Where: Greenwich Dance Academy
When: 26th-30th September 2011
The teacher: Thomas Goodwin
Thomas trained at Laban and then continued at the Montpellier National Choreography Centre in France, studying improvisation and devising under the direction of Mathilde Monnier. He has worked in such disciplines as Butoh, martial arts and physical theatre as well as Contemporary dance and with artists such as Hofesh Shechter, Luca Silvestrini, Ben Wright, Rosemary Lee and Charlotte Spencer. He has received commissions to make his own work with various collaborators for Big Dance and Greenwich Dance. He is also a co-founder of Longfellows Physical Theatre.
The class: Thomas draws on a variety of influences in his teaching practice including Bartenieff Fundamentals and Tai Chi. These influences create an awareness and clarity of patterns and connections in the body in order to support and feed more extroverted material as the class progresses. Each class aims to connect and ground through bodywork and travelling floorwork before exploring circular pathways in space and the body within longer movement phrases.
My verdict: Goodwin is one of those teachers who is both inspiring and humbling. He has the ability to create a sense of equality, yet his way of moving highlights all you have yet to achieve in your own practice. Each dance practitioner has their own method of grounding themselves, affiliated with some other somatic practice that can develop the qualities they most desire in their movement. Regular classes with differing teachers is offering me insight into complimentary practices, and I’m relieved to see how embodied these alternative conditioning tools are in a technique based classes.
Tai Chi was the complementary practice in this class, and the calming effects this had on my physicality was encouraging. Working with the energy lines within the body, using repetition and small, stimulating movements, Goodwin slowly developed into spiraling sequences that dove across the floor – finishing in the “penguin slide” (and yes, it’s just as fun as it sounds…).
What I’ll take away from this class is a way of condition that is gentle and very effective for the body, lubricating intricate joints that are often neglected in traditional dance warm ups.