The school at Fort Greene’s Mark Morris
Dance Center has expanded its traditional offerings by adding
new adult classes: "capoeira," Afro-Brazilian martial
art; belly dance; and "rhythm and motion," a workout
routine using jazz, African, Latin and modern dance forms as
its inspiration.
The Saturday, open-level Afro-Caribbean class, "Dance &
Movement," taught by Pat Hall, is pictured at left. According
to Mark Morris Dance Group Marketing Manager Laura Wall, the
center’s dance classes – except belly dance – offer live musical
accompaniment.
The center is home to Mark Morris – the choreographer who has
collaborated with everyone from ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov
to cellist Yo-Yo Ma – and his award-winning Mark Morris Dance
Group, whose members serve on the faculty of the dance school.
Classes are taught in three large dance studios that are drenched
with natural light, column free and have wood sprung floors.
The facilities, which opened in 2001, feature men’s and women’s
locker rooms, showers and a lounge.
The Mark Morris Dance Center school offers adult classes in ballet,
tap, yoga, West African dance, modern dance and Pilates, a series
of stretching and strengthening exercises with focused breathing
patterns. Fitness-oriented classes are offered on a drop-in basis,
while dance techniques are taught in six weekly, 90-minute sessions.
Intensives such as the Mark Morris Repertory Workshop run for
five consecutive days, two hours each day.
Mark Morris Dance Center, 3 Lafayette Ave. at Flatbush Avenue.
Adult classes are $12 for one session, $75 per series. To register,
stop by, call (718) 624-8400, or visit the Web site at www.mmdg.org.
