“As a gentle piano melody yielded to a driving mechanical pulse or the eerie sound of wood creaking in the wind, voluptuous extensions and turns gave way to muscular, knotty lifts and balances” Claudia La Rocco The New York Times
Jordan is a Professor of Dance at Texas Woman’s University who teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in choreography for stage, screen and alternative venues; grant writing and media marketing for dance artists; and contact improvisation-based technique classes. He has co-written an article on integrating partnering and improvisation into technique class in Contact Quarterly— Partnering, Permeability, and Sensation: Integrating Contact Improvisation into Technique Class (Vol. 34 No. 1 Winter/Spring 2009) and in addition to creating original choreography on student and professional companies, he offers workshops and residencies of varying lengths in topics that include:
Choreography Workshop in Counterpoint: Swimming Against the Current
We will explore a continuum between simple and complex unisons and possibilities for elastic unisons in which the relationships between elements are dynamic and in flux. This workshop will help choreographers create dynamic relationships between dancers and between dancers and music.
Screendance Workshop
In this hands-on workshop we will explore the unique choreographic opportunities that the two dimensions of the video screen offers. Using smart phones we will explore basic camera techniques, including near proximity, extreme camera angle, deliberately limiting contextual clues and strange gravity.
Grant Writing and Building a Website
We will develop effective bios, artist statements, teaching statements, workshop descriptions, and still and moving image selection, in order to build a website, write a mock grant and serve on a mock grant panel. Emphasis will be on communicating with clarity and conciseness.
Alternative Venues
For artists based outside of a major art centers like New York City working in alternative venues can be a great strategy for getting your work out there and accessing new audiences and new possibilities for funding. Using Fuchs’s Group Actions as a model for engaging with alternative venues outside of traditional theatre spaces, we will explore the issues that arise in performing in non-traditional performance spaces, as well as develop and then perform a Group Action.
Contact Improvisation
Contact Improvisation, a movement form in which the point of contact between two or more dancers becomes the departure point for an exploration of weight, balance, momentum and sensation is a movement form that Fuchs has been practicing for more than 30 years. He has taught numerous workshops to both beginning and advanced dancers. The fundamental techniques and practices of contact improvisation are useful in developing dancers who are able to seamlessly shift between solo, partnering and ensemble contexts with ease and finesse; engage in real time decision-making and movement creation; integrate the depth and inspiration of the sensing body; and successfully perform in complex, multi-variable situations.
Partnering Work
Using the techniques of Contact Improvisation to develop duet choreography, we will explore scores for moving in near proximity with a partner in both touch and non-touched based relationships. Topics may include nesting, passive/active role playing, tracking, activating the skin, redirecting, arresting, tracing and activating undersurfaces.
He has taught nationally and internationally at institutions and organizations including:
Alfred University, Alfred, NY
Barnstorm Dance Festival, Houston, TX
Brown University, Providence, RI
Columbus Movement Movement (cm2), Columbus, OH
Contact Festival Freiburg, Freiburg, GERMANY
Danz'Aqui Festival Internacional, Luquillo, PUERTO RICO
Earthdance, Plainfield, MA
Hollins University, Roanoke, VA
Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, HONG KONG
Hunter College, NYC
Kenyon College, Gambier, OH
Living Arts of Tulsa: New Genre Arts Festival, Tulsa, OK
Long Island University, New York, NY
Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY
Movement Exchange, Providence, RI
Movement Research, NYC
Moving Arts at Earthdance, Plainfield, MA
National Taiwan University of Arts, Taipei, TAIWAN
New York University/Experimental Theatre Wing, NYC
Nippon Sport Science University, Tokyo, JAPAN
Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH
OhioDance Festival
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
Rhode Island College, Providence, RI
Rice University, Houston, TX
Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, PA
Studio Plus A, Tokyo, JAPAN
Sushi Performance and Visual Art, San Diego, CA
Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX
Texas Dance Improvisation Festival
Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, ENGLAND
Tsekh Summer School in Moscow, RUSSIA
Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Puebla, MEXICO
University of Bedfordshire, Bedfordshire, ENGLAND
University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, OK
University of Texas, Austin, TX
Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
West Coast Contact Improvisation Jam, Berkeley, CA