Sandy Silva has been teaching percussive dance for over 20 years. She began studying with master dancers and assimilating her learning through performing, creating and teaching with musicians from multiple musical genres. She draws upon the essence of these music/rhythm dance styles and is able to integrate them into a contemporary style of her own.
Sandy’s innovative work with both professional and amateur modern dancers, tap dancers, buck and step dancers, circus artists, schoolchildren, hip hop dancers, vocalists, percussionists and musicians has gained her an international reputation as a truly creative and inspirational teacher. Her work teaches students the essential tools for listening, analyzing and embodying music as a human instrument.
SANDY SILVA WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS
The following workshops can range from a half day to a month long residency
CHOREOGRAPHIC TOOLS FOR BODY PERCUSSION
Learn skills for developing ideas and themes around a choreography, and how to build on these ideas into a solo, duo, or group piece. We will explore how the texture, tempo and placement of sounds (as a rhythmic base) with movement can ignite and incorporate both the emotion/intention of a choreography from beginning to end. This template will start you on your path of developing your own unique body of work.
IMPROVISATIONAL TOOLS FOR BODY PERCUSSION
Have you been thrown into the middle of a circle and go blank when it comes to improvising? Or find yourself dancing spontaneously in your living room alone knowing there is no way you could do this in public or even among a few friends? Are you comfortable with improvising but fall into the same patterns? Whether you are comfortable with, new to, or fearful of improvisation, this workshop will give you ideas in developing simple and effective ways of playing on the spot. This will help break new ground on which you can play, exploring in-the-moment with less judgement and more ease.
FROM THE FOOT TO THE BODY
This course is for dancers who specialize in traditional forms of foot percussion who want to develop a deeper sense of movement and sonic placement. Whether working within a traditional form or moving outside its bounds, we will look at how and where the body holds tension and how we can create a deeper sense of flow and musicality in percussive dance.
RHYTHM TRAINING ON THE BODY
Designed for musicians, traditional and contemporary dancers, this course provides a vocabulary of rhythm exercises to enhance timing, improvisation, rhythmic grooves and accent placement, and overall listening with the aim to develop a deeper musicality within our work.
PERFORMANCE TRAINING
Endeavouring to distinguish personal and group presence and intention when being on stage, this class provides exercises and tools to formulate ideas for choreography and improvisation. How do we stay true to our form and ourselves and keep the audience with us? Students can bring questions, ideas and works in progress to share in group for discussion.
DEMYSTIFYING ODD METERS (METER MADNESS)
World music traditions from around the globe utilize time signatures that mystify the Western ear. Explore the fundamentals and grooves of these odd meters in 5’s, 7’s, and 9’s, through clapping, slapping, footwork stepping, and the voice.
SONIC + MOVEMENT
Do you feel stuck in your body while trying to make rhythm? Explore movement fundamentals BETWEEN the percussive sounds with your feet and hands, freeing yourself to initiate sound from gesture.
SWING PERCUSSION ON THE BODY
Displace the sound of the jazz drummer’s brushes onto the body. In this course, we will strengthen your straight-ahead and triplet time feel through interchanging grooves using clapping, slapping, stepping, and vocal body percussion.
Click to download a PDF of workshop descriptions.
