ballet for contemporary dancers
Kevin Fay is a contemporary dance artist who’s studied classical ballet for 20 years. With his diligent, ongoing practice as a guide, he proposes this class in an effort to promote queer, feminist pedagogy in ballet. In class, we’ll use classical forms and steps to investigate how ballet can be used on our own terms, towards our own ends. Inspired by the masterful philosophy and teaching of Janet Panetta, Kevin will focus the class on placement, efficiency, function, and pleasure. Respecting bodies and addressing their abilities, needs, and desires, we’ll go from the bottom up, and we’ll work from the inside out. Navigating strength and release, effort and flow, we’ll orient time together towards dynamic range and possibility. In short, with an open, abiding awareness of how we practice ballet’s forms, we will create, explore, and enjoy technical physicality with personal attention and care. Or, as Janet said: ‘We will dance and appreciate function as a form of beauty.’
holds a B.A. in Dance & Communication Studies from Northwestern University and is a freelance contemporary dance artist based in Brussels, Belgium. He has collaborated on projects with Veli Lehtovaara, Éric Minh Cuong Castaing, Eleanor Bauer, Marc Vanrunxt, Fabrice Samyn, and Olga de Soto. He also contributes to grassroots activist work with State of the Arts. With residency support and a research scholarship from The Flemish Authorities, Kevin has an ongoing research project that interrogates masculinity from queer, feminist perspectives. In this, he organises open, performative reading circles called conversing with masculinity and develops choreography. He has taught professionally in both the US and Europe, and his teaching of ballet is influenced most strongly by Janet Panetta and Zvi Gotheiner.
Language: English