Jessica Gaynor Dance is available for performances, workshops, master classes and residencies.

Master Classes/Workshops:

Contemporary Technique
Students will experience a full-bodied warm-up that includes improvisation and structured exercises led by Jessica Gaynor and/or company members. The movement is bold and physically challenging, with lots of weight shifts and quick direction/level changes. Class will finish with a vigorous, high-energy dance phrase. Seeing each student as an individual, the class aims to push dancers, challenging them both physically and mentally, but within a very supportive environment, open to investigation, creativity and sharing of ideas.

Repertory

These workshops are an exploration of Gaynor's repertory which includes a vigorous, high- energy dance phrase. The movement is bold, athletic and challenging, with lots of weight shifts and quick direction/level changes. Students will be asked to manipulate movement, finding ways to fit together and fall apart, establishing what is awkward, fluid and interesting, thus resulting in a richer movement conversation that incorporates the dancers voices and innate movement sensibilities.

Improvisation

Beginning by moving through space and making choices on the spot, this class will lead participants through a series of exercises that will begin to open them up to original ideas. Employing tools such as action/reaction, rhythmic variations, shapes, suspension and energy, we will explore all aspects of movement. 

Composition

This class employs techniques and improvisational activities that expose students to the process of creating their own dances. Beginning with the question, “What inspires you?” students will create gestures, explore variations, repetition, patterns, and pathways through space in order to create compositional phrases.

Performance Project
This multi-day workshop will focus on making an original dance based on Jessica Gaynor’s choreographic process. Beginning with a set movement vocabulary aimed to push the dancers physically, Jessica will then work with the dancers, manipulating movement, finding ways to fit together and fall apart, establishing what is awkward, fluid and interesting, thus resulting in a richer movement conversation that incorporates the dancers voices and innate movement sensibilities. 

Lecture Demonstrations
Jessica Gaynor Dance is known for its high energy dancing, intricate patterns and complex structures. The company will perform several excerpts from the repertory and discuss how they were constructed. 

Quote:
“Students of the Grand Canyon University Dance Education Program were extremely satisfied with their experience during Jessica Gaynor’s guest residency in February 2013. In their class reflections, they commented upon how much they loved her creative use of patterning in her choreography and her athletic movement vocabulary. In rehearsals of HERO, Jessica reconfigured excerpts of her work to match our cast members’ strengths perfectly, while she supported each dancer to reach for the standard set by the professionals of her company in New York.”
         -Susannah Keita, Director of Dance, Grand Canyon University