As part of New Museum R&D Season: CHOREOGRAPHY, CLASSCLASSCLASS has organized PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE, a series of fifteen artist-led classes open to adult dancers and non-dancers from the general public. Admission to each class is $8 cash, payable directly to the instructor. Please plan to arrive on time and stay for the entirety of the class. See the individual class listings below for specific information on themes and content.

PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE with Maria Bauman and Nicholas Powers: Excavating Muscle Memory as Source and Research

Excavating Muscle Memory as Source and Research is a generative workshop for beginning and experienced choreographers, novice and experienced writers, and those who seek to nurture themselves and explore their own histories in written and embodied form. We all stash positive and negative emotions and experiences in our bodies, but we rarely give ourselves the time and attention to go back to those stashed energy stores. Maria Bauman and Nicholas Powers will facilitate a guided process to embrace those energy stores as generative spaces from which to create.

Excavating Muscle Memory as Source and Research is all-gender inclusive, gender-presentation inclusive, age inclusive, and body positive; people of all body types and levels of experience are welcome. Maria Bauman formed MBDance in 2007 and is a recipient of both a 2014 and a 2015 CUNY Dance Initiative Award, as well as a multiyear recipient of Harlem Stage’s Fund for New Work via the Jerome Foundation. Bauman is also a community organizer, working closely with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond on undoing racism in arts communities.
Nicholas Powers is a published poet, journalist, and Associate Professor of Literature at SUNY Old Westbury. His second book The Ground Below Zero: 911 to Burning Man, New Orleans to Darfur, Haiti to Occupy Wall Street was published by Upset Press in 2013.

CLASSCLASSCLASS at the New Museum
Augmenting the last three weeks of their R&D Season residency (“P.O.L.E. [People, Objects, Language, Exchange]”), artist duo Gerard & Kelly have invited New York City–based CLASSCLASSCLASS to operate its program of process-based, affordable dance classes in the New Museum Theater. CCC has made a significant intervention into education in the fields of performance and dance and has structured a production model that relates to broader explorations of alternative ecologies for working and living.

This edition of CCC—“PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE”—brings together a diverse group of dance practitioners who have all led their movement practice with CCC over the past six years. Looking to past, present, and future, “PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE” is a platform that supports the ongoing learning of artists as teachers. In doing so, “PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE” acknowledges and invites the necessity of collective sharing in the development of ideas.
Lunchtime discussions, held on weekdays from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., provide a social space between morning and afternoon classes and are free and open to the public.

“PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE”: Full Schedule and List of Teachers
Wednesday January 28
11 AM–1:30 PM: Beth Gill

Thursday January 29
11 AM–1:30 PM: Zena Bibler, Katie Schetlick, and Brandin Steffensen
2:30–5 PM: Belinda He

Sunday February 1
1–5 PM: Ethan Cowan

Wednesday February 4
11 AM–1:30 PM: Jen Rosenblit
2:30–5 PM: Jessie Gold

Thursday February 5
11 AM–1:30 PM: Lorene Bouboushian
2:30–5 PM: Diana Crum

Wednesday February 11
11 AM–1:30 PM: Aretha Aoki
2:30–5 PM: Ni’Ja Whitson Adebanjo

Thursday February 12
11 AM–1:30 PM: Colin Stilwell
2:30–5 PM: Julie Goldberg

Sunday February 14
1–5 PM: Wendell Cooper

Sunday February 15
1–5 PM: Maria Bauman and Nicholas Powers

About CLASSCLASSCLASS
CLASSCLASSCLASS is a blank slate for movement artists to experiment with their artistic practice in some form of student-teacher relationship. CCC values inclusivity as well as the willingness to investigate ideas without the pressures of creating a product; students, come as you are. Since 2009, CCC has operated as an artist-run, artist-initiated platform. CCC addresses the needs of emerging artists to develop their ideas in the form of pedagogy, as both an artistic and professional tool. CCC has also provided an opportunity for more established artists to teach “outside of the box” or experiment with new teaching formats. Organizers seek out spaces that include independent artist-run studios such as the Woods, Barn, and Brazil. CCC has also partnered with institutions including Movement Research, the Abrons Art Center, Brooklyn Art Exchange, Gibney Dance, and Arts@Renaissance (in collaboration with AUNTS), among others. CCC is organized by Lindsay Reuter and Tatyana Tenenbaum.