duminică, 27 decembrie 2009

Marcela Trape & Mario Ferraro- teachers of Body Awareness Method - BAM® applied to Argentine tango








Marcela Trape
is a maestra, dancer, choreographer (ballet, contemporary dance, Argentine tango) and teacher of dance and dance- theatre in Buenos Aires, where she dances and teaches Argentine tango with her partner- Mario Ferraro.
Marcela was born in Bahia Blanca, in Argentine in 1971. She underwent academic training at the Bahia Blanca School of Classic Dance and obtained the Beca Antorchas prize in ’94, which enabled her to study with the maestro Alfredo Gurguel and the maestra Ana Maria Stekelman. Concurrently, she pursued her career in Contemporary Dance at the National Arts Institute in Buenos Aires.
She danced professionally for Argentine ballet companies and for the Disney Animation Festival company; she also participated in contemporary dance events and performed dance- theatre organized by independent dance companies.
As well as pursuing a very active career, she devoted her time to the Argentine tango, which she danced professionally with Andres Amarilla and, today, she dances and teaches with her partner, Mario Ferraro. Marcela is also co-director and choreographer in her dance-theatre company and teaches contemporary dance.

For 10 years Marcela Trape has developed a method of body organization for tango dancers (Body Awareness Method - BAM®), by which she has trained several maestros, maestros and famous Argentine Tango teachers like Eugenia Parrilla, Esteban Moreno, Pablo Inza, Melina Brufman, Fabián Salas, Andrés Amarilla and Mauricio Castro.
Marcela has also written a book called BamGoTango. You can read more information or buy the book on: www.bamgotango.net
With her dance partner Mario Ferraro, she works and teaches Body Awareness for Tango and in Tango-Dance-Theater. They focus on efficiency of natural movement.

Born in 1971 in a village near Buenos Aires, Mario Ferraro is an Argentine tango dancer and choreographer. His story with tango began in his childhood when his father gave him at 6 years old his first dog named…Tango.
At 8 years he began his studies at the school of music and dance. At 15 years he was also interested in percussion instruments and studied drums.
Parallel to the academic formation, Mario spent his life in a community where everybody was dancing typical folk dances (tango, paso doble, milonga, and fostroc, chacareras).
Finally at 27 years (12 years ago) he definitely dedicated himself to the tango, and he decided to go to Buenos Aires.
Mario is defined not as a dancer (bailarin), he is defined as a dancer that makes the dance (bailador).
This definition is critical when talking about tango. The leader proposes, adapts and responds.
Mario recognizes a good dancer when he has the ability to manage his dancing as a function of his partner and to find in this a door to the dance.
His dancing is based on the motion and the music, thus finding a flow of qualities. Using both open and closed embrace his dance is defined as a dance exhibition hall (Exhibition tango salon).

As a teacher Mario focuses and based the learning on the efficient use of the structures, taking these structures as tools for developing the dance. He does not determine a style, he proposes to develop a rhythmic body language. His teaching is based on developing personal and individual search of each member, in this way encouraging freedom within the couple. Mario supports this concept in the study of more traditional structures of tango and the new strauctures.

Some years ago he started to work with Marcela who conjugated his view of the tango and the efficient use of the body in a sensible way.

Marcela and Mario joined their perspectives, one from the search of freedom in the (own) body and the other from a search of freedom between the bodies.





“The objective of the Method, which I call “Body Awareness”, is for each individual to find the shortest and most efficient path to progress, in the most natural way possible. Normally, we learn to dance by copying the instructor, whose movements we try to re-create with our own bodies. The learning process, however, can be made more efficient as the individual becomes aware of his body, its limitations and how to tackle them.” –Marcela Trape



Workshop & classes in Marcela’s “Body Awareness” will focus on the following:

Become aware of your limitations: This is the first step towards “waking” the body, as well as providing a blueprint for the change your body will undergo.

“Un-block” your body: Your body’s range of motion may be limited due to blockages. The first step to freeing up the affected body parts is awareness of the problem; the second step is learning how to mobilize these parts; and the third is to integrate them into the rest of the body. Exercises: Release, Articulate, Dissociate

Organize your body: Essential to “awakening” the body is learning proper alignment, a pre-requisite for organic movement. Exercises: mechanisms of movement, neurological and physical connections between parts of the body, body alignment, integration, information flow throughout the body

Manage your Energy: Essential to improving quality of movement, on-stage presence and stamina, among other things. The following exercises are designed to meet this specific need.
*Eutony to use the appropriate amount of muscle tension required by each movement
*Release tension exercises to effectively flow between these two complementary states.
*Spatial organization exercises to use the space around as the extension of your own body.

Build your confidence: Training will focus on communicating, integrating and listening to the other, with the aim of achieving greater harmony when dancing together with a partner. Exercises: Centering, Responsiveness, etc.

Niciun comentariu: