A Gold Star Experience: Maxine Heppner, Guest Teacher

Liz Winklaar, Phil Charbonneau, (Renata Soutter in mirror with camera), Moni Hoffman, Alan Shain. Maxine Heppner in middle, Robert Chartier front

On February 16 and 17 of 2012, Propeller had the pleasure to have Maxine Heppner a choreographer, contemporary performer and artist as a guest instructor for a two day workshop, we worked on the awareness of inner and outer impulses, the duration and length with a single movement and we also worked on translating inner movement into visible dance. She also had us close our eyes and visualize a gold star and we had to describe how it moved, and just by listening to other people describe what they saw made it more real, more powerful and inspiring.

At one point in the day we got into some creation experiments. Maxine put us into duets, I got to be with Alan Shain which was really fun. We worked with objects in the space and changing our shape. We also identified the elements of dance such as time, shape, space and effort. We also discovered that time includes pulse and rhythm and that it helps to understand music even when you are moving without sound. Movement has it’s own music and rhythm.

We also did an exercise with internal movements and external movements. First we danced internally from the inside where the impulse for movement comes from somewhere within, like a thought or emotion. Then we danced externally which is from the outside. The impulse comes from our bodies moving and the space around us. From this exercise I found out that I am more internal with my movements. This two-day workshop was really fun. I learned a lot from other people and from myself as well. I got to meet Maxine Heppner for the first time and she is an amazing teacher.