DanceMasters Weekend: Master Class - Raphael Xavier: Hip Hop

Sunday, March 8, 2015 at 3:00pm
Bessie Schonberg Dance Studio

$19 per class, $13 for Wesleyan students

Sunday, March 8, 2015 from 3pm to 4:30pm

Raphael Xavier will teach a hip hop Master Class that will provide an opportunity for intermediate to advanced dance students and dance professionals to explore diverse dance techniques during his first time teaching at DanceMasters Weekend. 

Mr. Xavier developed Ground-Core technique after a spine injury that left him temporarily paralyzed. It became self rehabilitation through the exploration of movement and its relationship between the body, its core, and the ground/workspace. It focuses on the possibilities of pushing boundaries with the body in its entirety, through safe and non-threatening low impact movement. By removing the vertical plane that the body moves in, you are forced to resort to thinking horizontally, and changing the perspective of movement. This limitation creates a thought process that causes you to move in an unorthodox and unlimited way as new spaces are created by changing the center of the body's workspace. Ground-Core uses many core strengthening exercises to build strength, coordination, creativity, and most importantly, a safe movement vocabulary. As 90% of Ground-Core vocabulary is floor based, the dancer/mover will execute and engage movement from the back or stomach; strengthening the core and stabilizing muscles. Ultimately helping to prevent injury by constant conditioning. Ground-Core is unique and has a particular vocabulary that can be tailored to fit any body type. It combines repetitious movements and combinations that work with the individual's movement range and creativity. It is formed by dissecting standard movements of style, technique, and pedestrian mobility, then reassembling of the oddest of fragments through sustained pauses, repetition, and reverse actions.

Originally from Wilmington, Delaware, Raphael Xavier is an award-winning artist based in Philadelphia. A self-taught hip hop dancer and breaking practitioner since 1983, Mr. Xavier has forged an exceptional approach to improvisation. As an Innovative Movement Conceptualist, he creates new ways to expand the vocabulary of the dance form. He not only draws from the culture, but also from his visual background as a hip hop magazine photographer and musical artist. His extensive research in the breaking form has led to the creation of Ground-Core, a Somatic dance technique that gives the practitioner a better understanding of the body within all dance forms. As active alumnus of the world renowned hip hop dance company Rennie Harris Puremovement, Mr. Xavier's choreographic dance
works (solo and ensemble) have been performed worldwide. Mr. Xavier is also a 2013 recipient of the prestigious Pew Fellowship.

"Artful and mesmerizing, [Mr.] Xavier transforms a bravado dance style into an introspective meditation."
--Brenda Dixon Gottschild for Dance Magazine

DanceMasters Weekend is a two-day immersion in contemporary dance, featuring twelve Master Classes and a Choreographers Conversation.

A Weekend Pass, which includes five Master Classes, is $75 for the general public (plus a $6 class registration fee), or $55 for Wesleyan students.

Master Classes: Saturday, March 7, 2015 from 10am to 5pm

Master Classes: Sunday, March 8, 2015 from 11am to 4:30pm

Classes are designed for students with intermediate to advanced dance experience. Master Class teachers will incorporate technique and movement combinations from their repertoire.

Call 860-685-3355 or e-mail boxoffice@wesleyan.edu to join the DanceMasters mailing list.