This class concentrates on a multi-disciplined approach to contemporary dance training and technique. Beginning with a thorough warm-up that incorporates ideas of release and principles of yoga, the class will progress using exercises derived from Cunningham and Limon techniques. There is an awareness of weight, flow, space, gesture anatomy and intention throughout the class.

Participants will learn compositional strategies, while learning how to keep the expression of his/her individual voice within such formalist approaches. In addition, there will be a focus on constructive feedback - how to give it and how to make use of it as a choreographic tool.

After four years as an original New York city cast member of the percussion extravaganza STOMP, and numerous collaborations with master percussionist/composer Tigger Benford, Seán has designed a unique workshop for both dancers and musicians. Participants will be taken through a physical warm-up and rudimentary drumming exercises, followed by set body percussion routines. The participants will then improvise, compose and choreograph individual routines using the body as a percussion and dancing instrument.

A showing of work from the repertory is followed by a discussion of how gender figures into the performance and how it informs our experience in the world. Topics discussed include the politics of partnering: who gets to dance with whom. The dancers share what it is like to be male or female, gay, straight, or bisexual: in life and in both rehearsals and on the stage.

Selections from the Seán Curran Company repertory are shown and then taken apart to show the process of how the movement phrases were generated, how the partnering was built, and how the choreography was constructed. The hour-long program ends with a question-and-answer session with Seán and the dancers.