SIX WEEK SCHOOL
The staff, faculty, and students who make up the Six Week School (SWS) are a diverse and eclectic group — ranging from students seeking an early artistic experience to those with an eye on the professional world. The school provides pathways into both contemporary concepts and historical approaches shaping the future of dance. The faculty play an active role in integrating these varied approaches. Full-time SWS students take three two-hour classes that meet on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. WFSS (pronounced “woofs”) are classes that meet on Wednesdays, Friday evenings, Saturdays, and Sundays. They are an opportunity for SWS students to draw connections by personalizing, creating, and expanding their experiences at the ADF through participation in a variety of artistic endeavors — a festival within a festival. Practice includes technique classes as well as those that include the making, articulation, and performance of work. Projects, seminars, jams, salons, and showings express multiple ways students might choose to connect and present work in alternative contexts.
Music
FOUR WEEK SCHOOL
The Four Week School (FWS) immerses students in an intergenerational and international community of dance, providing a fun yet intensive program of study designed to meet the needs of mature students ages 12 to 16. Students take three classses each day, four days a week, and participate in special workshops and master classes offered by guest artists on Wednesdays and weekends. Classes include modern, ballet, hip-hop, African dance styles, composition, and repertory.
The focus of this program is to expose students to a wide range of dance styles and techniques. Instructed by an outstanding faculty, students at all levels work to increase their technical and expressive capabilities in a positive and supportive environment. Students are encouraged to work together and are challenged to think in new ways across stylistic boundaries. Technique, repertory, composition, and improvisation classes provide the basis for young dancers to develop.
Learning experiences go beyond the studio: students have the unique opportunity to view performances by many of the most outstanding dancers and choreographers working today. Students attend performances by all visiting companies, both in the ADF subscription series and informal performances. Scheduled museum visits, music classes, and panel discussions involving the legendary and cutting-edge forces in modern dance provide a rich atmosphere for inquiry. Young dancers become aware of the breadth and depth of the contemporary dance world.
Movies
DANCE PROFESSIONALS WORKSHOP
Dance Professionals Workshop (DPW) participants are invited to choose one of the available weeks to attend the Festival. Selected weeks begin on a Friday and end on a Friday. Participants should be aware that ADF observes the 4th of July holiday and the class schedule for that day may be altered. Participants must check in by noon on the Friday of their selected week. Participants will design their course schedules from the Six Week School curriculum. They can take classes, observe faculty and students from around the globe, view performances, and meet informally with faculty and members of the ADF community. It is important to note that Six Week School classes are accumulative in nature, and faculty may choose to build upon the previous weeks’ classes. This uniquely designed program allows participants to personalize their ADF experience according to their professional needs and interests. Each participant will receive a complimentary ticket to one performance by each visiting company in residence the week of their stay. All DPW participants are invited to attend the two-hour creative inquiry workshops on Wednesdays. The creative inquiry workshop will provide a place for DPW participants to dialogue with each other about their research and issues impacting their current artistic practice.
Television
“The ADF is the place to discover the incredible range of contemporary dance techniques being taught in the world today. The ADF’s richly varied offerings span the historical spectrum, from classical modern techniques to ballet to release-based ‘counter-techniques’ and styles too new to name. Daily technique class is an essential tool in the preparation and maintenance of the dancer’s body for optimum articulation, strength, and expressivity. Every technique class taught at the ADF is student-centered and will nurture, challenge, provoke, and transform.” –Brenda Daniels
Books
“Composition classes at the ADF are an opportunity for students to engage in and explore a wide range of creative processes as they relate to contemporary performance and culture. The ADF’s composition classes celebrate the multiplicity of approaches to process and imagination through classes, artist’s talks, and open showings. Each student is challenged to find their own creative voice, interests, and passions within a thinking and responsive community.” –Neta Pulvermacher
Heroes
“The purpose of improvisation classes at the ADF is to engage students in an exploration of their creativity. Not overly concerned with a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ way to proceed, many different strategies will be used to draw out each participant’s personal and individual dance. There are skills and techniques of improvisation, and the various classes will investigate several of them. These include releasing technique, contact improvisation, improvisation with speaking while moving, improvisation in site specific situations, Improvisation Technologies, etc. In some situations this improvisation work will be an end unto itself, and sometimes it will be used as a compositional tool to lead each student to find his or her unique choreographic voice. There will also be a weekly improvisation jam where students can practice their skills in a safe and supportive environment.”– Ishmael Houston-Jones
About me: ADF 2009 dates--
SWS: June 11 - July 26,
FWS: June 28 - July 25.
We are currently in the process of planning the 2009 festival - please keep checking back for updates.
You can also visit the ADF website at www.americandancefestival.org or find us on facebook. Questions about the ADF school? Email Nicolle at school@americandancefestival.org or call 919-684-6402.
FOR MORE INFO ON JANE AND HER NEW BOOK, "SHOOT ME WHILE I'M HAPPY: MEMORIES FROM THE TAP GODDESS OF THE LOWER EAST SIDE" please visit: http://www. janegoldberg. org
So I was wondering if anyone remembered Corbet's last name?? He was one of the musicans at ADF this past summer? I know his band's name was Mysterium (sp?) but I can't find his music on itunes..
Thank you very much for letting me join your circle of friends. I hope to see you out on the road real soon. Keep the blues alive and keep on keeping the faith! Peace and Love! Shirley King, Daughter of The Blues
Should anyone be in need of a custom costume... feel free to let me know what your song is. All costumes designed and made by me for each specific song and I'm always looking for places to sell my custom line of shorts! Check out my portfolio! Happy Dancing! =D
Hey yall! its my first time to go to adf and I'm kind of nervous! ha anyways, if anyone wants to give me some inside scoop on what to expect that would be great!
hi, dancers! Does anyone need a roommate? i would like to find someone to share a place for ADF 08'. leave me a message if you are interested! Tai's number: 301-273-5727
It's Luisa I am going to The ADF and i would like to toalk to you about the HOuse for the summer but i can't add you. i don't know your e-mail or your name. LUisa's email: luisa_2010@hotmail.com
Hello all, this is a project I am currently working on it is a performance piece that in ten days will travel from airport to airport all around the world. It will interact with a characteristic shared by all airports—the power to alter one's perception of space and time. I am interested in juxtaposing the airport—a place where space and time are warped or even suspended-with dance, an art form completely dependent on how we perceive the body moving in space and time.
