Exploring the Virtuous Circle: The Joyful Process of Marrying our Movement to the Music We Perform

In this two-session course, Anita explores the parallel organization of coordinate movement and musical structure to show how interpretative choices can be translated directly into movement, resulting in a completely embodied performance. In the end, the music itself will be the catalyst for our movement!

This integrated and holistic approach to performance pedagogy represents the culmination of Anita’s work over four decades as a university teacher of advanced music analysis and performance courses, as an active performing artist, and through her 20-year experience as a licensed teacher of Body Mapping and the Alexander Technique.

The course is highly interactive, combining lecture-demonstration, performance of illustrative excerpts at the piano, and short movement activities and explorations with participants. The essential principles and approach will be relevant to all musicians as well as performers from other disciplines.


SESSION 1: CREATING THE FOUNDATION FOR INTERPRETATION AND MOVEMENT

TOPICS:

1. Defining a Performer’s “Job”
2. Accessing the Music’s “Core”: How Keying in to the Harmony and Harmonic Rhythm Shapes and Coordinates the Melodic and Rhythmic Elements of the Music
3. Understanding the “Layered” Organization of Rhythm
4. Developing a “Movement-Inclusive” Teaching Paradigm
   
5. Cultivating an Ongoing Awareness of Ourselves and Our Performance Environment
   
6. Experiencing Your Body as a Coordinated Whole
   
7. Correcting and Refining Your Body Map as a Means to Coordinate Movement
   

SESSION 2: MARRYING OUR MOVEMENT TO THE MUSIC

TOPICS:

1. Accessing the Body’s “Core”
2. Looking to Our Legs as First Responders to Musical Impulses
3. Clarifying the Relationship of Legs to Torso to Arms: The Importance of “Sequential” Movement
   
4. Making a Movement Translation by Putting the “Core” of the Body in Relation to the “Core” of the Music!
   
5. Fully Embodying the Expressive Details of the Melodic and Rhythmic Structure
   
6. Cultivating Limitless Artistic and Movement Choices in Practice and Performance

The Virtuous Circle: A chain of events in which one desirable occurrence leads to another which further promotes the first occurrence and so on, resulting in a continuous process of improvement