FRIDAY October 6, 2023
10:00am - 12:00am @ DoubleTree by Hilton Downtown, Alameda Room
"Musically-Inspired, Organic Drills"

Karen Barbee with Michael Ibrahim - hour 1.
Karen Barbee with Isaac Lopez - hour 2.

Drills!  Love 'em!  Most likely, we've all done 'em!

In my experience, my Drills exercises are intended to reinforce the basic movements, challenge movement layering skills, develop muscle awareness and coordination,  and introduce new combinations.  In my classes, these ideas tend to come solely from how a movement looks or feels AS WE ARE DOING IT.  Music is played in class as more of a metronome than anything else because "drill" implies repetition - and attention to music at a level deeper than the metronome level creates a challenge for the repetition of short actions.

But what if the creator of the music is in the room with you?  And what if, as a veteran Drills teacher, you are able to freely move to improvised music by an accomplished musician - then pause and ask the musician to repeat what was just played.  And repeat, and repeat, and repeat!   And all drillers could isolate a musical phrase and a pattern of movement and dig deep into it thereby peeling the movement onion (stay with me here!) WAY past any previous limits!

Movement that is inspired by an identifiable musical cue and then explored in this manner is MUCH more likely to stay with you and resurface in your vocabulary than those that are simply placed on you.   You'll see!