Class today is Ballet for Contemporary Dancers w/ Hamish McIntosh
The aim of Hamish’s classes is to provide contemporary dancers with an opportunity to practice ballet in an energetic and humanising environment.
This class focuses on exploring a full ballet class with space for personal, technical refinement while warming up the entire body. Hamish’s classes are fast-paced, often light-hearted, and prioritise breadth of material to saturate and challenge dancers. This class also emphasises equity across the gender spectrum, so “traditional,” gendered ballet steps are ignored in favour of personal expression and an equal opportunity to practice.
This class will include a barre section, where dancers will gradually build warmth and complexity, and a centre practice. Centre practice might include adagio, pirouettes and turns, and extended phrase work. In Hamish’s classes, the goal is often to reach grand allegro/big jumps, but this is always contingent on the desires of the dancers present.
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This class is suitable for professional or tertiary-level contemporary dancers with experience in classical ballet. Hamish’s classes often draw on French terminology and technical language, and interested dancers of any ability or experience should be comfortable with verbal instruction + demonstration learning.
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