As a dance educator, I teach classes, workshops, and intensives. My teaching practice includes contact improvisation, dance composition, dance improvisation, and axis syllabus.
I focus on facilitating movement that emerges from felt sense rather than exterior aesthetics, attuning to the complex ways lived experience and personal history show up in practice. I am also interested in the many power dynamics that exist in dance spaces, and I seek to empower individual autonomy within collective learning environments.
It is my goal to give movers and movement educators a more informed approach to movement in order to foster resilient bodies. My teaching includes information about anatomy, physiology, kinesiology and physics.
Upcoming Classes and Workshops
Axis Syllabus Weekly Class
Tuesdays 10:30am-12pm, begins April 23rd
@ Bodyvox Dance Center in Portland, OR
Sign up vis link below: https://www.bodyvox.com/dance-center/class-schedule#open-enrollment
Drop In: $18 (*inquire with Bodyvox about pro/student rate, Arts for All drop in, and pay what you can options)
This is a dance class informed by principals from the Axis Syllabus. Axis Syllabus is a compilation of information that aims to help movers cultivate greater bodily autonomy through understanding and awareness of their own bodies. This class draws from various fields, including anatomy, biomechanics, and physics, and is oriented toward strategies for building physical resilience in dynamic movement. This class will include improvisational scores, exercises to build strength and coordination, and movement motifs inspired by contemporary dance and floorwork.
PDX +/- Fest 2024
June 10th - 14th at the Village Ballroom in Portland, Oregon. Find out more and see the complete schedule here.
Under-dancing with Emily Jones and Hannah Krafcik, Monday 6/10 10:00am-12:30pm
In this class, we will explore how the skills used in under-dancing translate into moments of loft and flight. We will work with structural attention, sloughing, tension, space making, and release. We will consider the floor not only as a place of retreat and refuge, but a site of power and platform for imaginative choice-making. We will prioritize returning to mid-level from floor and standing work, finding innovative transitions that do not compromise our joints all the while. This class is facilitated from a queer lens and involves rigorous consent and labbing.
Bay Area Axis Syllabus Exchange (BAASE)
June 27-30 at The Finnish Hall in Berkeley, CA
24 hrs of classes and workshops with a variety of teachers over 4 days, find out more and sign up here.
Spheroidal Senses with Emily Jones, Friday 10/28 3:15-5:45pm
In this class we will attune to the spherical structures existing within our own bodies. We will consider what movement possibilities these structures imply, and dance with them in mind. We will play with translation of spherical pathways from the interior of our bodies into the space around us, finding momentum, working with centripetal and centrifugal forces to move dynamically. This class will include some set movement motifs and improvisational scores.
Past Class and Workshops Descriptions
Flight of Dance series at Dekum Street Theatre, Portland OR
March 22, 2024
This class will begin with an invitation into somatic inquiry. Through imagination and sensation we will warm up and locate ourselves. The middle of class will be a movement game that invites noticing and challenging our own coordinations, as well as coming into relationship with others. Class will finalize with a movement phrase that emphasizes kinetic energy- how do we shape/craft/hone what is already in motion to make a dance? All levels and movement experiences are welcome.
Elastic Feet, This workshop was part of a weekend long Axis Syllabus Intensive and Teacher co-lab in Berkeley, CA called KINESPHERE
October 28, 2023
In this class we will examine the architecture of our feet and ankles, with an emphasis on loading pathways to build elasticity. We will sense into the ways our own bodies give us feedback via sensations stretch and slack, and practice using these cues to hone our own movement timing and coordination. I will offer some choreographed pathways to try out, as well as improvised scores to inspire creativity.
Alignment is a felt sense: an axis syllabus/contemporary dance/ biomechanics 5 week class series
Tuesdays 10-11:30am October 17- Novemeber 14
at Bridgespace Commons - 133 SE Madison St, Portland, OR 97214
Suggested sliding scale $10-30 per class. NOTALOF.
In this class series participants will be invited to consider how the arcing, spiraling, and oscillating patterns inherent in human anatomy can be fractalized to create a road map for dynamic movement. We will explore the ways our own bodies give us feedback via sensations of stretch and slack, and practice using these cues to hone our own movement timing and coordination. Each week we will explore a different theme centered around anatomy and biomechanics. I will offer some choreographed pathways to try out, as well as improvised scores to inspire creativity.
bodymind building: a queer affinity Contact Improvisation workshop in PORTLAND, OR & OLYMPIA, WA
suggested sliding scale: $40-80 for both sessions or $20-$40 for a single session, payable by cash or venmo day-of
*Max capacity is 25 participants. No one turned away for lack of funds.*
In this workshop we will work toward dancing in partnership with sensitivity: We will begin by attending to our individual anatomies. As we move toward partnering, we will practice loosening our grip on assumptions and channeling our intuitions. We will invite surprising movement pathways to become more possible through instinctual choice-making.
Contact improvisation spaces are often dominated by heteronormative patterns that lead to coercion, but we seek an alternate container: We name this workshop as a queer affinity space and invite people identifying as LGBTQAI2S+ to join. Open lines of communication with dance partners and the group will be promoted to ensure accountability. Participation in exercises will not be compulsory, and witnessing will be encouraged.
"Contemporary" Class co-facilitated with Hannah Krafick
Tuesdays Nov 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th 10:30AM-12PM
Class is at Performance Works Northwest 4625 SE 67th Ave.Portland, OR 97206-4515
Sliding scale: $5-$20 *If you don't have the $, come anyway. We'd love to have you.*
In our "contemporary" class, we will do our best to invite in-between moments of labbing, so that participants will have the chance to try on our own movement while also figuring out how to negotiate transitions within their own bodyminds. Each week, either Emily or Hannah will facilitate while the other takes class and models a practice of asking clarifying questions. We will disrupt regimented timing and invite moments of group synchronicity through supportive use of musicality. If phrasework is offered, we will prioritize giving space to learn the phrasework and self-determine our capacity within it. We may fall short of these aims, so we invite participants to call us back to these during class. Masks are optional.
“what if we…” — a workshop for friends, partners, parents and youth to practice moving together
Co-facilitated by Emily Jones & Hannah Krafcik
December 10 | 7:30-10PM
Waterline Studio @ Headwaters Theater <3 <3 <3
55 NE Farragut St., Portland, OR 97211
This workshop is intended for duos: friends, partners, collaborators, or parents and youth who wish to practice movement together with plenty of space for humor! We will offer prompts for imaginative collaboration, and partners will be invited to explore what it means to move together without sacrificing individual autonomy. This workshop is informed by our practice and critique of contact improvisation. Participants will spend the majority of the workshop dancing in relation and physical contact with the person they enrolled with. For covid safety precautions, we will not be mixing and matching contact partners, and all participants must be masked. All bodies are welcome. Modification of our offerings is encouraged as needed, and we will be available to support throughout.
Everything in Relation: an axis syllabus class series
Mondays 9:30-11am, Nov. 1- Dec. 13, 2021
at SKC Studio, 5511 N Albina Ave. Portland, OR. 97217
This class emerges from thinking about relationships in our bodyminds. How do we consider these relationships as a means to distribute load and leave more space for nuanced responses? In this class we explore in scores, and we will practice choreography together, while prioritizing autonomy. This class will be designed with covid-19 safety precautions in mind- we will wear masks and keep distance. For accessibility related questions please reach out to Emily.
what I don’t know yet I know, co-taught with Hannah Krafcik
October 2, 10:00am-12:00pm
This workshop is part of PICA’s TBA festival, more details here
What does it mean to have a critically engaged nervous system? How might the practice of following this intuitive and predictive technology cultivate possibilities for meaning-making and self-knowing? In this workshop Hannah and Emily will offer various scores and practices from their collaboration. Participants will be invited to attune to their sensations with attention toward nervous system awareness. This workshop will prioritize personal agency, needs, and boundaries for engagement.