SUMMER INTENSIVE 2023 – LEGACY & INNOVATION
For the first time since its birth in 2017, Graham For Europe launches its own Summer Intensive in Paris with international guest pedagogues and researchers.
We wish to create a platform for all those sharing the passion for Graham’s creative work and legacy, offering the opportunity to expand their existing practice whilst making meaningful connections with other facilitators and participants. Classes are taught by world-class dance professionals and leaders in their field, including former Martha Graham Company Artistic Director and dancers. Let’s meet our guest Teachers…
CHRISTINE DAKIN
Christine Dakin for more than four decades has performed, taught and created dance from Siberia to Europe, Asia to the Americas, collaborating with dancers, musicians, scholars, photographers.
She was principal dancer and Artistic Director of the Martha Graham Dance Company, honored to receive the Dance Magazine Award, a “Bessie”, Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship and an Honorary Doctor of Arts from the Universidad de Colima, Mexico. She has brought her personal poetic of dance to film, writing and directing “La Voz del Cuerpo / The Body Speaks”, official selection of the NYC Independent Film Festival and NewFilmmakersNYC, and “Terpsikon – fundamental sequences of Martha Graham’s technique.”
She is guest artist with the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble, and recently creating works for her are Jaime Blanc, Alejandro Chávez and Brice Mousset. She is founding member of Buglisi Dance Theatre, danz.fest (Italy), and Invernadero Danza (Mexico) and teaches for Caterina Rago’s Tecniche di Danza Moderna (Italy).
Her most recent collaboration with Mexican colleagues and an international group of artists, brought a phenomenological lens to the Graham technique, its art, practice, music, philosophy and pedagogy. Her teaching and choreography have been supported by a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award, Rockefeller US Mexico Fund for Culture grants, CEC ArtsLink and the USIA. A decade on the faculty of the Juilliard School, she was Visiting Lecturer at Harvard and Creative Advisor for Alvin Ailey American Dance Foundation’s New Directions Choreography Lab. She is guest teacher for Ailey and Ailey II and teaches at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre and the Ailey School.
Available on Vimeo on Demand English 🇬🇧 / Spanish 🇪🇸
PENNY DIAMANTOPOULOU
Penny Diamantopoulou was born and raised in Athens, Greece. In 1995, after graduating from the Athens University (Department of French Language and Literature), she moved to NY to study at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance on a Demonstrator‘s scholarship. There she completed the Post Certificate Program, as well as her Teaching Training with Diane Gray and Joyce Herring.
She is a former member of the Martha Graham Dance Ensemble under the direction of Kazuko Hirabayashi, Joyce Herring and Kenneth Topping (1996-2000) and a Faculty member at the Martha Graham School (1998-2000).
She has been a Faculty member at the National School of Dance (2002-2021) and at “horohronos” Professional Dance School since 2017, where she teaches Graham Technique and Repertory. She also gives Workshops and Master classes to students and dancers of various ages and backgrounds in Greece and Cyprus.
In collaboration with the Martha Graham Dance Company, she teaches, reconstructs and restages pieces or excerpts of the Graham Repertoire in New York (City Center), Greece (Herod Atticus Ancient Theatre, Athens Concert Hall, Athens Festival), France (Conservatoire de Paris), Bosnia (Tanzelarija/Sarajevo), Belgium, Hungary (Hungarian Dance University for the Budapest Dance Festival) and Turkey (Izmir International Festival).
In collaboration with Nina Papathanasopoulou Myers, she presents a lecture demonstration program on the connection between Martha Graham’s choreography and the ancient Greek Mythology (CYA, DEREE College, ACS, DANCE Athens, Poreia Theatre, Hellenic American Union, Corfu International Festival).
In August ’20 she started her collaboration with Movement Migration Nonprofit Organization, teaching virtual Intermediate/Advanced Graham Technique classes for dancers from Europe, Asia and the USA.
She is the founder, choreographer and artistic director of ARTHROSIS Dance Company (based in Athens) with which she presents her work since 2003.
christophe jeannot
Former principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company, Christophe trained at the Conservatoire of Nantes, the CNDC of Angers and pursued his training in New York at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance.
During 8 years spent in New-York, he toured nationally and internationally with the Martha Graham Dance Company performing in pieces such as “Appalachian Spring” , “Errand into the Maze” , “Embattled Garden” , “Diversion of Angels” … He also worked with the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company, the Pearl Lang Dance Theatre, among others.
After returning to France, he performed with companies such as Kossiwa (Flora Théfaine, Nantes) and Thor company (Thierry Smits, Brussels). In 2020, he was part of Élise Lerat’s new creation “Feux” (Collectif Allogène, Nantes).
Teaching credits include the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, Tapei National University of the Arts, Trinity Laban Summer School in London and more recently Graham For Europe in Paris. He was also a professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur of Paris and the Conservatoire of Nantes.
In 2021, he started a 4-year yoga teacher training to further deepen his practice and continue to question the body in movement.
tamara mielnik
Tamara Mielnik is an Israeli artist, choreographer and pedagogue of Belgian origin. She trained with pioneers of modern dance in Israel: German modern expressionism with Gertrude Kraus, Graham with Hassia Levy, Linda Hodes and William (Bill) Louther, her mentor and former dancer for Martha Graham and Alvin Ailey. For 40 years, she has been teaching ballet and Graham Technique, mainly at Jerusalem Dance Theater, an institution she founded in 1985. Were among her students Hofesh Shechter, Sharon Eyal and several other dancers with Batsheva.
In 1976, at the request of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Tamara created the baccalaureate option dance of the Rubin Academy high school in Jerusalem whose curriculum is in force until today at the national level.
She defends a global approach, inspired by the Decroly pedagogy that she knew in her childhood in Belgium. She also focuses on placement, the organicity of classical dance thanks to her knowledge and practice of the Alexander technique since the 80s, first as a singer. Her approach is finally emotional, influenced by the expressive power of the Graham technique.
TANCREDO TAVAREZ
Born and raised in the Dominican Republic, Tancredo Tavarez graduated from a Bachelors Degree in Psychology from the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) in 1987.
In January 1988, Tancredo leaves for Mexico City with a full Scholarship for a specialization in Pedagogy in Modern Dance with Ballet Nacional de México. In January 1989 Tancredo receives a full scholarship from the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in New York and soon after was invited to join the Martha Graham Ensemble and later the Martha Graham Dance Company (1990).
In New York City, he was a faculty member of the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, Lehman College, The Actors Studio and the Professional Performing Arts school. In 1997, he moved to France, where he taught the Martha Graham Technique at the Conservatoire à rayonnement régional du Grand Avignon until 2003. In 1999, he became a beneficiary of the Certificat d’aptitude option danse contemporaine (Ministère de la Culture Française).
In September 2004, he was invited by Maurice Béjart and Michel Gascard to join the teaching faculty of the Ecole-atelier Rudra Béjart, a position he held until 2021.
AND THERE IS MORE
Technique classes will be accompanied by professional musicians (pianists and drummers), specialized in Graham technique.
