The Evolving Artist: Sweat, Joy & Creative Renewal
LIVE NYC Summer Intensive
Mark Morris Dance Center
June 29-July 3, 2026
11AM-5:30PM Mon-Thurs/6 pm Friday
$600 (Payment Plans Available)
Plus a free year of PRAXISPACE
Questions/inquiries: alexandra@alexandrabellerdances.org
About this Workshop
The Evolving Artist Intensive is a 5-day immersion for dancers, teachers, and returning professionals who want a rare, dedicated week to focus on their own practice again. Designed with the adult artist in mind, this intensive centers on physical rigor, creative inquiry, and a joyful reawakening of the dancing body.
Through daily Bartenieff Fundamentals, contemporary technique, improvisation, partnering, and process-driven choreography, we explore the evolving body as a site of intelligence, resilience, and possibility. Rather than resisting change, we work with it—resetting patterns that no longer serve, reinforcing those that support us, and discovering new pathways into expression, efficiency, and pleasure.
This week welcomes a cohort primarily ages 30+, including many artists in their 40s, 50s, and beyond. With this in mind, the training emphasizes rigor with care: sweaty, satisfying dancing built through momentum and breath; phrasework that feels full without feeling punishing; clear options and modifications for a wide range of bodies; and a permission-based environment that encourages agency, curiosity, and choice.
From introspective somatic work to high-energy phrasebuilding to deep studio creativity, each day offers opportunities for grounding, challenge, renewal, and joy. Faculty include Kyle Marshall, Thryn Saxon, K.J Holmes, Baye & Asa, and Adam Barruch, alongside choreographic facilitation and Bartenieff study with Alexandra Beller.
Whether you are a working professional, an educator who rarely gets to be a student, or an artist returning to your body after time away, this intensive offers a vibrant and replenishing week of embodied attention, sweat, imagination, and creative renewal.
Each day will feature a Bartenieff Fundamentals class taught by Alexandra. This is followed by a rigorous, full-bodied movement class by a rotating guest teachers. The afternoon is a Choreolab in which you can build a piece or indulge in process. You are welcome to have dancers join you, or work on either a solo or in collaboration with other members in class to create a duet or larger piece. Overall, the week is meant to invite us back into our bodies, collaboration, creativity, flow, and generation, while leaving behind models that do not serve us.
The final day will culminate in a Choreolab informal showing at the end. That day will last an additional 30 minutes.
Here’s how this workshop works...
11-12:15
Bartenieff Fundamentals with Alexandra
This opening class will take students through a comprehensive series of both concepts and physical exercises aimed at increasing awareness and functionality, articulation in both moving and talking about movement, and deepening observation skills.
We will be working both physically and intellectually to use the concepts of connectivity to relate to our larger environment and integration not only to ourselves but our full life.
This juicy, floor-based class is a gentle, personal, and profound daily exploration of the body as it is, and an invitation towards kinder, more efficient movement patterns. It is a chance to examine habits that may not be serving us, recover from trauma, including injury, and engage in healthy, mindful movement.
12:30-2:15
Movement Technique with Guest Artists
Each class will be taught by a different luminary in the field. This year’s guest teachers are Thryn Saxon, Adam Barruch, Kyle Marshall, Baye and Asa, and K.J. Holmes.
This class, taught by a different luminary in the field each day, explores the qualities of released and off-balance dancing while daring students to find disparate qualities of stillness and explosion. Students are encouraged to develop an individual style driven by their internal life and the specificity of their bodies. By researching movement tasks as opposed to recreating shapes, students will begin to solve kinesthetic problems in a profound and personal way. We will focus on becoming compelling and magnetic performers, and working within a broad range of movements, from vigorous and athletic, to gestural and theatrical. The movement is approached from many systems: muscular, skeletal and nervous systems, inviting dancers to work with versatility, intuition, strength, flow, stamina and ease. Multi-cultural inspirations are drawn from a broad range of musical styles and rhythmic complexities.
230-5 PM (6 on Friday):
Choreolab with Alexandra
This is a chance to create work within the supportive structure and gentle pressure of a community. Strong attention is given to creating an environment that fosters individual growth and artistic fertility. Prompts will be given to further each day’s work, and a low-stress sharing/feedback session will end each session. Feedback methods are drawn from “Critical Response Process,” with additions and deletions based on the artists’ needs and the evolution of the work.
To support your creative process, I’ll offer myself as a witness, guide, colleague and mentor, as needed and requested. The group is there to support your choices and goals, and help you find your most profound, and unique, voice. You are welcome to invite dancers to the afternoon session, work on a solo or dance film, or collaborate in duets, trios, or more on a shared work with other members of the class.
2026 Guest Teachers
Photo credit: Ian Douglas
K.J. Holmes
K.J. Holmes, dance artist, actor, vocalist, writer, teacher, has been practicing Improvisational forms as process and performance since 1981. An avid creator of solo/duo/ensemble work, she has collaborated extensively with Steve Paxton and Simone Forti, Lisa Nelson’s Tuning Score, Body Mind Centering ® and the work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Meisner acting with Terry Knickerbocker, Voice/Singing with Richard Armstrong, Barbara Maier Gustern, Samita Singha. Most recently, she has performed her solo work 900 Bees are Humming, in the works of filmmaker/artist Matthew Barney, dancer/writer Karinne Keithley Seyers, Mitski music video, and drummer Jeremy Carlstadt. K.J. is currently conducting a new ensemble piece, Blu/print, begun 2023 with the mentorship of composer/instrumentalist Henry Threadgill through a NY State Dance Force grant. K.J. teaches at NYU/Experimental Theatre Wing and Movement Research in NYC, and travels nationally and internationally teaching, performing and creating.
THRYN SAXON
Thryn Saxon is the director and choreographer of her NYC based dance company SAXYN Dance Works and holds performance credits with Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More, Kate Weare Company, Helen Simoneau Danse, and Doug Varone and Dancers. Saxon’s choreography has been performed at The Perez Art Museum in Miami, FL, Windhover Performing Arts Center in Rockport, MA, Arts on Site in NY, RADFest in MI, Kingsland Wildflowers in NY, Triskelion Arts Theater in NY, and 92Y where her solo “lorelei” was selected for the Future Dance Festival 2022. Residencies for Saxon’s work include Windhover Performing Arts Center, RADicle 22/23 AIR at The Croft in MI, Baryshnikov Arts, and The Moss Center in FL. Saxon also acts as co-director of Homeport Art House, a rural dance residency in mid-coast Maine. As a dance educator Saxon has taught at Gibney Dance Center, SUNY Purchase, NYU, George Mason University, Connecticut College, and Peridance.
Adam Barruch
Adam Barruch began his career as a young actor, performing professionally on Broadway and in film and television, working with prominent figures such as Tony Bennett, Jerry Herman and Susan Stroman. He later received dance training at LaGuardia High School for Music & Art and Performing Arts. After three years, he graduated early and was accepted into the dance department at The Juilliard School. As a dancer he has performed the works of Jirí Kylián, Ohad Naharin, Susan Marshall, Jose Limon, Daniele Dèsnoyers, and was a dancer with Sylvain Émard Danse in Montreal. He has also worked with The Margie Gillis Dance Foundation, performing and researching Conflict Transformation as part of The Legacy Project. Adam currently creates and performs work with own company, Anatomiae Occultii (Hidden Anatomies)—founded with longtime collaborator Chelsea Bonosky. In addition, he has also created works for companies such as The Limón Company, Ailey II, Keigwin + Company, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, River North Dance Chicago, BalletX, Whim W'Him Seattle Contemporary Dance, Graham II, GroundWorks Dance Theater, Minnesota Dance Theatre, The Gibney Dance Company, 10 Hairy Legs, and Daniel Costa Dance—as well as for dance icons Margie Gillis and Miki Orihara. Adam has also choreographed two music videos for Tokyo based musical act mishmash* and created movement for Variety Worldwide, whose projects combine non-traditional theater with nightlife and dining. Adam was the recipient of a 2014 Lotos Foundation Prize in the Arts and Sciences, which recognizes institutions and individuals for distinguished accomplishments and exceptional talent in the arts and sciences. He is also the developer of ‘Dynamic Sequencing,’ a movement practice designed to promote expansive range, healthful coordination and optimal awareness in motion. Adam Barruch holds a Master’s Degree in Acupuncture from Pacific College of Health and Science, and is a Licensed Acupuncturist in New York State.
Photo credit: Amy Gardner
Photo Credit: Lisa Hibbert
Kyle Marshall is a choreographer, performer, teacher and artistic director of Kyle Marshall Choreography (KMC). Since 2014, KMC has performed at The Joyce Theater, Chelsea Factory, BAM Next Wave Festival, The Shed, PS21, and Roulette. Kyle has received choreographic and dance film commissions from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Baryshnikov Arts Center, "Dance on the Lawn" Montclair's Dance Festival, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston). Touring has included: Barbican Centre (London), Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out (Beckett, MA), FringeArts, (Philadelphia), and New World Center (Miami). Recognitions have included two NY Dance and Performance Bessie Awards, and a 2020 Dance Magazine Harkness Promise Award. Kyle is currently a Grant Wood Fellow and visiting assistant professor at the University of Iowa. Kyle was a member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company, doug elkins choreography etc., and Tiffany Mills Company. He is a graduate of Rutgers University with a BFA in Dance.
Baye and Asa
Hip Hop & African dance languages are the foundation of our technique. The rhythms of these techniques inform the way we energetically confront contemporary dance & theatre.
Baye & Asa is a company creating movement art projects directed by Amadi ‘Baye’ Washington & Sam ‘Asa’ Pratt. We met when we were 6 years old. The physical aggression in our choreography is a symptom of our political rage, and a yearning to personally implicate ourselves. We use our choreography to create political metaphors, interrogate systemic inequities, and contemporize ancient allegories; we build theatrical contexts that celebrate, implicate, and condemn the characters onstage.
We were born & raised in New York City. We’ve known each other since first grade & our bodies are shaped by a shared education. Through the personal dynamics of our relationship we address the larger political landscape of our upbringing, struggling to show a reality of violence while communicating a necessity for empathy.
FAQs
Q: Can I drop into classes?
A: In an attempt to come back to community, and build relationships moving forward, we are keeping this workshop a registered workshop, and asking people to attend for the full week. The Choreolab will be cumulative material, building a piece, potentially in collaboration with other students, so attendance is important.
Q: I have an injury. Will this be too much for me?
A: The Bartenieff class is an amazing way to come back to dancing after injury, and help you to assess the underlying structural or biomechanical underpinnings of your injury.. The technique class would likely require a bit of modification on your part, but all of our teachers are extremely sensitive, empathy-driven facilitators who will work with you as you are. The Choreolab will allow you to make what you are able to, and wanting to, create, be that a film, work on other bodies, small kinesphere work, or more theater-forward work. So.. not too much is the short answer…
Q: I am short on funds, but really want to do this. What are my options?
A: We don’t want money to be the deciding factor in a creative opportunity. While we have a very limited number of scholarships, you are welcome to reach out to inquire about one of our partial scholarships. We prioritize BIPOC and LGBTQ artists for these scholarships. We also are happy to work with you on a payment plan that fits your financial situation and cash flow.
Q: I haven’t choreographed in a while and I feel anxious. Will it be a high pressure environment? Is everyone very advanced?
A: I don’t believe in creative hierarchies, and I construct classes to meet everyone where they are. I believe the facets of art we discuss about the most famous work hold equal value for someone’s first piece. The passage of time, the use of space, the telling of a story (emotional, literal, or abstract), and the creation of meaning are all ubiquitous to the creative process. You know yourself best in terms of how much pressure you place on yourself to catch a phrase or compare yourself to others. I trust you to decide if a professional dance class will feel overwhelming or deliciously challenging. You are welcome, as long as it doesn’t bring you stress or tension.
What people have experienced in previous workshops…
It is a refreshing (and mind blowing) experience to be guided by Alexandra in creating without judgment, but not without decision making. Her articulations around choice have helped me create with more ease, depth and joy, as well as both receive and give artistic feedback in a more generous and generative manner. Alexandra champions the work and prioritizes the artist. She values the artist’s perspective over her own and is incredibly skilled at navigating the delicate balance involved in one on one mentorship between providing support and sharing wisdom.
--Sophie Allen
“In her weekly Bartenieff Fundamentals classes, Alexandra creates a space for engaged exploration that is collaborative and filled with kindness. I always feel both seen and heard in her classes. “
Joe Bowie, Lecturer at Northwestern University and former member, Mark Morris Dance Company (student of Anatomy of Choice and BF)
