EDUCATION/ NYC Winter Intensive 2026

2026 Winter Intensive

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
JANUARY 5 - 9, 2026

WHERE:
Eden's Expressway
537 Broadway #4, NYC 

SCHEDULE:
10:00AM-12:00PM: Technique Class with Vicky Shick
12:00PM-1:00PM: Lunch
1:00PM-4:00PM: Repertory with Leah Ives

About Vicky's Class:
In these five morning sessions, we will take time to carefully, systematically and luxuriously ready ourselves for the complexly detailed/full-bodied movement of Trisha Brown’s choreography. We will try to locate our individual ease, clarity, attention, sensitivity and robust energy. Our focus will be on our physicality, our bodies, our moving, our imagination, and our responsiveness, as we arrive at dancing and creating together. Through bits of improvisation, practicing Brown’s voluptuous, intricate sequences and building movement based on some of Brown’s instructions we will continue to stimulate our focus and intuition as we listen to ourselves while we listen to each other. We will look to heighten our articulation, find nuance, hone our skills, and deepen our physicality, pleasure and understanding.

About Leah's Class: 

The Winter Intensive repertory sessions will delve into Opal Loop (1980) by Trisha Brown, built by original cast members: Trisha Brown, Eva Karczag, Lisa Kraus, Stephen Petronio. Working with original phrase material, compositional prompts, and improvisational tools developed throughout the process, participants will create their own distinctive mini-versions of this iconic work. Physical transmission will be supported by writings, video documentation, and multi-generational cast anecdotes, offering rich historical and embodied context. Dancers will have the opportunity to inhabit movement originally generated by Trisha Brown, gain insight into the construction of her Unstable Molecular Structure works, and experience the sensation of being inside a highly crafted, organized chaos.

Come curious. We’ll work hard, take risks, and have fun.

FEES
Early Bird Discount available through December 14: $415 + $12 PayPal processing fee
Regular Rate: $450 + $15 PayPal processing fee

Student Discount
$325 + $10 PayPal processing fee (5 spots available through December 14)
First come, first serve; then, waitlist opens for available spots after registration closes
Please email Cecily Campbell at c.campbell@trishabrowncompany.org to reserve a student rate.
 

INSTRUCTOR BIOS

Leah Ives danced with the Trisha Brown Dance Company between 2014-2023, where she was honored to perform and teach a total of 20 pieces of Brown’s repertory. She has additionally contributed to several TBDC staging projects, including the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, P.A.R.T.S, the Venice Biennale Collage Danza, and SUNY Purchase College. As a performer Leah has also had the pleasure of working on projects with Madeline Hollander, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Lee Serle, Kim Brandt, Thierry De May, The A.O. Movement Collective, The Median Movement (Francis Ha, Dir. Noah Baumbach), the Peter Sparling Dance Company, and Elizabeth Dishman. She holds a BFA in dance from the University of Michigan, a MS in Sustainability in the Urban Environment from The City College of NY, and has been a licensed massage therapist for 15+ years.

Vicky Shick has been involved in the NYC dance community for over four decades. For six years, she was a member of the Trisha Brown Company and has staged several of Brown’s dances here and abroad, including in her hometown, Budapest. She has been making dances and collaborating with various performers, artists, and sound designers since the late 80's including Yoshiko Chuma, Irene Hultman, Risa Jaroslow, Margy Jenkins, Eva Karczag, Jon Kinzel, Lisa Kraus, Juliette Mapp, Jodi Melnick, Jimena Paz, Wendy Perron, Stephen Petronio, Susan Rethorst, Sara Rudner, Cathy Weis and Marilyn Maywald Yahel. In addition to teaching internationally, in the NYC area, she teaches mostly at Movement Research, for the Trisha Brown Company, and for 15 years at Hunter College.  She was a two-time Movement Research Artist-in-Residence, a two-time Bessie recipient, a DiP grantee at Gibney Dance Center, a grant recipient from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellow. 

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