Contemporary Dance Class

Rhea Speight’s class begins with improvisational explorations of imagery. Through this practice, we warm up the body and its connection to the imagination. We will give our attention to the nuance and particularities of our individual bodies as we explore a variety of energetic states. Concepts from the warm-up will be carried through a series of choreographed dance phrases that build into a longer phrase. We will challenge ourselves to discover something new in our approach to dancing, guided by our curiosity and our pleasure and joy.

Rhea Speights is an artist and teacher, specializing in dance and video. Her dance practice is informed by her studies and collaborations with Jennifer Monson, Jessie Young, Jesse Bie, Jess Pretty, Jenna Valez, and many others (even more whose names start with J). She has taught and presented her work across the United States and with Jenny Angélica Soledad in Bogotá, Colombia. Rhea holds an MFA in dance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a BA from the University of Alabama. She co-directed SynArts in Tuscaloosa from 2006-08 and was artistic director of Sanspointe in Birmingham from 2011-13. During that time, she taught at the University of Alabama, The Dance Foundation, and Birmingham-Southern College.