body meet.

Pedro Alejandro has a longstanding history of creating mixed-media and sited performance. He attended Cornell University where he received a B.S from the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. His dances and videodances have been seen in experimental and at large venues, including the International Festival of Arts & Ideas (New Haven, CT); EDANCO (DR); MOMA (Chicago), AFEST/Nippon Kan Theater, (Seattle,WA); HERE & Dixon Place (NYC). He is the 2009 recipient of the New Haven Arts Council "Enduring Spirit" award, which recognizes him among other things as an “ascendant visionary.” Pedro currently teaches dance ethnography, composition, technique, and site-specific performance at Wesleyan and collaborates with scenic designers, visual and music artists, making performances that explore the meaning(s) of strange beauty in unusual places.

These workshops are a part of the SEEDS Festival. In addition to the workshop, you are invited to attend evening performances, discussions, jams, and films during the timeframe of your workshop. You are also welcome to register for other SEEDS workshops (see the Schedule) and to participate in the Saturday Community Day.

Mid-Week - Weathering with K.J. Holmes (mornings) plus Afternoon Research Project:
   Student Rate: Economically challenged students and the unemployed: $325
   Regular Rate: Employed but struggling (teacher, librarian, lots of kids, etc.): $350
   Professional Rate: Actually contributing to your retirement plan (support the arts!): $375

Mid-Week - Morning Research Project plus Soft Building with Pedro Alejandro (afternoons)
   Student Rate: Economically challenged students and the unemployed: $275
   Regular Rate: Employed but struggling (teacher, librarian, lots of kids, etc.): $300
   Professional Rate: Actually contributing to your retirement plan (support the arts!): $325

Mid-Week - Weathering with K.J. Holmes (mornings) and Soft Building with Pedro Alejandro (afternoons)
Student Rate: Economically challenged students and the unemployed: $375
   Regular Rate: Employed but struggling (teacher, librarian, lots of kids, etc.): $400
   Professional Rate: Actually contributing to your retirement plan (support the arts!): $425

Mid-Week - Morning & Afternoon Research Project (not participating in workshops)
   Student Rate: Economically challenged students and the unemployed: $200
   Regular Rate: Employed but struggling (teacher, librarian, lots of kids, etc.): $225
   Professional Rate: Actually contributing to your retirement plan (support the arts!): $250

Room & Board: Included in tuition.
Deposit Required*: $75

Limited work study is available for the SEEDS Festival. For information, click here.

Arrival Monday 7/12 at 8:30am
Last session ends Thursday 7/15 at 6pm
We also encourage you to extend your stay through the Community Day (see registration page).

*You will not be officially registered until we receive your deposit. If your registration is cancelled up to 3 weeks prior to a workshop, you may either transfer the entire deposit amount to another event or be refunded 1/2 of the deposit. Cancellations within 3 weeks of the start date are not eligible for a refund or transfer.