I strive to expand and diversify the movement choices of the students, offering them the freedom to move towards health, functional integration and a deeper kinesthetic/spatial awareness. My goal in the class setting is to cultivate the innate intelligence and inherent creativity within the student’s thinking, feeling, dynamic body/mind. I seek to simultaneously foster compassion and self-acceptance while gently meeting the edges of the student’s abilities. Upcoming/current - 2011 / 2012 MLK Jam, Washington D.C. Somatic Aesthetics: Contact Improvisation and composing from within How can we use somatic practices to inspire our artistry? How does our embodiment inform our compositional choices and aesthetic values? From what part of our nervous system do we create form and are those choices determined by innate or acquired aesthetic values? How can we integrate the skills of Contact Improvisation (the dance of the reflexes) within our solo practice and ensemble dancing towards a more gutsy, intuitive dance? In this workshop we’ll move with facility between our inner and outer worlds. We’ll begin with a personal practice inspired by my studies of Body-Mind Centering, specifically the embodied anatomy of the nervous system. We’ll explore the nervous system in contact improvisation duets and then broaden our awareness into ensemble dancing. We’ll use the eyes as sensory organs, the sensation of our vision to inspire kinesthetic impulses. We’ll compose dances from a place of sensual, kinesthetic and proprioceptive desire as opposed to preplanned aesthetic choices. In this lab-like environment, we’ll discover when our embodied impulses create spatial harmony and when they create dissonance. Most importantly, we’ll dance together in the spontaneous community that forms among participants. Anatomy for Asana A 48 hr training for Yoga teachers and experienced Yoga practitioners March - June 2012 @ Yoga Child June 23rd - July 1st, 2012 Wild Meadows Improvisation Retreat Facilitated by: Cyrus Khambatta, Daniel Burkholder and Nicole Bindler. Contact Improvisation Sundays, 12:30-2:30pm Rotating teachers, $10 @ Studio 34 December 4th – Nicole Bindler December 11th – Nicole Bindler December 18th – Loren Groenendaal *no class Dec 25th or Jan 1st* January 8th – Curt Haworth January 15th – canceled because of falls bridge festival January 22nd – Curt Haworth January 29th – Curt Haworth February 5th – Jung Woong KIm February 12th – Lee Fogel February 19th – Lee Fogel February 26th – Jung Woong March 4th – Lee Fogel March 11th – Nicole Bindler March 18th – Nicole Bindler March 25th – Nicole Bindler April 1st – Curt Haworth April 8th – Nicole Bindler April 15th – Leah Stein April 22nd – Leah Stein April 29th – Leah Stein May 6th – Jung Woong Kim May 13th – Lee Fogel May 20th – Jung Woong Kim May 27th – Jung Woong Kim June 3rd – Greg Holt June 10th – Greg Holt June 17th – Greg Holt Aug 8-14, 2011 Blood, Sea: salty, fluid dances @ contactfestival freiberg This class is inspired by several threads of Body-Mind Centering: Phylogenetic: our evolution from the ocean to land, ontogenetic: our journey from the amniotic sea of the womb to adulthood and the embodied anatomy of the fluids; how they can inspire and support movement. The title is drawn from the writing of Italo Calvino. His short story, "Blood, Sea" refers to the balance of salinity in our blood and in the ocean from which we humans evolved: “Bathed by the primordial wave which continues to flow in the arteries, our blood in fact has a chemical composition analogous to that of the sea of our origins.” As we evolved into terrestrial beings, we brought the sea inside of us, onto land. The blood spirals though the arteries and veins, carrying nourishment to all of the cells of the body. The arteriole blood travels out toward the distal points of the body and has a repetitive, pulsing rhythm. The venous blood travels back toward the heart and has a wavelike, swinging rhythm. The place where the arteriole and venous capillaries meet is called the isoring, a balanced resting place between coming and going. By balancing this inward and outward flow and finding the meeting place of stillness, we can move with more facility between solo, duo and ensemble dances. Some physical ways we will explore the circulatory system include: running, inverting, breathing, finding deep rest, sensing our heart beat, giving and receiving weight, moving towards and away, body surfing with an aquatic frame of mind, hearty and bloodful laughter, etc. This class delves into the spiralic, rhythmic, oceanic nature of the blood to find momentum, gravity and flow within our contact dances. Tuning in to the fluid movement within, we will expand our dances beyond the musculo-skeletal body and we will dance with heart. June 25th - July 3rd, 2011 Wild Meadows Improvisation Retreat Facilitated by: Cyrus Khambatta, Sharon Mansur and Nicole Bindler. Master Classes: (Each of these workshops includes live accompaniment and can be formatted as a single class, a weekend or a full week residency.) Moving Monologues: solo movement / text improvisations We will use text/movement improvisations as a practice to learn more about who we are as performers and to gently push ourselves further. We will ask ourselves how can we be articulate in both media? How can we use both media to strengthen each other? My personal interest is not in finding a direct correlation between the movement and text, but in using one to unlock habits in the other. Embodied Anatomy Yoga EAY is the study of anatomy, experientially through the practice of Yoga. We will explore our different body systems -muscle, bone, connective tissue, fluids, organs, endocrine, breath, nervous- their different qualities and functions through yoga postures and movement. All levels of experience are welcome. This class emphasizes a sense of curiosity and play as we find our unique alignment within yoga postures. EAY is for students who want to gain ease and efficiency within their yoga practice and gain kinesthetic awareness through a slow, deep, student focused class. Contact Improvisation CI is a partner dance form using physical contact, weight sharing and human connection as the impetus for the dance. The point of contact is used as a fulcrum for unusual movement not physically possible in a solo dance. Using gravity and momentum the dance unfolds in unexpected ways. As an improvisational form, there is an emphasis on being present and open to the unknown. All levels of movement experience and ability are welcome to practice CI. There is no judgment about what is beautiful or ugly. It is a deeply personal and experiential dance. The quality of the dance is gauged by how the dancers themselves experience it. There are specific techniques and forms that one can learn and practice in order to make the dance safer and more enjoyable, but these techniques are not an end; they are a means towards a unique, unrepeatable dance. Performance Practice / Improvisation This Workshop is inspired by my studies with historic Judson luminaries Deborah Hay and Barbara Dilley; Japanese Butoh artists, Katsura Kan and Yoshito Ohno; and the teaching artists in Philadelphia through Headlong's Dance-Theater Camp. Further inspiration is drawn from the work of Ruth Zaporah and Mary Overlie's Viewpoints, which I have had the good fortune to study with my colleague Cyrus Khambatta. In Performance Practice we work with composed and improvised movement scores to carve out our edges as performers. We will work with the building blocks of composition: Space, Time, Shape, Movement, Emotion and Story to create dances spontaneously. We will investigate use of the eyes, head and breath to develop subtlety and nuance within our performance. This workshop broadens the possibilities for dance virtuosity beyond the development of athleticism towards an embodied, intelligent, performance presence. Testimonials: "Nicole Bindler has seriously revolutionized my relationship with my knees, my plié, and thus pretty much my entire upright dancing self." --Annie Wilson, dancer, yoga teacher "I met Nicole attending my first yoga class. Her dedication of learning shines through in all her ways of teaching. She has a beautiful intuitiveness of reading people and applying just the right needs for them. Her body moves as gently as she speaks, her teachings both spoken and silent remain with me all throughout the day. Her expansive knowledge and experience of the body teaches us about its movements, and all its interconnectedness with ourselves and the world, and allows us the opportunity to apply these practices in various ways. Her efforts in learning and sharing have allowed me to apply greater consciousness and intention in all my actions.  It is truly a pleasure and a gift to take a class with such a talented and enthusiastic mentor." --Blaine Pirareo, contractor In the fall of 2002, Nicole Bindler taught Zaitoun Dance Troupe a Modern Dance workshop to help broaden their technical range: "Nicole seemed to see into our bodies and know what we needed to improve on. Her acute body awareness helped her to understand our weaknesses and push us to explore and strengthen them. Our entire group feels that we benefited greatly from her gentle and directed instruction. Zaitoun recommends her as a talented, patient, and conscientious dance instructor." -Bonnie Toland, Founding Member of Zaitoun Dance Troupe "During the 2005 I worked with Nicole Bindler in a workshop of dance improvisation in Fundación El Ciclope, Córdoba. The workshop consisted in two days of intense work. The workshop gave me important information for further investigations in my dance. I strongly recommend Nicole as a residence artist because she is a person who never stop searching and looking for new things, and most of all, is a generous artist. I think is very important to find a teacher who can offer and share her knowledge, and also is open minded to learn from others. - Griselda de Elejalde, Dance-Theater Artist, member of KAO performatic theater, Cordoba, Argentina Past: 2011 Embodied Anatomy Yoga February 28th - March 4th Rosario, Argentina, Contact Improvisation and Performance Practice March 5th - 6th Rosario, Argentina, Contact Improvisation and Performance Practice March 9th -11th Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2010 Anatomy course at Down Dog Yoga December 4th / 5th June 27th - July 3rd, 2010 Wild Meadows Improvisation Retreat Facilitated by: Cyrus Khambatta, Sharon Mansur and Nicole Bindler. June 4th Somatics and Contemporary Technique at the nEW Festival http://www.newfestival.net/ June 1st, 7-11pm Open Sound Workshop, presented by Bowerbird. Community Education Center, Philly, PA. Contact Improvisation workshops in Agentina March 13th/14th - Rosario Contact Improvisation and Performance Lab http://www.estudiogabimorales.com.ar/ For more info email: estudiodanza@ciudad.com.ar March 4th-7th - Buenos Aires (4/5 - beginner's mind CI; 6/7 - CI and performance lab) For more info email: emacabral@gmail.com 2009 Contact Improvisation January-February, Mondays 7:00-10:00pm with Nicole Bindler and Adams Berzins The Parlor, 1170 S. Broad St, Philly, PA. (Please note Jan 4th is at UArts Terra Building, 4th floor, 211 S. Broad Street as part of the nEW Festival http://www.newfestival.net) Wild Meadows July 12 - 18 Ongoing Tuesday Yogadance for kids @ Yogachild Seven Gate Movement @ Studio 34 Yoga l Healing l Arts For experienced movers of all sorts (dancers, yogis, martial artists) Sundays beginning March 8th, 2009, 12:30-2:20 pm, $10/$9 w/dancepass 2008 Oct 18th, 2-6 p.m. Experiential Anatomy (EA) for Yoga teachers and serious Yoga practitioners @ Studio 34 Sept 9th, 6:00-7:30 Contemporary Dance @ Susan Hess 2030 Sansom St, 3rd Fl (subbing for Myra Bazell) Improvisation Performance Practice Sat/Sun, March 22nd/23rd, Grassroots Studio, Seattle, WA