Our commitment is to nourish and replenish the professional dance community by offering new ways of working with the body through the guidance and instruction of seasoned practitioners. For twelve years, Mascall Dance has provided the local and regional performing arts communities with workshops from Master Teachers who offer instruction for professional growth and enhancement. Master Classes offer an experiential research and study collective for advanced students and experienced professionals. Classes and workshops are open to the general public. Specialized workshops are tailored to experienced professionals.
Please add your name to our mailing list for information about upcoming guest teachers. Or alternatively we are collecting names for a Special Amelia Itcush Workshop, if you are interested please notify Mascall Dance: (Please Note: This class will run once we have enough registrants)
Amelia Itcush was a pioneer of modern dance in Canada, and was one of the founding members and principle dancers with Toronto Dance Theatre. In 1972, Amelia was introduced to the Alexander and Mitzvah Techniques and began to incorporate these techniques and their principles into dance. In 1981, Amelia studied full time with Nehemia Cohen, founder of the Mitzvah Technique, and became the first Certified Mitzvah Technique Teacher. Amelia was awarded the Jacqueline Lemieux Prize for Excellence for integrating the Mitzvah Technique into dance. Amelia Itcush has taught at York University, Toronto Dance Theatre and the National Ballet School, Kunitachi Classical Ballet Studio in Tokyo Japan, and the Classical Ballet Studio in Kobe Japan. Amelia is presently teaching at the University of Calgary.
Amelia Itcush has a remarkable body of knowledge in the lineage of Alexander technique, mitzvah and now her own technique. Her work realigns and is deceptively simple. The four-day workshop is open to anyone and revolutionizes the body through a training that releases muscular tension and frees the joints. In her class we stand and sit and walk and lie down.
The Mitzvah Technique
Philosophy: Throughout most of our lives, many of us experience positioning and holding the body in a restrictive form, while believing we are holding to the principles of “good posture”. The body was made for movement, and the dynamic relationship of all its parts in movement through time and space requires freedom of the body to realign itself in any given moment. Holding faulty patterns of use eventually define our physical limitations and interfere with the natural functioning of the body.
Technique: The Mitzvah Technique enhances quality of performance, health and well-being through analysis of the body in motion and how postural misuse interferes with the Mitzvah Principle, an interplay of forces between the pelvis and spine which frees the neck and enables the body to release tension naturally. It defends the body by correcting destructive patterns of body use and realigning the neuromuscular and skeletal system with the force of gravity. An upward ripple of movement is triggered from the pelvis causing the spine to lengthen, the back to widen, the chest to expand, and the head to rebalance itself on top of its spinal support.
Master Classes: More Information
Masters Teachers for 2006 and 2007 include: Amelia Itcush, Judith Koltai and Linda Putnam (see bios and teaching abstracts below). Master Classes will take place during Mascall Dance’s Summer Intensives, August 2006 and 2007. These three remarkable teachers have developed their own movement syllabus over decades of personal study. We hope you take this unique opportunity to take this information from these valuable landmark sources.
Amelia Itcush
Amelia Itcush was a pioneer of modern dance in Canada, and was one of the founding members and principle dancers with Toronto Dance Theatre. In 1972, Amelia was introduced to the Alexander and Mitzvah Techniques and began to incorporate these techniques and their principles into dance. In 1981, Amelia studied full time with Nehemia Cohen, founder of the Mitzvah Technique, and became the first Certified Mitzvah Technique Teacher. Amelia was awarded the Jacqueline Lemieux Prize for Excellence for integrating the Mitzvah Technique into dance. Amelia Itcush has taught at York University, Toronto Dance Theatre and the National Ballet School, Kunitachi Classical Ballet Studio in Tokyo Japan, and the Classical Ballet Studio in Kobe Japan. Amelia currently works out of Regina and Davidson, Saskatchewan.
Judith Koltai
Judith Koltai is an internationally recognized movement specialist. Her trademarked discipline Embodied Practice consists of Syntonics and Authentic Movement. She is a pioneer in the application of the discipline of Authentic Movement to the work of the creative and performing artist. Her unique approach embraces all aspects of the artist’s need, including choreography, voice, text, and writing.
Embodied Practice is a registered Canadian trademark founded and offered by Judith Koltai and experienced professionals trained and authorized by Judith Koltai. Embodied Practice regards the human organism as Conscious and Autonomous Holon. Its methodology is based on the notion of Autopoiesis. The language and vocabulary of Embodied Practice is that of unfolding potential rather than diagnosis, analysis or interpretation. Learning in Embodied Practice consists of the Disciplines of Syntonics and Authentic Movement.
Syntonics is rooted in the principles of pioneer French physiotherapist, Francoise Mezieres and the Anti-Gymnastic practice of Therese Bertherat (“The Body Has Its Reasons”). It is guided equally by educational, rehabilitative and aesthetic principles. The practical tools are the "Preliminaries": small, precise, repeated actions inviting a new vocabulary and a special kind of attentiveness to sensory and kinaesthetic sensation
Authentic Movement originates in the discoveries of pioneering dancer / choreographer Mary Starks Whitehouse (1911-1979) and insights gained from revolutionary modern dance teachers Mary Wigman (Germany) and Martha Graham (U.S.). The form of this practice is deceivingly simple. A Mover moves, with eyes closed, consciously following spontaneous impulses in the presence of an open-eyed Witness. Within the container of clearly defined guidelines of physical and psychological safety, the task of both Mover and Witness is to bring a specific quality of attention to direct bodily experience. The guidelines free Mover and Witness from judgment, projection and interpretation of what is spontaneously emerging. Informed and confirmed only by one's own authentic and tangibly experienced truth, both Mover and Witness are enabled to access and bring forth material arising from the deeper and often hidden layers of consciousness into articulable action, word, creation. The practice invites and teaches the ability to listen to deep internal cues.
Linda Putnam
Linda Putnam is the founder and artistic director of Evergreen Theater and School, a theatre devoted to the performing needs of the independent artist and a school committed to the training of those severed by circumstance or choice from the major training institutions. She has been a performing member of many working theatres, and has performed with various theater companies across the United States, in the Baltimore Theater Festival, and the Boston Women in Theater Festival. She has twice been named “Best Actress in Boston” and has received numerous other awards for acting.
Linda has authored two ensemble plays and three solo pieces. Her teaching career spans thirty-five years, directing at many acting schools, teaching residencies and workshops for various theater and dance companies, and acting as a performance coach for many individuals and companies. Her directing credits range from classical Greek theater to Shakespeare to contemporary drama to ensemble productions, company-scripted plays, and street theater. She received a MFA in Theater from New York University School of the Arts in 1968. Her theater, circus, dance and music teachers include: Suzanne Baxetresser, Hovey Burgess, Ryszard Cieslak, Nora Dunfee, Jean Erdman, Andre Gregory, Jerzy Grctowski, Ted Hoffman, Peter Kass, Kristin Linklater, Carlo Mazzoni, Lloyd Richards, Mel Shapiro, Omar Shapli, Morton Subotnik, Karl Weber, Arnie Zazlov, and Mark Zeller.
Physical Theatre
Linda Putnam trained with all the masters of physical theatre (Grotowski, Chaikin, Gregory) and as a performer demonstrates the strength, rigor, and emotional impact of this work. She teaches the study of the body through investigation of the personal impulses that are steering the performance. Her classes are universal and create an impact that is influential in an artist’s examination of their work. Classes are offered in Physical Theatre Basics (no experience required) and Advanced Performance (previous experience with Linda required).