Your Body
Your Training
Your Joy
Education that empowers dancers to reduce the risk of injuries, promote recovery, and build the foundations for a lifetime of artistic excellence.
Great dance should be built on health
Dance educators, studio directors, choreographers and performers all know that dance is hard work and requires tremendous amounts of discipline. Imagine helping dancers at all stages understand their own bodies to develop healthier practices, enabling them to enjoy their craft, expand their opportunities, and joyfully extend their careers. Learn how.
We were made to move
THE METHOD
What is a good body, a good foot, a good plie? A good dancer? My method unpacks the assumptions and questions we’ve inherited about what is valuable for our art and how it is achieved. This method provides a framework for moving well: seeing, sensing, and strategizing.
When we are trained to see, sense, and strategize movement through an anatomical lens, we are better equipped to understand and coach a dancer’s movement - no matter the dance style. The Foundations℠ program builds a strong base of musculoskeletal anatomy, an understanding of motor learning, and a physical practice that brings this information into action, to make training easier, more effective, and safer through clear cueing, targeted exercise selection and invention, program design and sequencing.
SEE
Learning dance often starts with seeing movement. What do you see when you watch a dancer? And through which lenses do you see their movement? The lenses through which we see carry values and imperatives – for example, watching through the lens of classical ballet sharpens the eye for specific technical goals… What about how you see movement is important for how you learn or coach movement?
SENSE
As movement artists we sense what we see, and we must be able to use our sensation to accurately guide our dancing technically and performatively. The intersection of seeing and sensing allows us to “try on” other people’s movement patterns. And ultimately, we must be able to accurately translate our own sensations into action, technique, and performative power.
STRATEGIZE
Foundations℠ cultivates and bridges your skills both seeing and sensing movement, and adds the lens of movement science so that you have a framework to strategize movement problems. What’s your point of entry? Does your correction begin with the foot? With the hip? What relationship to gravity will enhance proprioception and drive clarity? What language best conveys your goals?
“[Anneke Hansen is] changing the trajectory for dancers and I am excited to be a part of Foundations℠ and to share this magic and help others in their journey of movement.”
“I have developed a more tender and informed approach to dance education and movement preparation to build a new culture in dance training.”
– ANNEKE HANSEN
I am a dance educator, choreographer, and performer. Movement is my medium and my joy is making things move well: human bodies mostly, but also ideas that cross the divides of discipline, perspective, and experience.