An independent dance artist, singer, poet, actor, and teacher, Holmes has helped to define—first as a student and now as a teacher and performer—many contemporary improvisational dance practices, from studying Ideokinesis with Andre Bernard to collaborating with forerunners Simone Forti, Karen Nelson, Lisa Nelson, and Image Lab and Steve Paxton. She is a graduate of the two-year Sanford Meisner acting training (Esper Studio with master teacher Terry Knickerbocker 2008–09), Satya Yoga (Sondra Loring 2007), and The School for Body-Mind Centering (1995–99), of which the play between is essential to her current practices. A sought-after teacher of improvisation and somatic approaches to dance, theatre, and voice, Holmes travels nationally and internationally teaching and performing at universities, festivals, and venues that range from theatres to site-specific locations to living rooms; is adjunct faculty at NYU/Experimental Theatre Wing since 2001, Julliard; teaches through Movement Research since 1986 (A.I.R 2012–14); and has a private practice in Dynamic Alignment and Re-integration. She has performed in the work of Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People, Emily Johnson/Catalyst, Mark Dendy, Lance Gries, Melinda Ring, Matthew Barney, and Cristiane Bouger and is continuing to develop her solo work. SLC, 2017–
Undergraduate Courses 2019-2020
Dance
Somatics, Improvisations, and the Athletics of Intimacy
Component—Fall
This course will combine skills and applications of somatic research that include release techniques and body-mind practices, such as Body-Mind Centering® systems and patterns of development and evolution; embodiments of contact improvisation; and tunings of somatic approaches within solo, duet (strong emphasis on partnering), and ensemble dancing. The interest and focus is in the very physical, sensorial, and imaginative and in discovering new challenges and risks within our movement—of both body and mind—toward improvisational and compositional processes.
Faculty
Graduate Courses
Dance 2019-2020
Somatics, Improvisations, and the Athletics of Intimacy
Component—Fall
This course will combine skills and applications of somatic research that include release techniques and body-mind practices, such as Body-Mind Centering® systems and patterns of development and evolution; embodiments of contact improvisation; and tunings of somatic approaches within solo, duet (strong emphasis on partnering), and ensemble dancing. The interest and focus is in the very physical, sensorial, and imaginative and in discovering new challenges and risks within our movement—of both body and mind—toward improvisational and compositional processes.
Faculty
Previous Courses
Somatics, Improvisations, and the Athletics of Intimacy
Component—Year
The course will be taught by Ms. Nugent in the fall and Ms. Holmes in the spring.
We will be exploring movement and dance through the research of improvisation and the influences of the experiential anatomy of the somatic research of Body-Mind Centering®, contact improvisation, and structures and scores for improvising and composing dances. We will make the invisible visible, learning more about the interior of the body and our ideas, and explore pathways to space, time, and place as we also learn basic anatomy and physiology to better understand the mechanics of movement.