Acrobatics, Improvisation and Floorwork
Moving Through Acrobatics is Gabbie Cook & Nat Whittingham: Two acro-dancers who have been teaching and performing together since 2017 in the fields of circus and contemporary dance.
They started their partnership to give all movers the necessary tools to combine and improvise with acrobatics and contemporary dance – in a fun, accessible, no-nonsense workshop series.
Each section will draw from their individual and combined styles.
Gabbie’s style is mix of soft acrobatics and dynamic tricks which she combines with floor work and improvisation; searching for a large movement vocabulary that can translate to characters and theatrical scenarios. She’ll warm-up the rhythms, levels and qualities of movement and train set-pathways within floorwork. The class will build up to longer improvised tasks, working with balance, maintaining momentum, and re-directing energy. We’ll learn phrases that combine movement with acrobatics, as well as explore tasks in relation to presence and being with the audience.
She will share the principles of acrobatics which can then be applied within choreography or improvisation. Most importantly, it is time to develop your own style and discover what interests you.
Nat’s style focusses on inverted positions and dynamism – encompassing spiralling, moving on hands, and counterbalance. He will train an eclectic vocabulary of acrobatic movements, handstand and headstand variations, falling, and twisting drills, as well as exploring his own ways of creating and maintaining momentum, improvising and finding performance states.
He will focus a lot on movement qualities within common acrobatics, and efficiency with repeated training for longevity.
Workshop Pre-Requisites: Forward roll, Cartwheel, Kick up to handstand with small balance.
Experience with some other movement discipline is always handy.
