The Masterclass Series
Upcoming Classes
November 21
Instructor: Bernard Brown
Class Name: Afro-Contemporary
Description:
Fast-paced and educational, this Afro-Contemporary dance technique class will challenge participants to engage body, mind, and spirit, learn movement phrases, push beyond “technique,” and to explore their own individual performance choices throughout. Focusing on breath, alignment, rhythm and articulation, this contemporary movement experience will incorporate many influences including Africanist movement technologies, postmodern aesthetics, and modern & contemporary dance techniques with a distinct emphasis on the foundational Katherine Dunham technique.
December 12
Instructor: Zaquia Mahler-Salinas
Class Name: Coming Soon
Description: Coming Soon
Learn More About
Masterclass Instructors
Bernard Brown
Bernard Brown is an award-winning performer, choreographer, filmmaker, curator, arts activist, and educator who situates their work at the intersection of Blackness, Queerness, and belonging. With an extensive performing career, Bernard now serves as Director of Bernard Brown/bbmoves, choreographing for stage, specific sites, film, and opera presented globally including invitations, residencies and commissions from The Getty, On The Boards, REDCAT, Dance Camera West, American Dance Festival’s Movies by Movers, Oscar-qualifying African Diaspora Cinema Festival, Seoul International Dance Festival, The Music Center, Dance Italia, Royce Hall and US Embassy sponsored tour to Burkina Faso, West Africa. His concert dance performance credits include Lula Washington Dance Theatre, David Rousseve/REALITY, Doug Elkins Dance Company, Jazz Antiqua Dance and Music Ensemble, and founding member of TU Dance. Other stage credits include Robert Wilson’s “Letter to a Man” with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Los Angeles Opera’s “Aida,” Penumbra Theater’s “Black Nativity,” Donald Byrd’s “Harlem Nutcracker,” “Treemonisha” for Skylark Opera (choreographer and performer), the titular role in Nike’s “12 Miles North: The Nick Gabaldon Story,” and the Kennedy Center’s Masters of African American Choreography, as répétiteur and performer. He has worked in films directed by Chris Emile, Janessa Clarke, and Tim Allen. He is a core member of Street Dance Activism and an ongoing collaborator with Dancing Through Prison Walls, an abolitionist project. His curatorial work has been seen at the California African American Museum, Highways Performance Space, Pieter Performance Space, and on the streets of the historic Leimert Park Village through collaborative work with LA Commons and Pacific Standard Time, a Getty Foundation initiative. Brown has conducted workshops, lectures, presentations, and master classes internationally, namely in Korea, Israel, Burkina Faso, Panama, Malta, Canada, and Brazil, and across the US, sharing his inclusive pedagogy. A first-generation college graduate, Brown earned his MFA from UCLA and BFA from Purchase College. He is an Associate Professor at UC San Diego, a Certified Katherine Dunham Technique Instructor, and was named a Cultural Trailblazer by the City of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times has called him “…the incomparable Bernard Brown…”