wHAT DOES THIS BODY MAKE: A workshop exploring CONTEMPORARY SOMATIC PRACTICES & COMPOSITION with SHANNON STEWART
Atland is hosting a dance composition workshop (Sunday May 18 from 3:30PM-6PM) facilitated by Midwest-based dancer Shannon Stewart, who will be in residence at Atland this May.
The workshop is open to locals who live in/near western Massachusetts. The workshop is taking place in the beautiful new 33 Hawley Workroom located in downtown Northampton, MA. Out of town participants can take the Amtrak to the Northampton train station and walk one block to the 33 Hawley studio. If you need housing Sat or Sun night, please email us: info@torilawrence.org
W O R K S H O P D E S C R I P T I O N
During this class we will use our individual and group body to make and unmake ourselves. Working with disorientation, quick shifts of attention, endurance and group dynamics, we will move away from language and towards embodied comprehension. We will push to the edges but also question “edge” as a boundary or distinction between ourselves, others and the space we occupy. Open to all levels.
W O R K F L O W
Classes combine somatic exercises adapted to engage questions about how we construct our bodies and how they are constructed. Proposals are seeded from queer, feminist, and critical race theory that exemplify and disrupt the way identity is embodied. We focus attention to the pressure spaces exert, to the relationship of subject/object as well as the act of relating, to the impact of orientation and disorientation, to reading what our bodies are making through a variety of lenses. This work is supported through reading and discussion, composing and decomposing performances.
D A T E
Sun. May 18, 2025 (3:30PM-6PM)
T U I T I O N
Cost: $20-40 sliding scale
R E G I S T E R
Open to 20 artists. Register soon to save your spot. Registration closes May 18, 2025. Open to 20 artists. Email us at info@torilawrence.org if you have any questions.
shannon stewart
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Shannon Stewart is an assistant professor in contemporary dance at the University of Kansas. Her/Their practice and research connect technical and somatic dance methods to gender, labor, and ecology through writing and interdisciplinary performances. Shannon’s work has been presented in the U.S. and Europe on stages, screens, and in galleries, most recently touring Mexico, Croatia, the Pacific Northwest and Gulf South. Shannon teaches Countertechnique™ , improvisation, Performing Gender in Dance, and interdisciplinary choreography.
Shannon’s work has been supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project (finalist), National Performance Network, Foundation for Contemporary Art, and residencies from the UCROSS Foundation, Art Omi, and the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, among others. Planet Detroit published their first submitted poem in July 2023, “the pulled card is the toppling tower.”
Shannon has a Masters of Fine Arts from Tulane University in Interdisciplinary Dance Performance and a BA in Urban Design from the University of Washington.
