teaching philosophy
“Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.” Paulo Freire
As a Teaching Artist, my teaching philosophy emphasizes education as a process of
humanization where the students are conscious of their agency to express, create and transform. I’m deeply inspired by Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed: “Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.” I believe creativity expressed through Dance is a medium to embody energy, manifest collective ideas and achieve social change.
I facilitate a movement class with a holistic approach where the student can access healthy movement patterns, their emotional body and aesthetic awareness. To achieve this, we activate the body and senses through somatic practices in combination with modern and contemporary dance techniques, including release-based movement and contact improvisation. Also, I use Laban Movement Studies to provide an organized structure to study and describe movement.
My class nurtures the student as an artist, as a creator. In order to achieve this, I facilitate activities of improvisation and composition to develop observation skills and acquire tools to explore and construct kinesthetic knowledge. I direct learning through inquiry-based activities to foster critical thinking.
My class urges the students to be present with the humans around them. The group becomes a collective of individuals that feel, think and create together; gaining autonomy as a result. We achieve unity through the commonality of the body, encompassing different ideas and perspectives.
I encourage the student’s personal investment to fully embody their identity through honest presence with movement. With this intention, we share our dances and our practice with the community in open classes and events. In this act of conscious expression and witnessing, we find freedom in becoming aware of our capacity for action and transformation.