[Dancenews] Joe Williams teaches Delsarte Technique, Dec 6, St. Johnsbury, VT

[Alia Thabit]

Please pass the word!

Joe Williams teaches Delsarte Technique
http://delsarteproject.com/

Suitable for all dancers, actors, singers,etc.
Joe's bio and a description of Delsarte are below.

Saturday, Dec 6, from 12 noon to 5:30 PM
There will be 2 half hour breaks - please bring snacks.

Show at 7:30.
Workshop participants are welcome to dance in the show.

Catamount Arts, 115 Eastern Ave.
St. Johnsbury, VT 05819

$70 advance, $80 door (includes show).
Show only, $10.

Send checks to me or request a paypal invoice.
Alia Thabit, 16 North Ridge Road
West Burke, VT 05871


Love & thanks,
Alia

The following is excerpted from the Delsarte Project. Please see the
website for more information: http://delsarteproject.com

Joe Williams
Teacher of the Delsarte System of Expression

Joe lives in New York City, and has been creating workshops and seminars
on Delsarte since 1997. He is on the movement faculty for the Dalcroze
Institute at Juilliard, and has been a guest teacher, and Artist in
Residence for Lori Belilove’s Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation in New York,
teaching modern dance to third graders in Pennsylvania. He has also taught
a master class for the Belilove’s foundation and performed once with the
company in a special presentation.

Williams has taught Master Classes for the Dance Department at Iowa State
University, Wright State University, Ocean County Performing Arts Academy
in NJ, Corporeal arts inc. and at the Omaha Healing Arts Center. In the
field of Middle Eastern Dance, he is on the faculty of Morocco and the
Casbah Dance Experience, and has taught seminars and performed for
Bellyjam, Stars of the East, Shakira in Columbus, Ohio, and special
appearances with Su’ad and Farasha, in Connecticut, Vermont and New
Jersey. Joe’s work with Delsarte has been featured in articles in the
middle-eastern dance publications  "WAMEDA" (July-August 2000) and
"Zaghareet!" (Sept - Oct 2000).

Joe has taken Delsarte to the Star Island Retreat Center for a week of
dance, and, used Delsarte to teach body language as a guest lecturer for
communication classes at Mercy College, Bronx Community College and the
School for Visual Art in Manhattan. Selected by Mime Journal, in their
2005 special edition on Delsarte, Joe was one of only two practitioners to
be mentioned, and the only one who specializes in teaching the system. The
Mime Journal article has brought him international recognition for his
work in Delsarte and he has been consultant and teacher for the first
scholarly thesis on the subject to be written in France, Francois
Delsarte’s homeland.

Joe was Artistic Director of "The Fourth Universalist Delsarte Dance
Ensemble" a Delsarte based spiritual dance group for all ages and sizes at
the Fourth Universalist Church in Manhattan.  The group has performed for
the United Nations and other churches. In July of 2003, Joe and the
dancers gave a very well received presentation on spiritual dance, modern
dance and Delsarte at the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in
Boston.

A teacher of dance, voice and yoga, Joe has a BA in organizational and
interpersonal communications, and a minor in theater from Wright State
University, where he was the artistic director for the "Rolling Stock"
theater group, helping to write and produce touring shows that presented
the talents of differently-abled students. He was a scholarship student in
ballet at the Dayton Ballet and Dayton Contemporary Dance schools
(becoming assistant business manager of the Dayton Contemporary Dance
Company for one year), and taught communication workshops for the Wright
State School of Medicine for 6 years.

In 1985 Joe joined the Dayton Ethnic Dance Ensemble, which studied
historically accurate Middle Eastern dance. In 1986 he began to work on
the dance of the Whirling Dervish, which he has been performing
consistently since 1994, most notably for the Institute of Ethnicity,
Culture and the Joe Williams Whirling Dervish Modern Experience at Rutgers
Universtity and the New School University Diversity Initiative in New
York.

He also studied classical voice, which led him to New York to study with
Jon Frederic West of the Metropolitan Opera. During that stay in New York,
he began studying Middle Eastern dance with Morrocco and the Casbah Dance
Experience. His performing credentials include dinner theaters in the
Midwest, where he danced and sang his way in numerous musicals including
"George M", "Fiddler on the Roof," "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,"
"Phantom," "Annie," and several holiday reviews. He also appeared as vocal
soloist in oratorios with regional orchestras. He has also appeared as
soloist with the Upper West Side Opera Association in Manhattan.


What is Delsarte?

The source material for much of the work of Isadora Duncan, Ruth St Denis,
Ted Shawn, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weideman, Etienne
Decroux. This fact is known by most dance history students. But did you
know that it was a key element of the actors training for such luminaries
as Rosalind Russell, Ruth Gordon, Edward G Robinson, Agnes Moorehead,
Lauren Bacall, Claire Trevor and Spencer Tracy? All of these actors were
students at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before 1944. The 1944
Class descriptions include a pantomime class that although never mentions
Delsarte, was clearly Delsarte based. The school was founded by Steele
Mackaye, Delsarte's own protege'.

The real Delsarte System of Expression is:
1.     A complete and universally accurate map of the symbolic meanings of
most parts of the body and of basic  human movement patterns. It is based
on fundamental laws of physics and on the ancient wisdom of yoga, cabala
and hermetic traditions.

2.     A system of  body training to awaken the innate athletic prowess
and expressive power of the human body. The system consists of:
         1. Relaxing exercises to eliminate tension and ready the reflexes.
         2. Exercises in balance to harmonize all parts of the body, and
base all strength and power in the security of poised and
balanced motion.
         3. Exploration of universal meaning in the body according to the
body's basic nature to express itself as Body, Mind and Spirit.

Does it make sense to you that a person can be described as a combination
of Body, Mind and Spirit? It is rather common language today. Nearly
everywhere you look, there are promotions for classes, products or
articles whose intent is to nourish or inspire the Body, Mind and Spirit.
It is not difficult to imagine that the basic impulses of a human being
are survival instinct, intellect, and that mysterious harmony we call
spirit. In Delsarte training, one learns that body, mind and spirit are
not esoteric ideas, but very real and very practical forces in the body,
with very specific locations in which they show themselves.

He observed that if Body, Mind and Spirit are our three basic impulses, it
follows that:

*All human movement has to be inspired by one or a combination of these
three.

*Every part of the body that willfully moves or gestures must contain all
three and be able to show all three.

If that makes sense to you, you have found a starting point for
understanding Delsarte's philosophy of human expression. A training in
Delsarte awakens the student to the basic expressive meaning of every part
of the body.

1. Any student becomes empowered to better understand the forces of life,
and their own self expression and that of those around them.

2. If you are a dancer, you will have a powerful tool for understanding
choreography and styles, and for creating dance yourself.

3. If you are an actor you will awaken the unconscious power of your body
for expressing  your creativity and responding to other actors.

4. The singer empowers gesture to reveal depth and subtext.

5. The yogi finds the intensely practical and tangible side of the
normally esoteric "body, mind, spirit" trinity.

6. The painter or sculptor finds universal tools for recreating emotion
and expression in their medium.

from The Delsarte Project,
http://delsarteproject.com/