Saturday, Jan 31 (1 session) | 2-4 pm

Instructor: Rachel Bernsen

Spontaneous Dance Group is a 2-hour ensemble-based movement improvisation workshop for adult movers (18 +) of all skill levels. Participants will learn to engage in improvisation as a mover and ensemble member through a series of games, prompts, and movement scores (loose structures for improvisation) some of which are adapted from Rachel’s current performance project, NOVEL FORMATS. Participants will also have the chance to devise their own unique movement score to be interpreted by the group. Some physical contact will be part of the dancing experience, based on individual comfort level and mutual consent. Some movement experience is helpful but not required.

Born in Minneapolis, MN, Rachel Bernsen is a dance and interdisciplinary artist and Alexander Technique teacher, currently living between Brooklyn, NY and Windsor, VT. Her performance practice is rooted in interdisciplinary collaboration and improvisation and in developing, through the lens of choreography, loose structures in her work that allow for the creation of meaning in real time through spontaneity, collectivity, novelty, and risk. Her most recent project, NOVEL FORMATS, is a series of performance works and installations using improvisation as a means to investigate the personal, social, and political dimensions of shared experience, with real-time possibilities for transcendence and failure that offer a kind of manual for life supremely relevant in this super charged biopolitical moment. NF is made in collaboration with a range of artists across multiple disciplines and will be in-residence at AVA January 16 - February 13, 2026 with multiple performances, an exhibition, and workshops. rachelbernsen.com