ProfitrainingSantiago Mariño

Our Profitrainings are aimed at professional dancers or dance students in training only. You can find our offers for everyone here.

Ballet for Contemporary Dancers

Over the course of two weeks we will focus on ballet training with a gentle but active preparation of the body based on stretching and yoga. We will follow the structure of a ballet class and make this movement language our own: going through the exercises at the bar, we will connect to the sensations of elongation that ballet provides. through the breath and finding ease in every movement. We will follow with a center practice, where we move in the space, turn and jump, maintaining an inner stillness that allows us to move calmly. Big jumps will evolve through the weeks and keep our energy pumping. We finish with an active cool-down as we gather the bodily experience of ballet and remain cognisant of our bodies.

Q&A

1. What specific skills from classical ballet do you find most beneficial for contemporary dancers to master?
I find that one of the principles of contemporary dance languages is keeping your knees bent, dancing in plié. But it’s interesting that I truly understood the alignment and depth of my plié though my ballet training. I think ballet as a language facilitates a technical comprehension of the verticality of the body, and its alignment. It is a type of work that makes the body supple and strong at the same time, by focusing the load on specific muscles. In ballet we deal with finding the right effort and sensation to execute every movement and I think that leads to a clarity when performing other contemporary movement. I don’t think ballet is the core of contemporary, nor do I believe that as a dancer you need to do ballet in order to prove your worth. But it is a technique that, once de-hierarchized from its gendered politics and body hegemony, can provide for a great physical practice for movers.

2. What aspects of ballet technique will be emphasised in a contemporary way?
As a contemporary dancer myself, ballet has allowed me to sustain my technical training over the span of my career. I never had the pressure, nor the physicality to pursue a professional career in ballet. Perhaps that freed me from the anxiety of with which ballet is at times taught. Instead, I started researching it as a movement language that has allowed me to understand the dynamics of my body in a better way, and access new physical states in which the precision of my movement has been enhanced. Teaching it to contemporary dancers, I’ve leant to build up a class that is nurtured by somatics and vinyasa yoga, and that while following the classical structure, facilitating ease and clarity of movement.

Biographie

Currently enrolled in MA Choreography and Performance in Gießen, Santiago is a contemporary dancer, dance artist and dance educator from Bogotá, Colombia . Since 2014 he started worked as a freelance dancer and company in Colombia and Europe, and from 2017 to 2022 he worked as a dancer in different companies in the city. He has collaborated with companies in France, Equador and Germany, and has toured extensively in Europe and South America. As a teacher, his approach is person centered, taking the time to observe and actively accompany each dancer's process. His understanding of technique is that of physical sensations and anatomical coordinations, so instead of following a particular style, he focuses on what structured movement languages provide for an integral kinaesthetic experience. Among others, he has taught professional contemporary dancers and dance students in varied contexts such as Teatro Mayor Dance Company, District Dance Company Bogotá, National Center for the Arts (Colombia), JLU Gießen and Javeriana University.