Mini Movement Fest (MMF) is a one-day long dance festival at Arts Mission Oak Cliff, organized by Agora Artists. MMF includes four (4) movement workshops and an evening concert. The workshops are led by both local and visiting Festival Artists and open to participants of all experience levels high school age and older. The evening concert features a variety of dance-based performance and multimedia works presented by the Festival Artists. Prior to the concert, patrons are invited for Drinks and Art in the Garden, to view and shop works by local artists and vendors. The festival will conclude with music and mingling post-performance. MMF 2021 Festival Artists included Brandon Gonzalez (Austin, TX), Jennifer Mabus (Houston, TX), and Angelica Monteiro (Austin, TX). MMF aims to bring artists based throughout Texas to Oak Cliff in order to present fresh perspectives to the Oak Cliff community, simultaneously providing a platform for early and mid-career movement artists to facilitate classes and present work to a new audience.

Register!

Tickets: Workshops: $5 per workshop | Concert: $10 | MMF Pass: $20

MMF Pass includes all 4 workshops + entry to MMF Concert!

Health and Safety protocol:

All participants, staff, and artists are required to follow COVID-safety regulations determined by Agora Artists and Arts Mission Oak Cliff.

Complete COVID Liability form
Wear a mask at all times while inside the building
Workshops & Concert are limited capacity

Can’t make it, but want to support? Buy a limited edition MMF 2021 t-shirt!

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Meet the Festival Artists!

Brandon Gonzalez

Angelica Monteiro

Jennifer Mabus

The Workshops:

10-11:30AM: "Arriving at Contact" w/ Brandon

The contact in Contact Improvisation is not simply touching, it’s a medium with an infinite amount of nuance and texture. Like a sculpture, it has shape, color, and depth, and it might even call up memories and emotions. Contact engages your senses with the world; it’s a meeting point, a zone of exchange, a shared space that is neither you nor me. In this class, we will work in and out of physical touch and weight sharing to explore ways to connect and communicate with dance partners.

11:45AM-1:15PM: "Waacking through Cuíra" w/ Angelica

Waacking is an elegant and powerful dance created in the LGBTQ clubs of California in the 70’s by the Black and Latinx communities. Expansive arms, poses, musicality and expressiveness make the dance that take inspiration from the divas of different time periods, such as Greta Garbo and Grace Jones. With Cuíra, I bring to the class not only technique, but also the essence of Waacking which sees togetherness and joy as fuel for movement.

1:15-2:15PM : Brown Bag with Festival Artists (free)

2:15-3:45PM: "Modern dance for Contemporary Times" w/ Jennifer

Mabus’ technique class is grounded in the wisdom of historic modern dance traditions, while reexamining and expanding on these ideas to meet the needs and curiosities of the contemporary dancer. The class will begin with floor, standing and improvisational movement material that will research the actions of the center and spine in relationship to the limbs. We will expand upon this research with traveling material that will aim to increase the dancer’s physicality. The class will conclude with a phrase that will allow the dancers to make aesthetic and expressive choices.

4-5:30PM: “Rest & Release” w/ Avery-Jai & Lauren

The aim of our workshop is to provide opportunities and pathways into states of rest, which look different in different bodies. We will begin by facilitating a simple embodiment exercise composed of visualization and gentle movement. We will invite ease into the body with some self-touch for tactile feedback before offering a simple guided warm up based in release technique. We will then move into a more explorative practice through guided improvisation centered around ideas of release and embodied rest and conclude with time and space for self and group reflection. Our prompts around release and restoration will invite people to explore how release functions in their own bodies to promote a state of restfulness and ease.

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