Dancing Queerly

Our fourth and final offering for Sunday's Q***r Beach Ball!

“Community Contemporary” is a class Angie has created and honed through her work with “The Click”. In this class, we will use contemporary movement as a way to tap into our body, mind, spirit, and community. Together we'll enjoy somatic and creative warm-ups, improvisational games, and phrase work (choreography) Angie always centers consent and autonomy in class. Regardless of your movement experience (or lack thereof), you are welcome to this class!

Angie Benitez (she/they) graduated from Salem State University with a B.A in Modern/Contemporary Dance and has since studied at Bates Dance Festival and continues to study with local Boston-based artists. Angie has immersed herself in teaching dance and performing in the Greater Boston area at local studios, schools, and residencies through organizations such as The Click, Human Movement Project, and at High Street Studios. Her recent performance experience includes local arts festivals and events such as Moving through March, Roots & Routes, Verse / Visual, 24 Hour ChoreoFest, Salem Arts Festival, and more. Much of her work is focused on collaboration and community. When she's not teaching dance, you can find her writing poetry, working as a social media strategist, creating fiber art, and meditating with her plants.

Image Description:

Angie, a purple curly=haired, latinx dancer wedges themself inside a rectangular sculpture, pressing their back against one side and feet against another. Their arm grips overhead as they gaze intensely towards the camera.
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The countdown to the Q***r Beach Ball begins! Time to introduce our first host, and workshop:

What is it like to dance with the land as a partner? A good relationship between dance partners cultivates understanding both of each other and of the self. The same is true when we dance with nature. In this intense time of climate crisis, developing personal ways of connecting with the land on which we live is a crucial step in the greater dance of healing and protecting the earth.

In this Letting the Land Lead workshop, we will explore the process of creating a dance with the land, first building a familiarity with our own movement and then using it to partner with the land and listening to how the earth communicates back to us. ALL are welcome in this space including folks with all levels of movement experience (even those who don’t consider themselves “dancers”) and any level of physical ability or disability.

Christopher Croucher (he/they) is an artist, performer and healer whose long-time practice of nature based spirituality is integral to his work in the world. His dance practice is rooted in modern dance and ballet, which he learned in his undergraduate years at Bard College, and his training in performance from the Glasgow School of Art, blended with his experience of ecstatic dance within his spiritual community. Over the last three years, Chris has developed an ongoing series of performances, workshops and retreats called Letting the Land Lead, which centers communication with the land as a way to educate and inspire climate action on a personal level. He is supported by Monkeyhouse as a member of the Vault Sponsorship Program as well as the Mass Cultural Council and the New England Foundation for the Arts.
Photo: Lindsay Hite

Image Description: A thirty-something white male dancer with shoulder length brown hair in a gray linen shirt sways with arms outstretched in front of the reflective water and reeds of a lake.
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Q***R BEACH BALL!
Come join Dancing Q***rly and friends on Sunday, August 25th from noon - 5pm on Tenean Beach for an afternoon of movement and celebration! More info to come on the individual workshops, thank you to and for the funding to make this happen.
Image Description: Tenean Beach overlaid with the event details above and listed workshops.
12-1pm: Letting the Land Lead with Chris Croucher
1:15-2:15pm : Ballroom on the Beach with Holly Stone & Micheal Winward
2:30-3:30pm : AbunDANCE: Meditative Dance Song with Pampi
3:45-4:45pm: Community Contemporary with Angie Benitez