Keila Cordova Dances.... with CoEXISTdance!

On a rainy lazy Saturday afternoon in March, the Jr. dancers of CoEXISTdance were moving, sweating, stretching, exploring, and reaching outside their limitations. Keila Cordova gave an amazing master class to our dancers, inspiring and challening them all at once!

The class began with an intricate exploration or diagonal lines and making Horton-inspired T shapes. (Re: "What is Horton technique?" Check out here: http://www.dancemagazine.com/issues/February-2007/Technique-The-Hows-of-Horton)"The movement style was very tight and controlled", Julia Huppman noted. This linear technique of modern was something very new to most of the dancers, another student, Erin Moran, commented that "The movement was unique!"

Dancers were challenged to count in six as opposed to the traditional eight count while creating T shapes and simultanesouly changing their facing from the mirror to the floor and back again. "The most challening part for me was the T because you had to keep your core strong",  Abby Miller said. Dancers learned how to maintain a see-saw relationship between their torsos' and legs' in order to demonstrate a perfectly proportional T. Their abdominals certainly got a workout from all of the T work they performed!

After a thorough warm-up and modern technique exploration, the class ventured across the floor. The Jr. Company tried Egyptian Walking, which challenged them to hold a 90 degree shape across their arms and chest. Dancers also worked on isolations and walking across the floor at the same time. This allowed dancers to stay strong in their focus and physicality while having fun with each other. Abby Miller mentioned, "Keila taught me how to stay strong and have fun at the same time. I will remember that." Dancer Alexa Fooskas mentioned, ""I did not know that I could hold up my knee and shake it out at the same time." This class was a wonderful opportunity for dancers to achieve new potentials they did not believe they could!

The remainder of the class included balancing, connecting with other dancers, and reaching outside physical limitations. Dancer Sophia Severson said that ""I will not worry so much about my size while I am dancing!"and fellow Jr. dancer Haley Galloway "I was inspired by Keila's speech about dancing outside of your limitations. No matter how short or tall you are, you can use your dancing to become whatever you want to be." Keila truly passed along a lifelong lesson to our dancers through her beautiful words and gentle presence.

To conclude class, Keila pushed our dancers to travel in a reaching T in pairs. Dancers would start at opposite corners of the room and do their best to make eye contact with each other while traveling. Dancer Maria Grandizio mentioned, "I will take Keila's lesson about making eye contact into my other dance classes and performances". The exercise was quick, challening the dancers to think on their feet and to jump into new connections with different dancers each time. Dancer Maddie Ash notes, "I will remember what it felt like to be paired up quickly with another dancer and make a connection with them. It was fun!"



Keila Cordova surely shook things up in the Jr. Company, waking us up for spring! The dancers fell in love with Keila's nurutring teaching style and inspirational stories, we are so excited for her to see us perform at World Dance Day on April 27th! Check out http://954dmc.weebly.com/world-dance-day-2013.html to see pictures from last year's World Dance Day performance!