Yuri Shimaoka

Ballet for Dancers

Training for Dancers

03.11. – 07.11.2025, 10:00–11:30
08.11. + 09.11.2025,
11:00–12:30
15.12. – 19.12.2025, 10:00–11:30
20.12 + 21.12.2025,
11:00–12:30

Bio

Yuri Shimaoka is a Japanese dance artist, ballet teacher and Shiatsu practitioner. She has trained in dance drawing from different sources, from ballet school to studying Japanese martial arts Budo from master Akira Hino, to visiting The Forsythe Company and assisting Yoko Ando, former dancer in the company.
Since 2015 she has been based in Berlin and collaborating with various artists in screen, VR, installation and dance. She has worked with Yoko Ando and YCAM InterLab, Okwui Okpokwasili (10th Berlin Biennale), Matteo Marziano Graziano, Jeremy Shaw, Rob Fordeyn, Ersan Mondtag and among others. She is one of the co-founders of an artist-bodyworkers collective “Considering”, where the members experiment economical mutual support and practice co-regulation and politics of care (www.considering.network). As a guest teacher, she has been giving ballet classes with a somatic approach in Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company, Tanztheater Gießen, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Tanzfabrik Berlin, Marameo among other places, experimenting with ways of drawing a collective healing process.

Class Description

The class aims to open the sense of listening towards our inner and outer space of the body by using the structure of ballet class. 
Combinations are shaped by the frame of classical ballet training with the help of somatic dance practices, basic Newtonian physics, Budo (Japanese martial arts), endocrine system, TCM and relationship in between. Sometimes Britney Spears or techno beats appear to make us experience vibration physically, to let us acknowledge connectivity of memory and emotion and to remind us of the joy of dancing.

Photo: Oliver Holfeld