Composing Emergence with Nita Little ^expired

In this 6 week Composition Mentorship with Nita Little, we’ll explore how embodying attention and intention can be the roots from which content is generated and form is refined.

We will anchor into the questions: “What is this art here to accomplish? What is this piece doing, rather than what is it about? How is the embodiment the anchor of the piece?”

Bridging philosophy and practice, we will also discern the parts of the self who may show up to participate in the creative process. We will study presence, attention, and communication, as well as question what we think a human is and can be. We’ll look at art-making as a practice in taking personal responsibility for intention and impact. The 6 weeks will culminate in a final sharing day where artists can witness and uplift one another’s work.

“To me, intentional embodied presence is the most powerful piece of any physical art work. It is the piece that carries to the power to heal, transform, and activate those who engage with the work. I’m doing this workshop in order to better practice composing from this level of intentionality and skill.”- Nicki Miller, participant

More Details:

Each participant will be responsible for making a 2-5 min piece within the 6 week duration. Pieces are presumed to be solo’s although if you have a pod of fellow movement artists you wish to work with, that will be wonderful to engage with.

Performance is not mandatory but may be encouraged.

Format of a final work is open to a real time presentation before a real audience as site specific or zoomed, or as a video pre-composed construction. Some dimension of each work will be scored for improvisational performance.

All elements other than movement are at individual discretion.

Class times: 10:30am-1pm PST/1:30pm-4:00pm EST

Three Mondays in January 11, 18, 25

BREAK February 1

Three Mondays in February 8, 15, 22

ONLY 6 PLACES AVAILABLE (8 Total)

Standard Price: $300

Sliding Scale $200 – $350: Artists who are currently underfunded and self-supporting $200. Artists who are working $300. Artists who are co-supported by a partner, working, and/or also externally funded (family, grants etc.) $350.

Application/A note from Nita:

"In lieu of an application process, all students are asked to send an artist’s statement to [email protected] prior to the start of the workshop. In it I would like to know your creative purpose or perspective – how you think about art making and what you wish to accomplish. I would also like to know your intention in taking this series, i.e. what do you hope to gain by working with me and our fellow artists? Also, if you have a choreographic example, that would be lovely."

About Nita:

Nita Little is a dance activist for relational intelligence, a purpose which began with her participation in the emergence and development of Contact Improvisation (CI). Specializing in dance improvisation as a choreographic, performance, and research form, Little shapes dancer’s physical attention in order to investigate the technical and creative potentials of embodiment. As one of the founders of CI (1972), she worked and toured with Steve Paxton. She continues to be significant in the development of this form worldwide. A performer, teacher, choreographer, scholar and theorist, Little is based in Seattle, USA and is invited to teach and lecture on five continents worldwide. With a PhD in Performance Studies, her writing investigates ecological actions of tactile attention and the creative potentials present in entangled relations. In 2016 she initiated a global project, The Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication (ISSC) populated by dance researchers working collaboratively in ensembles together with researchers from a wide variety of science and humanity based disciplines. Their collective purpose is to investigate actions of physical attention, extended cognition, and the concurrence of presence toward developing expertise in non-verbal communication.

Website: nitalittle.com (under reconstruction)