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

Balanced Body® Anatomy for Movement Professionals
Friday, January 10: 4:00-8:00pm
Saturday, January 11: 11:30am-6:00pm
Sunday, 9:30am-4:30pm

Fee: $499 + $60 materials. Class fee rises to $549 after December 21.
In person or online.

Anatomy is the foundation of our work as movement professionals. The more you understand about how the body works, the better equipped you are to teach your clients how to move better. In this course you will receive an introduction to the major tissues, joints and muscles of movement. Muscle origin, insertion and action are covered along with movement experiences to help you understand and remember not just the individual muscles, but how they work in synergy to create functional movements. The course includes a manual and video support.

Instructor: Matthew Hodge-Rice

Are you ready to step away from grief and stress and take a restorative journey toward joy, healing, and connection? Join us for the Moving Towards Joy workshop, a powerful 90-minute experience that combines movement, introspection, and journaling to guide you toward a more joyful and peaceful self. No prior dance experience is needed. Come as you are, and let’s move towards joy together.

Tuesday, January 14
6:30-8:00pm

Price: $50, includes a leather-bound Threads journal
Instructor: Karen Charles

Connect with Your Body: Explore the connection between stress, trauma, and the body. Identify physical areas where tension is held and gain insight into your emotional landscape through journaling.

Embrace Joyful Movements: Discover the healing power of movement with guided exercises inspired by Resma Menakem’s primal body movements. Create and share movement phrases that evoke joy, releasing trapped emotions.

Journal for Healing: Use the provided journal to process your journey towards a more joyful and peaceful place. Document your insights, reflections, and newfound clarity.

The Dancing Together Workshop is a child and parent/caregiver Creative Movement class.

This 6-week workshop is designed for children ages 2-4 and their parent/caregiver who are interested in a shared movement experience that engages the senses of curiosity and play. Both child and caregiver will participate in developmentally appropriate movement exercises incorporating elements such as effort, shape, and tempo. Music will play an essential role in the class, as students will be asked to respond to sounds and make sounds themselves. Participants will be encouraged to join at their own comfort level with the understanding that observation is often the best form of learning with younger children. This class will give children and caregivers the opportunity to learn more about themselves and one another through the art form of dance.

Saturdays, 9:00-9:45am
January 18-February 22 and/or March 15-May 3, with no classes on April 5 and 12.

Online registration is required.

Movement as Language explores how dance can become a common language through community workshops and choreographic processes.

The 2025 series explores the theme ancestry. The workshops are for people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, particularly BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and disabled community members and are open to adults of all abilities and all levels of dance experience.

We cultivate interconnections across cultures in a safe space that values going beyond acceptance and tolerance, to honor the different perspectives and backgrounds that support collaborative creation inspired by each other. Participants are invited to audition for the performance opportunity in Spring 2026.

We invite you to join us for the first workshop of this year’s Movement as Language series, hosted by the Ordway:

Saturday, January 18
11:00am-2:30pm
Free

Please join Erin Thompson for a “Ring in the New Year” contemporary dance class in honor of New Year’s Eve.

Before you make your New Year’s resolutions, come find peace with internal awareness, thrust your holiday limbs into the ground, and fly across the floor flinging 2024 away!

Intermediate-Advanced Contemporary
Thursday, December 31
10:00-11:45am

In-person only! Registration is open through Zenon’s MindBody portal.

Are you ready to step away from grief and stress and take a restorative journey toward joy, healing, and connection? Join us for the Moving Towards Joy workshop, a powerful 90-minute experience that combines movement, introspection, and journaling to guide you toward a more joyful and peaceful self. No prior dance experience is needed. Come as you are, and let’s move towards joy together.

December Session: Wednesday, December 11, 6:30-8:00pm
January Session: Tuesday, January 14, 6:30-8:00pm

Price: $50, includes a leather-bound Threads journal

Connect with Your Body: Explore the connection between stress, trauma, and the body. Identify physical areas where tension is held and gain insight into your emotional landscape through journaling.

Embrace Joyful Movements: Discover the healing power of movement with guided exercises inspired by Resma Menakem’s primal body movements. Create and share movement phrases that evoke joy, releasing trapped emotions.

Journal for Healing: Use the provided journal to process your journey towards a more joyful and peaceful place. Document your insights, reflections, and newfound clarity.

You’re invited to join a community-based dance project all about the driftless region! This free workshop will be part of a creation process for the Driftless Water Dance happening as a part of the Global Water Dance Festival in June. Bring yourself and be ready to move and share your stories of the driftless and be creative about telling a story about this place through dance.

Saturday, December 14, 1:00-4:00pm
No experience necessary. All ages welcome.
Free. Drop-in anytime.

Additional Upcoming Workshops
Saturday, February 9, 1:00-4:00pm – Lake City Arts Center
Tuesday, February 25, 6:00-8:00pm – Widespot in Wabasha

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. Facilitated by Espoir DelMain, reach out with any questions or for more details by emailing espoir.delmain@gmail.com or checking out the Facebook event.

GYROKINESIS® for Adults is a 6-week workshop that will start with breathing patterns and progress into motions that mobilize the spine through arching, curling, bending, spiraling, and waving. Connecting with the breath, the movement starts to feel like a dance: oxygenating the circulatory system, stimulating the nervous system, and opening the body. Exercises are done on chairs/stools and in standing and lying positions.

Wednesdays, 4:30-5:45pm
January 8-February 12
Cost: $90

Online registration is required. For more information about Wendy and to register, click here.

The Dancing Together Workshop is a child and parent/caregiver Creative Movement class.

This 6-week workshop is designed for children ages 2-4 and their parent/caregiver who are interested in a shared movement experience that engages the senses of curiosity and play. Both child and caregiver will participate in developmentally appropriate movement exercises incorporating elements such as effort, shape, and tempo. Music will play an essential role in the class, as students will be asked to respond to sounds and make sounds themselves. Participants will be encouraged to join at their own comfort level with the understanding that observation is often the best form of learning with younger children. This class will give children and caregivers the opportunity to learn more about themselves and one another through the art form of dance.

Saturdays, 9:00-9:45am
January 18-February 22 and/or March 15-May 3, with no classes on April 5 and 12.

Online registration is required.

Friday, December 6
6:30–8:00pm
Center for Performing Arts, Studio 105w – next to 38th Street entrance.

This event is open to people of all ages and abilities. Enjoy being present in the moment, responding to other dancers, finding new ways of moving, and discovering form as it emerges during this fun evening of creative movement. We’ll begin with an informal warm-up, then improvise together based on movement ideas offered by participants.

If you play an instrument or experiment with any sound, please feel free to bring it along!

Come to move, to dance, to observe, or some of each!

Suggested donation $5-$15. No one turned away for lack of funds.