2024 West Coast Summer Intensive in Los Angles, CA
Intensives offer students a steady and deep learning of Brown’s body of work through both current and former company dancers. Classes focus on technique, repertory, and specifically engaging with Brown’s rich archive of multidisciplinary work to uncover new creative outlets and help students accomplish individual creative goals. Each Intensive offers students tools to deepen their knowledge of technical principles, compositional structure, forms, improvisation and performance. This is achieved through classes, video showings, written materials and end-of-week showings.
WHEN:
JUNE 10 – JUNE 14, 2024
10:00AM-3:00PM
WHERE:
G Son Studios, Atwater Village
3218 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles, California
INSTRUCTORS:
Sam Wentz
WHAT:
Trisha Brown’s signature and remarkable work, Set and Reset is noted for its exuberant tumble of movement and form. As part of The Unstable Molecular Structure cycle, the work is composed of movement vocabulary that Brown describes as “about words that begin with ‘S’: sexy, sequential, seamless, silky, sensual. I compare the compositional form to the fluid chaos of microscopic motion.”
In this intensive, we will explore different approaches for opening the body and mind, learning movement material, playing with improvisation and creating our own version of a portion of the piece. Get ready to embody the ‘S’ words and hopefully find some new ones too.
SCHEDULE:
Studio open @ 9:30
10:00AM-12:00PM: Technique Class
12-:00PM-1:00PM: Lunch
1:00PM-3:00PM: Repertory
FEE:
Early Bird Rate available through May 24: $315 + $11 PayPal processing fee
Regular Rate: $350 + $13 PayPal processing fee
MEET THE INSTRUCTOR:
Sam Wentz is a dance and performance artist based in Los Angeles. Originally from North Dakota, he graduated from Idyllwild Arts Academy in 2006, completed his BFA in Dance at NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2009, and received his MFA in Dance and Choreography as a Teaching Fellow at Bennington College in 2016. He has performed with: Ajani Brannum, the Trisha Brown Dance Company (2009 – 2014), Wally Cardona + Jennifer Lacey, Jay Carlon, Gerald Casel, Dimitri Chamblas, the Merce Cunningham Trust, Katherine Helen Fisher, Levi Gonzalez, Jmy James Kidd, Mark Morris Dance Group, Abigail Levine, Annie B. Parson, Judith Sanchez Ruiz, Kensaku Shinohara, and Susan Sgorbati.
His work has been presented at the Bennington Museum (VT), the Fire House (Joshua Tree) the Geffen Contemporary at MoCA, G-Son Studios, Human Resources, Pieter Performance Space, REDCAT, and The Tank NYC.
He has taught company classes for the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s ROSAS, the Lyon Opera Ballet, and Katherine Helen Fisher/Safety Third Productions. As a teacher of Trisha Brown’s work, he assisted in the re-staging of “L’Amour au Théâtre” (2009) on the Trisha Brown Company. In the Winter of 2019, he and fellow alumni remounted Trisha Brown’s “Foray Forêt” (1990) and “Newark” (1987) on the Lyon Opera Ballet in Lyon, France.
Since 2013, he has been a returning, guest artist teacher at P.A.R.T.S. Brussels, Belgium. He has been a guest teacher at many colleges and universities including Bates College, University of Arizona - Tucson, University of California-Berkeley, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Washington, and Yale University. He joined the Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at CalArts faculty in the Fall of 2018 as an adjunct and became Regular Faculty in the Fall 2022.