MASTER CLASSES
Melissa Suan-Baum
OPEN CONTEMPORARY
Sunday, October 18 | 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM
At Ballet Hawaii’s Honolulu Studios (735 Iwilei Rd, 2nd floor)
CLASS FEE:
$35 for enrolled BH students
$45 for non-BH dancers
Open to dancers 12+ with at least 1 year of dance experience.
Minimum of 6 students to confirm class.
DRESS CODE: Dancewear/activewear with socks or bare feet.
CLASS DESCRIPTION
This workshop is centered around contemporary floorwork. Dancers will explore spiral turns that travel from standing into spirals on the floor, along with fall and recovery, weight transfer, and a focus on flow and fluidity as the body moves through space. The second half shifts to contemporary partnering: trust, weight-sharing, counterbalance, and lifts built on shared momentum rather than force. An exploration of floorwork vocabulary and how dancers relate to gravity, the ground and each other.
BIOGRAPHY
Melissa Suan-Baum is a choreographer and movement director originally from Hawaiʻi, now based between Berlin and London. She holds a Master’s from London Contemporary Dance School and a Postgraduate Diploma from Copenhagen Contemporary Dance School, and for over a decade her work has spanned theatre and dance, teaching, creating and performing across LA, Copenhagen, London and Berlin.