Integrated Dance Training with Vanessa Grasse

We invite dance artists with/without additional needs to come together once a month on Monday mornings in a relaxed setting to learn new skills, share, exchange and dance together. Each month a different dance artist with extensive experience in Inclusive Dance Practice will lead the session.

VANESSA GRASSE is a dance and multidisciplinary artist from Sicily, based in Leeds, UK. Her choreographic work explores the intersection between choreography, walking-art and land art, as a vehicle for creating collective rituals that connect us to our landscapes, public spaces, and our communities. Her work is grounded in ecological and social questions, which she explores through somatic and improvisational movement approaches, site-responsiveness, social-engagement, ecology, and cross-disciplinarity.

Vanessa’s work has been supported and commissioned by Arts Council England, Dance4, The Great Exhibition of The North, Leeds Dance Partnership, Dance City, Yorkshire Dance, Still Walking Festival, The University of Leeds, a.o. and it has toured across the UK, Europe and East Asia. Vanessa graduated from the MA Creative Practice-Dance Professional Pathway, at Trinity Laban in London. She regularly teaches release-based contemporary dance, experiential anatomy, improvisation, Contact Improvisation, for wider communities, professional dancers and universities. Her teaching is grounded in inclusive practice and a curiosity about how the body transforms as a result of imagination and relational engagement with others and the environment.

In this Integrated Dance session, improvisation, somatic imagery, and experiential anatomy will be our starting points as we move individually, with partners, and as a group. The different playful and energetic exercises constitute an invitation to relate to each other and our environment while nurturing connection, resilience and collectiveness.