The studio at Attack Theatre on 45th Street is booked from 1 to 3 pm every Saturday, and the class inside it runs ninety minutes. The thirty minutes that do not appear on the clock are the first thing I want to explain, because they say something about how the rest is built.
Why is the room booked for two hours?
So that nobody rushes. People arrive at 12:50 and people arrive at 1:10, and the person who arrives at 1:10 has usually had a harder morning than the one who arrived early. The extra time means I can start when the room has settled rather than when the minute hand says so, and it means that at the end, when someone wants to ask a question or sit on the floor for five minutes before going back out to Butler Street, the next group is not waiting at the door.
The class has four parts. The ninety minutes divide roughly like this, with the caveat that I move the lines depending on who is in the room.
| Part | Rough minutes | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Somatics | 20 | Arriving in the body, noticing weight and breath |
| Conditioning | 20 | Getting warm, building range and strength |
| Choreography | 30 | Learning one short phrase in pieces |
| Improvisation | 20 | Moving inside a structure, no steps to remember |
What happens in the first 20 minutes?
Somatics. The word covers any practice that starts from what the body is sensing rather than from what it should look like. In practice it means we spend the opening of class standing, or lying on the sprung floor, noticing weight, breath, and the places that are holding tension from the week. I give simple instructions: feel which foot is carrying more of you, let that change, let the knees soften, let the head find where it wants to sit on top of the spine.
Nothing in this section requires coordination, and nothing is performed, since the section exists so that you start from the body you brought rather than the one you pictured on the drive over. People who are nervous usually find this section the easiest, and people who came for a workout usually find it the hardest, since it asks them to slow down before speeding up.
What does conditioning mean in a beginner class?
Roughly twenty minutes of getting warm and building the strength and range that the later sections draw on. It is not a fitness class, and nobody counts reps, but the legs work, the spine moves through bending, arching, and twisting, the feet press into the floor, and the heart rate comes up enough that the water bottle gets used.
I scale everything. A movement that is done standing can be done sitting, and a movement that travels across the floor can be done in place. If you have an injury or a body that does certain things and not others, tell me before the first class by phone or text, and I will build the options in from the start rather than improvising on the spot.
How much choreography do beginners actually learn?
One short phrase per class, usually four to eight movements long, taught over about thirty minutes. I teach it facing the same direction as the group so nobody has to mirror me, and we build it in pieces: two movements, then four, then the whole thing at half speed, then at tempo with the music.
Memorizing is not the goal. Over the series the phrases connect, so by the fourth or fifth Saturday someone who has never taken a class is moving through a minute or so of set material, but if you drop in once and forget the phrase by Sunday, the class still did what it was for. The choreography section is where coordination gets practiced, where left and right get sorted out, and where people discover that the thing they could not do at 2:05 they can do at 2:20.
What is improvisation if I have never danced?
The last twenty minutes, and the section people are most wary of before class and most likely to mention afterward. Improvisation here is always structured. I give a constraint: move only your arms for one song, or cross the floor and arrive at the far wall when the chorus returns, or follow one other person’s pace without copying their movement. The constraint gives you a task, and the task takes the place of the question “what do I do now,” which is the question that makes open improvisation unbearable for a beginner.
There is no showing. Nobody dances alone in the middle of the room while everyone watches unless they ask to, and in a beginner series nobody asks.
What should I bring and wear?
Anything you can move in. Bare feet, socks, or soft shoes, and no street shoes on the floor. A water bottle. If you have an accessibility need, call or text before your first Saturday. The series costs $125, and a single class costs $25, so dropping in once to see whether the shape of the ninety minutes suits you is a cheap experiment. The address is 212 45th St, Pittsburgh, PA 15201, in Lawrenceville. More at /dance/.