Workshops
3-day countertechnique workshop
with Charles Slender-White
Fri-Sun, Oct 25-27, 2024
10:00am to 2:00pm
New Expressive Works
(810 SE Belmont St.)
Tuition: $275
Over 3 days, dancers will be offered a comprehensive introduction to Countertechnique with FACT/SF Artistic Director and long-time Countertechnique teacher, Charles Slender-White. Developed by Anouk van Dijk, Countertechnique is a contemporary dance technique that integrates intellectual intention with physical activity, strengthens and stretches the body, and enables dancers to move bigger, more fluidly, and more spatially. In addition to daily Countertechnique classes, the workshop will include discussions about and physical investigations of the Countertechnique Toolbox. Each of these sessions will help dancers deepen their Countertechnique practice while facilitating the application of Countertechnique to other dance forms and modalities. The day will include a short break.
Photo by Robbie Sweeny
About Charles
Charles Slender-White (he/him/any) is a contemporary dance artist, educator, instigator, organizer, and the Artistic Director of FACT/SF. He believes that artists deserve a living wage and that artists’ labor should be recognized, and he utilizes FACT/SF as a framework to realize these values, make art, and engage community. Slender-White is one of 50 Countertechnique Teachers worldwide, on faculty at the American Dance Festival, and recently served as a Guest Curator and Resident Strategist at ODC Theater from 2021-2023. He has worked as a dance artist throughout North America, Europe, and Russia, and in Hong Kong and Australia. Slender-White began his career with Provincial Dances Theatre in Yekaterinburg, Russia, and graduated with honors from UC Berkeley with degrees in Dance & Performance Studies and English Literature.
About Countertechnique
By continuously and sequentially directing and counter directing parts of the body through space, Countertechnique allows the moving dancer to work with an ever-changing dynamic balance. This dynamic balance reduces the pressure on the overall body structure and can be changed at any given moment. The consistent use of the counter direction in all movements is key to the technique; both the awareness and application of this principle is trained throughout the Countertechnique class. The Countertechnique theory is organized around two principal notions: the ‘toolbox’ and ‘scanning’. The toolbox is the systematically organized collection of tools for body and mind with which Countertechnique works, often visualized as a virtual map that dancers carry with them. Scanning defines the process of dancers continuously and actively observing their mindset and body in order to choose the most appropriate tool(s) from the toolbox for the situation they find themselves in. Scanning allows dancers to make active use of the toolbox in their daily practice of training, rehearsing and performing. Countertechnique was developed by Anouk van Dijk throughout her twenty-five year career as a dancer, choreographer and teacher. Over the last fifteen years, the knowledge and experience she gained – in constant dialogue with her dancers – was gradually transformed into a detailed theoretical system and a teaching method, which now together form the Countertechnique system.