Christina Mertzani

Contemporary for Dancers

Training for Dancers

Bio

Christina Mertzani is a choreographer, dancer and teacher. She graduated from the Athens State School of Dance in 2004. As a performer, she has worked with choreographers such as Johannes Wieland, Stella Zannou, Helder Seabra and Kat Valastur, and has danced works by Wim Vandekeybus, Mark Morris and Martha Graham.
Her own creations have been presented in more than 30 countries. For the past 20 years, she has been teaching and choreographing internationally for companies, universities, state theaters and festivals, including Folkwang University, Sasha Waltz & Guests, the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Beijing Dance Academy and Staatstheater Kassel. Her teaching focuses on contemporary technique, partnering and composition. She was a faculty member at Anton Bruckner University in Linz and co-directed the International Contemporary Dance Festival One Small Step in Corfu for nine years.

Class Description

In this class we will focus on technique and performance of movement. Starting with warm up and body preparation, we will use simple exercises to train the mechanisms we have at our disposal in order to approach the floor with safety and speed, to move rapidly and with agility at the same time, and to cover as much space as possible using our full potential. We will then work with complex movement, choreography and focus on intention and the ways we can present movement to the audience. We will take into consideration the individual differences and at the same time we will work as a team. The main goal of this class is to open our senses, to communicate through movement, and to gain more satisfaction through our dancing.