For 10 years Marcela Trape has developed a method of corporal organization for tango dancers (Body Awareness Method), by which she has trained dancers like Eugenia Parrilla, Esteban Moreno, Pablo Inza, Melina Brufman, Fabián Salas, Andrés Amarilla and Mauricio Castro. With her dance partner Mario Ferraro, she works teaches Body Awareness for Tango and in Tango-Dance-Theater. They focus on efficiency of natural movement. www.bam.ya.st

“The objective of the Method, which I call “Body Awareness”, is for each individual to find the shortest and most efficient path to progress, in the most natural way possible. Normally, we learn to dance by copying the instructor, whose movements we try to re-create with our own bodies. The learning process, however, can be made more efficient as the individual becomes aware of his body, its limitations and how to tackle them.” –Marcela Trape

Workshops in Marcela’s “Body Awareness” will focus on the following:

Become aware of your limitations: This is the first step towards “waking” the body, as well as providing a blueprint for the change your body will undergo.

“Un-block” your body: Your body’s range of motion may be limited due to blockages. The first step to freeing up the affected body parts is awareness of the problem; the second step is learning how to mobilize these parts; and the third is to integrate them into the rest of the body. Exercises: Release, Articulate, Dissociate

Organize your body: Essential to “awakening” the body is learning proper alignment, a pre-requisite for organic movement. Exercises: mechanisms of movement, neurological and physical connections between parts of the body, body alignment, integration, information flow throughout the body

Manage your Energy: Essential to improving quality of movement, on-stage presence and stamina, among other things. The following exercises are designed to meet this specific need.

*Eutony to use the appropriate amount of muscle tension required by each movement

*Release tension exercises to effectively flow between these two complementary states.

*Spatial organization exercises to use the space around as the extension of your own body.

Build your confidence: Training will focus on communicating, integrating and listening to the other, with the aim of achieving greater harmony when dancing together with a partner. Execises: Centering, Responsiveness