Every Sunday from noon to 4pm, we invite you to our theaters where Open Movement is held. Curated and organized by Monica Mirabile, Open Movement is a free program open to all ages, abilities, and levels of experience that offers both space for self-guided movement practice and artist-led workshops. Here, participants are invited to move in whatever way they choose—stretching, drawing, dancing, rehearsing, and observing if they don’t feel called to move. Folks in the Open Movement community describe this environment as a sacred space for self-discovery, connection, and grounding towards personal and collective practices.
At 4pm, our program shifts to feature workshops guided by artists and practitioners. Each week, these sessions offer a unique opportunity for participants to engage in two hours of participatory practice, exploring a range of themes from movement techniques, to performance philosophies, wellness practices and beyond. Open Movement workshop facilitators are a part of our extended Performance Space network: many of these artists have been regular participants in Open Movement and have created or hosted programs in our theaters.
This season features workshops by Nhi Le Phuong, Evan Suzuki, Justine Pierre, Jerron Hermon,Madison Wada, Barnett Cohen, Coco Villa, Immanuel J, and more!
As part of our commitment to process-focused initiatives, throughout the year we also host WIP Feedback Front, a showcase of works in progress from artists, many of whom are part of the Open Movement community. Artists present their projects in a casual, supportive atmosphere to get feedback while the works are still being developed. Audience members are invited to share their responses anonymously, creating open exchange between creators and observers. This season WIP will be showcased on XXX whether you’re experienced or a newcomer. Our mission is to provide a welcoming space for curious-minds to reconnect, ground themselves, and expand their perspectives, wherever they may be on their journey.
2025/2026 Schedule:
For this event, RSVP is required and capacity is limited to 50.
Nhi Le will introduce her artistic methods through performance practices focusing on experimenting with materials, creating “original” movements, and evoking feelings. Participants will begin with their old memories, make new memories together, and then listen to a song. Any human or alien can join in.
What is surreal in front and funny in the back?
What is disgusting when it goes sideways and shameful when it goes down?
What is exhausted when it stays down and gentle when it jumps up?
What is great when it opens its eyes and free when it holds?
It is Nothing
It is Nothing
Only know that the East is blood
The West is Man
The South is soil
The North is mother
Just walk the path.
Cái gì siêu thực ở đằng trước mà buồn cười ở phía sau?
Cái gì sang ngang thì kinh tởm mà xuống dưới thì hổ thẹn?
Cái gì ở lại thì kiệt quệ mà nhảy lên thì dịu dàng?
Cái gì mở mắt thì vĩ đại mà nắm lại thì tự do?
Chẳng có gì cả
Chẳng có gì cả
Chỉ biết phía Đông là máu
Phía Tây là Người
Phía Nam là đất
Phía Bắc là mẹ
Cứ thế mà đi.
a glimpse of butoh-ish performance practice in perpetual development. we will seek movement that emerges from sensation and impulse through extended warm-up and exploration of score. open to all. (butoh goblin mode is individual work, not contact.)
Sensing the Unseen is an experimental, sensory-driven movement ritual that invites participants to step beyond choreography and into the raw intelligence of their bodies. Blending yoga, somatics, intuitive dance, breathwork and vocal expression, this class becomes an exploration of what moves us physically, emotionally and energetically.
We work with sensation as our guide: breath, rhythm, tension, softness and impulse. This offering centers reclamation of voice, instinct, and expression, inviting movement that is honest rather than performative. Accessible to all levels and especially supportive for “non-dancers” seeking inner connection and embodied freedom.
An exploration of repetition , habits that write our characteristics of self and how to become fluent in our own physical language. With extreme physicality we learn to push our own boundaries, cycle through emotions until exertion only to be left in our most pure state. The eternal research of our human form , in relationship to others and beyond this body.
In Amateur Hour, participants engage with Barnett Cohen‘s performance practice through the collaborative construction of a ten-minute experimental piece based on a text-based score composed by Cohen in advance. The workshop explores how text can translate into embodied movement as participants and Cohen hash out choreographic phrases together. Through repetition, participants internalize the structure and logic of the score, discovering how text functions as a framework for collective movement creation. The workshop requires no prior dance or performance experience. Everyone is welcome.
(n.) lit. the act of writing a
GLYPH
from Ancient Greek “γλυφή”
I. a 2 or 3 dimensional symbol representing a sound, word, or idea
II. a carved sculpture
III. a cut hole, a void
Through solo and group meditation/movement/games, we’ll explore relationships between body and space, body and meaning, dance and divination.
When we sing along to a song, in the shower or otherwise, our breath syncs up to breath caught on record. We measure our lungs’ capacity to keep up with those who breathe for sport. We fail, we laugh, we connect to the words. We mishear the words, and yet we know the message intimately. We exchange memories of where we were during so-and-so’s era. We record concerts and upon rewatch can only hear our voice, the mistaken lyrics, and the rhythm of the bass. We scream out to the heavens in karaoke or chant using words already said and cliches as shorthand to more accurately communicate our woes.
Collective chant has healing properties for the limbic system. Discordant chants may be a generative space to find a new method of system regulation in the ugly, peculiar, or out of time. SLOP POP borrows from the tradition of karaoke to create entirely original scores from songs already sung, hollowed out archetypes and easily identifiable rhythms. Get ready to develop a new relationship with a song or artist you know and love or hate. During this workshop, we will draw on our collective memory bank of found text – lyrics or otherwise – and overlay it onto the backtrack of pop songs. From individual movement and vocal work, we will find overlap in artists or themes amongst ourselves to create loose group scores for an audience of none. No experience is necessary. We’re not showcasing impressive vocals, we’re building together through our voice. Come ready to scream and shout and let it all out.
PERFORM LIKE NO ONE IS WATCHING! (WE WON’T BE).
A somatic vocal workshop that introduces performers to the art of screaming through the lens of metal vocal technique. Access powerful vocal expressions safely and sustainably. liberation, embodiment, voice as a full-body instrument.
How is the body a material to be explored, and what is the criteria by which we interpret the movement of others? How do we understand presence, and how can it be crafted, formed, molded and designed into choreography? Participants in this workshop will explore various group movement scores to expand the infinite ways in which we can be together. Everyone of all ability, age and experience level is welcome.
DIDIDADA is guided dance improvisation facilitated by Coco Villa. This movement practice prioritizes accessibility & playfulness to uplift body, mind and spirit through a variety of breath work, hyper warm ups, & abstract movement prompts. It’s about catharsis, sweating, getting back into our bodies, & simply dancing for the joy of moving. Instruction is inspired by elementary school PE activities, modern dance, Caribbean dance styles, dance fitness, somatic movement practices, groovy improvisations & familial rituals.
Some call it a brain break. Some call it a waking up game. Some call it a dance class. There is no choreography. DIDIDADA is open to all levels.
Time and history are phenomena that organize experience, bodies, and sticky spaces between. Between objects, between people, between thoughts. How does information move? Who and how does it touch? Can ongoingness be sensed from within ongoingness?
If knowledge is able to propel itself, fueled by something like desire, then perhaps we, both as individuals and assembly, can help it along.
In this workshop, we will use guided imagery and movement, reading, misreading, and listening practices to explore philosophical questions in experimental and associative ways. All are welcome.
The Con is a dance theater work for three performers that tests the edges and horizons of performance. Catalyzed by my improvisational sensibilities, this piece brings together scenes from a wide range of film and theater texts, my own writing, as well as choreography that references and unravels archetypal embodiment from different performance eras. “The Con” deepens a slippery agility I’ve cultivated in my practice, moving between a breadth of performance conventions to challenge ideas of authority, virtuosity, and moral compass. My guiding questions explore the myriad stylizations of “authenticity” and “goodness” expressed through theatrical embodiment. How are different gestures, characters, and speech exalted or exiled across dance, film, and theater – what scripts and scales of behavior do those conventions embed in our culture? With disloyalty to any one system of belief, “The Con” makes its own logic from a constant undermining and unraveling, favoring the unexpected over the virtuosic or good.
All spiritual practices of note taking place outside a traditional house of worship start with movement leading to full body release allowing the spirit to emerge. Find the spiritual alchemical thread in unhindered movement, breath-work, interpersonal interchange and vocal release.
Warm up includes walking, running and breathwork.
