Archive: Workshops, Intensives, Master Classes, and Open Houses

Discover dance this summer at Threads Dance Nexus!

Creative Connections for ages 4-6: June 16-20 and June 23-27, 9:00-10:15am
$125 for one week or $230 for both weeks. Need-based scholarships are available.

Young movers will explore a variety of dance styles and how dance intersects with music, numbers, art, theater, and more. They will learn the importance of healthy bodies and minds, discuss basic nutrition, and how emotions can be defined, demonstrated, and calmed using movement. This journey of creativity and self-expression will be shared in a casual showing for family and friends at the end of each week.

NexGen/YDP (Youth Dance Project) for ages 8-12: July 7-11 and July 14-18, 9:00am-12:00pm
$279 for one week or $499 for both weeks. Need-based scholarships are available.

NexGen/YDP PLUS for ages 8-12 with 2+ years dance experience: July 7-11 and July 14-18, 9:00am-1:00pm
$329 for one week or $579 for both weeks. Need-based scholarships are available.

Embark on a fun and holistic dance experience for your child in this comprehensive approach to summer dance learning. Dancers will grow in confidence, strength, and self-expression as they study ballet and modern techniques. They will learn self-care for their bodies and minds through nutrition and embodied movement exploration. Journals will be provided as a tool for self-reflection and discovery. Students will share what they’ve learned in a casual showing at the end of each week.

No prior dance experience is required. A limited number of partial and full scholarships are available – visit our website for more information.

The Threads Dance Project Advanced/Professional Summer Intensive is an intensive workshop that explores advanced dance techniques to enhance both performance and choreography for professional and pre-professional dancers.

Participants can choose one or both tracks and are encouraged to register for both tracks for a full immersive experience.

Performer’s Track: June 23-27 from 10:30am-2:45pm
Strengthen technical mastery and performance skills in Contemporary-Modern, African Dance, Ballet, Hip-Hop, Jazz, and more.

Choreographer’s Track: June 23-27 from 1:30-5:30pm
Focus on creation with classes in Repertoire, Composition, and Improvisation, plus studies in Grant Writing, Show Production, and more.

Final Showing: Friday, June 27 from 5:30-6:00pm
Tuition: $260 per track or $449 for both tracks

For more details and registration, click here.

I A.M. Arts presents its third retreat/residency for mid-career women creatives this year! Ìwúre: A reclamation of our post-imperial imagination. It will include 6 days and 5 nights, Tuesday, June 24 – Sunday, June 29, of professional development workshops and restorative practice led by renowned thought leaders. The retreat will take place at Frog Tree Farm, a multigenerational Black-owned farm in Wadena County.

Our retreat/residency program serves leaders and artists who have a socially-engaged practice, who create and manage systems of support for others, and who need to be poured into through the praxis of mutual aid. Visionary arts leader, Alanna Morris, is the Program Manager and Lead Curator (though, our program is developed with input from community members). 

We will be ushered in by a keynote address from Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde; Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals; Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines), a public scholar, Queer Black Troublemaker and Feminist Love Evangelist. Our roster of workshop facilitators includes authors, anthropologists, body workers, scholars, community builders, dance artists, and co-operative land stewards who heal communities through activism.

Professional development workshops and restorative practice are led by renown thought leaders to center sovereignty for black and indigenous peoples, land stewardship, wellness, joy practices, and social entrepreneurship.

Our program is inclusive of trans women and gender-expansive identities. This is a queer-inclusive, body positive, liberatory space—you are welcome!

This year, to honour the socio-political and economic climate, the program donation-based. Accommodations on the farm are available until full and include single and shared cabins, bell tents, and a caravan.

Limited capacity! Application open through Friday, June 20.

2025 Facilitators:
Dr. Brendane Tynes: Unburdening Ourselves for Liberation: An Introduction to Black Feminist Resistance
Alanna Morris: Embodying Archive: Ritual performance and Ritualized Living
Rebecca Ndosi: DEEP Listening From Within: An Introduction to Soul Listening
Mama Kapacity: The Power of the Feminine Re:Membered
DejaJoelle: Body Reclamation and The Garden
Iya Mabolé: Of Spirit and Soil: liberation through gender fugitively
Mariana Castañeda Lopez: Movement as Medicine Lab
Kelly Shay: Dance Party – Your Movement of Joy
Kao Kalia Yang: Taking Your Time

Special guest to be announced!

In solidarity,
Alanna Morris, I A.M. Arts Artistic Director

Staying With is a workshop in improvisational movement where we will lean into the “known”: our familiar movement patterns, habits and histories, to guide us to the edge of what is “unknown”. We will play with honoring and disrupting habitual impulses, while exploring gradients of touch and energetic connections with ourselves and others.

Moving in solo, duets and ensemble, we will explore strategies and tools that allow our choice-making to veer us in new directions—in both movement and life. How can we “stay with” in moments when it’s easier not to? How can we lean more deeply into our practice of improvisation, when there’s uncertainty and discomfort?

This class will draw from Somatic Experiencing, somatic release techniques, ensemble improvisation and contact improvisation.

Saturday, June 28 from 10:00am-12:30pm
Location: Center for Performing Arts — Sunroom Studio
Workshop Price: $40
Email Tamin to RSVP at tamin@tamintotzke.com with the subject line: StayingWith – RSVP.

Summer Feldenkrais with Jeffrey Wells and Krista Langberg

Three Summer Workshops!
In-person at East Lake Aikido from 6:00-8:30pm 

We live in a culture that encourages us to push, strain, and power through, even when it doesn’t serve us. But what if the key to feeling better isn’t doing more, but doing differently, or perhaps even less? This series of three Feldenkrais workshops offers an approach to movement and self-awareness that helps you move smarter, not harder. Through gentle, exploratory movement, you’ll learn how to reduce unnecessary effort and discover greater ease, coordination, and resilience in your everyday life. Discover how attention to your shoulders, hips, and feet can create powerful changes throughout your whole system. As Feldenkrais said, “When you know what you’re doing, you can do what you want – with less effort, more grace, and greater efficiency.” Designed for all levels.

June 30: Relax the Shoulders, Reclaim Your Reach
Explore how softening tension in the shoulders and neck can restore ease, support, and range of motion.

July 28: Free Your Hips for Smoother Walking and Sitting
Discover how improved pelvic organization can reduce strain and bring more freedom to walking, sitting, and standing.

August 18: Strong, Flexible Feet for Better Balance
Learn how responsive, grounded feet can support your posture, balance, and whole-body coordination.

Workshop Pricing
Full Series (All 3 Workshops): $125—save $55 compared to paying individually
Single Workshop: $60 each
Early Bird Discount for the First Workshop: “Shoulders”
Register by June 23 and pay only $45 (Regular price: $60)
Register here!

Improve your technique and advance your artistry in a positive and welcoming environment with one of the top dance companies in the Twin Cities!

Classes in our Summer Dance Intensive are taught by multiple instructors and include Musical Theatre Jazz, Classic Jazz Technique, Ballet, Leaps and Turns, Hip-Hop, Contemporary, and more. Students may register for one or both weeks: July 7-11 and/or July 14-18. Classes are taught by multiple instructors from 9:30am-3:30pm each week.

The Intensive culminates with our Collide Showcase. Video will be taken so dancers have a professional-grade copy to use for future auditions and submissions. Local students are also invited to perform excerpts from the Intensive at the Minnesota State Fair in August!

Level placement requires a referral from a teacher or Collide company member, or a two-minute video submission. Please send a video (one minute of Ballet Adagio with pirouettes and one minute of Jazz) or referral name and contact information to Auditions@collidetheatrical.org.

Minnesota Dance Theatre invites intermediate/advanced dancers to Classical Repertoire Workshops:

• Saturday, July 12 from 9:30-11:30am with Yuki Tokunda
• Saturday, August 16 from 9:30-11:30am with Justin Leaf

Cost: $25 per workshop

Discover dance with a week-long sampler camp for young artists! If your little one is eager to explore different styles or discover their unique groove, this camp is the perfect playground for their imagination. Join us for an adventure where we’ll dive into a mix of dynamic dance styles and creative movements, sparking joy and inspiration in every step.

Session 1: Ages 4-6
July 14-18, 9:00am-12:00pm

Session 2: Ages 7-10
July 14-18, 12:30-3:30pm

Informal showing on the last day. All abilities and levels of experience are welcome.
Tuition is $225; scholarships are available for partial and full tuition upon inquiry.

Register for Camp Zenon! Registration closes one week before camp begins.
Learn more about Zenon Dance School’s Camp Zenon.