A Journey within with Tandy Beal

January 24, 2011 I didn’t know what to expect as I got ready for the master class with Tandy Beal Saturday morning. I arrived at the Little Haiti Cultural Center for the class hosted by Dance Now Ensemble, a resident dance company ready to experience Beal’s trademark movement style. Instead of a technique workshop, I embarked on a journey within facilitated by Tandy Beal. The class encouraged awareness of my body, the space and dancers I shared the experience with. We walked around the studio to warm our bodies and connect each other. We walked shoulder-to-shoulder increasing ourselves from one person to as many as four staying aware of our new bodies to ensure collisions didn’t occur. The exercises that we participated in developed our senses. Instead of taking the space for granted we became acquainted, memorizing every door, window, mirror and barre. We participated in improvisational activities with partners, building a connection allowing our movements to flow into each other creating conversational phrases through movement. The class ended by breaking into three groups and creating a small piece based on specific directions. There was an opportunity for us to perform the creations to the class. It was interesting to see how music impacted the each person and the performance as a whole. Dance Now Ensemble, resident dance company at the Little Haiti Cultural Center co-directed by Hannah Baumgarten and Diego Salterini, will perform pieces from Beal’s repertoire in two performances on February 18th at the Little Haiti Cultural Center and February 26thand 27th at the Colony Theatre on Miami Beach.