CLASSCLASSCLASS
CLASSCLASSCLASS
CCC past and present is an intergenerational ecosystem of artists taking a chance at teaching and learning models. CCC is a blank slate for movement artists to experiment with their artistic practice in some form of student-teacher relationship. CCC values the willingness to investigate ideas without the pressure of product; students and teachers, come as you are.
Since 2009, CCC has operated as an artist-run, artist-initiated platform. For its current iteration, we're working within the intergenerational ecosystem of the experimental dance community. CCC promotes pedagogy as an artistic and learning tool and is organized by Mariana Valencia and AUNTS.
We hope that you will join us!
Location: Danspace Project at St Mark’s Church – 131 E 10th St NY, NY
Participant Fee: $16 at the door gets you into class!
Class Descriptions: BELOW
Tuesday 6/10 from 10-12– Jonathan González
Thursday 6/12 from 10-12– Jesi Cook
Tuesday 6/17 from 10-12– Leslie Cuyjet
Thursday 6/19 from 10-12– jess pretty <3 Juneteenth <3
THERE WILL BE LUNCH!
*** 6/17: Join us for lunch after class to celebrate the AUNTS festival.
*** 6/19 Join us for a mighty AUNTS cookout for Juneteenth. Lunch will be provided from 12-4 in the courtyard outside of Danspace.
JUNE 10 - JONATHAN GONZÁLEZ
@ DANSPACE PROJECT
10a-12p
image: SYEUS MOTTEL: CHARAS: THE IMPROBABLE DOME BUILDERS (2017)
Psychogeography
About this workshop:
We will work with sensory, affective, and speculative embodiment approaches in response to the surroundings. First, we will work through the studio to learn about the place and our interrelation anew. We will do this by referring to psychogeographic practices of diversion, drifting, mapping, and mythogeography. You will also invent new choreographic methods along the way.
Then, we will go outside and apply these same methods for longer. Working in pairs and ideally getting lost. We will conclude by composing from our experiences and sharing this with the group.
What to expect:
Prompts will ask you to experiment with improvisation and composing movement within the bounds of the studio and the outdoors, some group conversation, and a final sharing of material.
Jonathan González is an interdisciplinary artist, scholar, and educator whose research investigates the aesthetics, ethics, and social histories embedded in performance. Through choreography, film, installation, and performance studies, his work explores diasporic Black life, postcolonial geographies, and the afterlives of colonialism. Drawing on Black studies, spatial theory, and archival practice, González engages embodiment as a mode of inquiry, creating works that examine how race, power, and memory are choreographed across public and private space. Institutions such as Crystal Bridges Museum of Art/The Momentary, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the River to River Festival have presented his site-responsive and media-rich projects.
photo credit: Rudy Gerson
june 12 - jesi cook
@ DANSPACE PROJECT
10-12
Objects As Invitations In
In this class we will work with objects and architecture to create scores together. Foil, paper, wood, junk: how can objects support us to understand our own bodies, our movement interests, or make us feel safe while dancing? I'll guide a warm up: strengthening, (technique), breathing exercises, visualizations, and Chinese Medicine Theory's relation of elements to inner body channels, to then talk about my sound/ moving based practice with "STUFF."
Maybe you've been far away from your body for a while, or front row in Cunningham class, all are welcome!
Jessica Cook is a choreographer based in NYC since 2005. She has presented her work at Roulette Intermedium, La Mama Moves Festival, LMCC’s 2024 River to River Festival, TSA Gallery, Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church, Pieter Performance Space Los Angeles, and AUNTS. Artist-In-Residences include The Chocolate Factory Theater, Movement Research, NY Live Arts Fresh Tracks, and MoMA PS1. She is a 2005 graduate of the SUNY Purchase Dance Conservatory. She is a NYS licensed massage therapist, artist, and mother.
june 17 - leslie cuyjet
@ DANSPACE PROJECT
10a-12p
*followed by lunch*
Move Hang.
Let's gather, move, and make together. We'll start with some warm up and scores to get us grounded to the room and each other. From there, we'll write and compose with our bodies, with and for each other. With a cultivated shared curiosity, bring your own ideas and obsessions or nothing at all. This is a space to move, witness, build, and be in process together.
photo credit: Sara Fox
Leslie Cuyjet is an award-winning performer and choreographer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her dances often integrate text, video, and live performance while interrogating the performing body, personal legacy, and dance history. Mostly known as a performer, she is also a writer and editor, as well as a co-founder of the Authentic Movement collective, Duvet, which all play an ongoing role in shaping her interdisciplinary artistic practice. Her tenure in New York is decorated with performances and collaborations with Jane Comfort, Cynthia Oliver, Niall Jones, Yanira Castro, Will Rawls, David Gordon, NARCISSISTER, and Kim Brandt among others. Cuyjet’s work has been presented at The Kitchen, The Shed, MoMA PS1, The Chocolate Factory, and Center for Performance Research. Recent honors include Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants for Artists, Princeton Hodder Fellowship, and an Outstanding Choreographer/Creator “Bessie” Award for her 2021 work, Blur.
june 19 - jess pretty
@ DANSPACE PROJECT
10a-12p
*followed by lunch*
photo credit: Ariana Speight
grooving with jess pretty
in this class we will be grooving: a deep, low key transformational movement meditation and social dance practice steeped in Black Culture. the grooves in this class are informed by; strolling, line dancing, house dance, funk, soul train lines, jazz, afro-caribbean rhythms/grooves, two-step, footwork, and connecting to community. access to groove is access to life.
intentionality: generate individual and collective groove, activate the energetic body, transform stagnation, to feel good, to build stamina, to discover personal styles/aesthetics, to have fun, and to get down.
class set up: warm up groove, moving our groove across the floor, the get down, and stretching.
content: we will work with complex rhythmic patterns, improvisational grooving, and building groove compositions.
acknowledgement: grooving comes from black bodies, black culture, black life. we honor, we respect, we value, we support, we uplift.
please wear sneakers if you have them.
jess pretty is a dancer, choreograper, educator, curator, writer, producer and current steward of AUNTS. jesspretty.com
photo credit: Niall Jones
past classclassclass
may 12-16 - ayano elson
@ THE ANNEX SPACE IN FT. GREENE
Dancing desire without expectation. This class is about your dancing, your classmates’ dancing, and my dancing. To begin each class, I will lead a warm-up through exercises and movement forms that integrate our physical systems. We’ll move through improvisational scores I use in my studio practice. I’ll also share the things I read and watch when I’m stuck. Together, we’ll study how we make and perform dance as it emerges: for ourselves, with one another, and in front of one another.
As a dancer, I enter the classroom with curiosity, commitment, and optimism. As a choreographer, I enter the studio with despair and skepticism. I don’t think I’m alone in this. These four classes will seek to find ways to bridge the states of dancer and choreographer, working toward ways of being at and within a dance for a longer period of time. We’ll ask how to care for our desires, problems, and impulses in performing, dancing, and making and look to alter dominant choreographies through time, sound, and abstraction. Instead of centering embarrassment or doubt, we will dance our desires without any expectations.
TLDR: No phrases. Participants will engage with an exploratory approach to improvised dance, risk-taking, desire, commitment, performance, and choreographic making. There will be some talking, writing and optional readings.
Teaching artist, Ayano Elson is an Okinawan-American dancer and choreographer based in New York City. Her dances have premiered at CPR – Center for Performance Research, The Chocolate Factory, Danspace Project, Gibney Dance, ISSUE Project Room, PAGEANT, and Roulette, among others. In 2025, she will be joining The Kitchen's Dance and Process artist in residence program as well as the Chocolate Factory's spring residency program. As a dancer, she is currently collaborating with artists Kim Brandt, Jesi Cook, and Melinda Ring. ayanoelson.com