Workshop Participant Engagement

Last update: August 5th, 2022
Our protocols will be regularly updated with the most recent health guidelines. If you have any questions in the meantime please be in touch.

Please note: these measures do not apply to workshops offered online.

By registering for a workshop, you agree to cancel your participation if you have symptoms, or think you have COVID-19. It is also your responsibility to notify Studio 303 if you have participated in an activity and test positive for COVID-19. Please consult the most recent government guidance on testing/isolating.

If after receiving a negative COVID-19 test result you would like to return to a workshop, please contact info@studio303.ca to determine the conditions of your return, according to your individual situation. (Please note that we may ask you to share your vaccination status or other pertinent info.)

Preparing to come to the studio

– Mask-wearing. Studio 303 is a closed public space. We continue to recommend that renters and participants in our activities wear a mask.

• Although no longer legally required, masks remain an effective means of reducing risk of transmitting covid-19.
• Our community includes immunocompromised people who deserve to feel safe at the studio.
• Our community is also largely comprised of independent artists, who often rely on precarious contracts to make ends meet.

All to say, the possibility of contracting covid-19 is still a major concern for many folks we care for, and as always, our individual comfort levels may vary from others we share space with. If a teacher/artist prefers that participants wear masks, we will support them in that choice. Masks will be available in the studio for you if needed. Thank you for your care and understanding.


– Clothing. If possible, arrive in comfortable clothing for movement, as our dressing room is small and poorly ventilated. There are designated areas for your belongings.

Arrival

– Please arrive 15 minutes early. 
– Please disinfect your hands upon arrival.

During the workshop

– Take breaks when you need them (rather than in a group).
– Avoid touching curtains, windows, switches, doors – ask the workshop assistant to do so.
– Don’t hesitate to share any concerns or discomfort you may feel. 

Navigating comfort zones

Our maximum capacity for workshops is 25 people in total, including the teacher and the workshop assistant, and we do not accept drop-in students.

Please check-in with colleagues when being in close proximity from other participants. We realize this may be frustrating, but bear in mind that every individual has a different level of comfort and this needs to be honoured. Some questions to ask yourself:
– What is my comfort level in relation to physical distancing in the studio? In general? Today? 
– Do I need more information about the content of the workshop? 
– Am I comfortable being surprised by the teacher’s proposals?
– Do I need to get to know the participants in order to feel comfortable moving with them?
– What conversations am I willing to have with the workshop group?

Please read Studio 303’s COVID-19 Protocol, for more details about studio cleaning and our special measures.

Photo by Francesca Chudnoff

Curators-in-Residence

As part of the Curator-in-Residence program, Studio 303 invites Burcu Emeç and Christopher Willes to design an event whose form will be revealed during the season. The floor is theirs: 

“What would it look like to build a practice of making our sources known? Working for the first time together, we propose a co-research process exploring notions of embodied citation, transmission, and distributed authorship within performance practice. Through a series of events at Studio 303 we will host a space to consider different conceptions of citation within performance making–– not only as an ethical concern, but as an ongoing and embodied practice with both aesthetic and political implications. 

We’re asking: How do we care for the presence of other people’s work within our own? What new meanings and ways of living arise when sources are made explicit? What new conceptions of community, ensemble and relation emerge when working methodologies are focused on caring for how knowledge is transmitted from person to person? How do performance practices trouble notions of ownership? How do legal frameworks such as Canadian Intellectual Property Law address these issues and what are their limits? How do these imperatives change when working collectively, vs “in collaboration” or even “alone”? How do they change when considering the non-visual and intangible art forms within performance works (such as music or theory)? How does one honour the presence of those not physically present in our work? 

Subjects we are currently exploring include: embodied forms of citation, performance as genealogical garden making, citing the non-visual and intangible on stage, current Canadian intellectual property law (as a limited framework), citation within workshops and artistic-research / pedagogical context.”

– Burcu Emeç and Christopher Willes, Studio 303 2020-21 Curators-in-Residence

Biographies

Burcu is practicing care, political action and rigorous curiosity. She makes performances, writes, directs and organizes. Her approach blends social commentary, active listening, improvisation and visual art, often shifting between the highly poetic and unbearably banal, the sensorial and methodical. Recent research has been focussed on emotional vulnerability, immigrant and diasporic identities, codes of performance, and tensions between language and image. She is also a cultural worker, and a coordinator at the artist-run centre articule in Montreal. 

Christopher is a multidisciplinary artist and dance dramaturge based in Toronto and Montreal. Moving between communities and frameworks of experimental music/sound, dance, and visual art forms, his work focuses on the subject of listening as an inherently interdisciplinary, embodied and situated practice. His current research interests include approaches to group processes and distributed authorship, as well as psychoacoustics and the corporeality of sound. He also works as part of a team that co-leads Public Recordings, a Toronto based organization focused on interdisciplinary performance research. 

Bollywood

Fall: September 16th to December 16th, 2020 (14 classes)
Wednesday 5:30 p.m. – 6:45 p.m.

Payment by e-transfer recommended
rameezkarimdance@gmail.com / 514-979-1786
English teacher

CONTENT // Dive into the magical world of Bollywood! This mystical dance form exercises coordination, expression, stamina and fun. From its roots stemming from Indian classical dances (bharatanatyam and kathak) to different provincial, folk dances from around India, Bollywood is one of the few dance forms that is constantly evolving & drawing new inspirations from movement influencers within the industry. This class will allow you explore the basic elements of Bollywood dance including body isolations, hand gestures (mudras), flow, footwork and theatrics. With over 20 years of experience from different influential industry and non-industry choreographers, Rameez Karim has developed his own interpretation of Bollywood dance that ranges from more traditional filmi to spectacular fusion numbers. His compositions constantly challenge different movements, their qualities and execution. Let’s go to the colourful land of Bollywood!

BIO // Rameez Karim is a queer, Montreal-based multi-dance genre choreographer, instructor and performer. He is the former Assistant Director of Bollywood Blast. He has learned from renowned Bollywood choreographers Saroj Khan, Shampa Gopikrishna and Baba Yadav. He has also learned from celebrity choreographers in Western styles of dance including Pavan Thimmaiah, Mark Samuels & Paul Becker. Rameez has worked for/ with artists such as Marc Dupré, Mia Martina, The Bilz & Kashif, Priyanka Chopra, Diljit Dosanj and Jassi Sidhu. On screen, Rameez has appeared in numerous music videos and films including “Ho Gayi Talli” from the Bollywood film Super Singh (2017) which has over 29 million views on YouTube. Rameez has choreographed and performed for some of Montreal’s largest festivals including Acces Asie, Taste of the Caribbean and Canada Pride. His work has been presented locally and internationally in Lisbon, Dubai, Mexico and New York City and across Canada.

On June 9, 2019 Rameez launched his new troupe, Veils of Bollywood, at the 15th Annual Choreographer’s Ball in Toronto, Canada. Rameez’s extensive exposure to different styles of movement has allowed him to create using a vast palette rich in many forms of cultural expression. Being part of the Ismaili Muslim community, he incorporates elements of spirituality and enlightenment into his work. His most recent training in contemporary dance with Stéphanie Decourteille has allowed him to further explore another realm of movement. Rameez continues to develop his own style using his diverse life experience and everyday inspirations. He is pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Concordia University in Montreal with a major in Contemporary Dance specializing in Creation & Choreography.

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Evening classes are open to all levels, and it’s possible to drop-in without registering in advance.

Registration is done directly with the teachers, please contact them if you need additional information.

Come try the classes! Free classes at the beginning of the sessions:
Saturday, September 12, 2020 / Saturday, January 9, 2021 / Saturday, April 4, 2021

ANDREW HARWOOD (MTL) — INSTANT INSTINCT – ENTERING THE INTUITIVE ARENA OF THE UNKNOWN

March 1 to 5, 2021 – 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (Mon.-Fri.)
$___ with the support of *Emploi-Québec (or $_____, non-eligible rate)
$____ drop-ins Mon.-Tue. unless full (or $____, non-eligible rate)
Open to artists of all disciplines / In [LANGUAGE]
Capacity: _ people, priority for full week attendance

This workshop invites us to honor our essence and become the masters of what we know and what we do. Each session serves to create containers for focused investigation, encouraging each person to engage in the dynamics of self-care and empathy for others. Working with the innate intelligence of the body and a curiosity for the unfolding moment, we behold and are with that which wants to emerge instinctively. An assortment of playful & artistic dance scores will allow us to play lightly/seriously with our know-how, our how-to-be and our not-knowing. These spontaneous movement structures will help us focus our attention, develop an awareness of inner/outer space, awaken our senses, harness our inventiveness, create familiarity, dig in to what is actually happening and stimulate our imagination as we improvise alone, in pairs and trios, in small groups and as one large ensemble. This will be a mixed level class, open to all levels of experience.

Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood (Montreal) is an internationally recognized pioneer and master teacher of contact improvisation and real time composition. He began his dance career in 1975 and for over forty-five years has dedicated himself to the research, education, development and dissemination of contact improvisation and compositional improvisation as sophisticated movement disciplines and performing art forms.He studied and performed with the founders of CI Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith and Nita Little. He has also performed with a host of exceptional dancers such as Peter Bingham, Chris Aiken, Ray Chung, Lin Snelling, Marc Boivin, Benoit Lachambre, Kirstie Simson and Lisa Nelson. He danced for the companies of Marie Chouinard, Jean-Pierre Perreault, Jo Lechay and Fulcrum, and performed with the dance collectives Discovery Bal, The Echo Case and the Improvisational Movement Fund. Passionate about teaching, he transforms his training in gymnastics, the Alexander Technique, Aikido, release technique, contemporary dance, yoga and various somatic practices into a personal language, which he has shared throughout the world since 1976. He was awarded the Canada Council’s Jacqueline Lemieux Award for artistic excellence in 2000.

QUEER PERFORMANCE CAMP

SHOWS / WORKSHOPS / RESIDENCIES
From Tuesday, August 14th 2018 to Thursday, August 23rd 2018

Where to Begin?

Last September, we playfully announced that this year was 303’s Saturn return – a time to reflect, prioritize, realign. What an understatement that turned out to be.

Studio 303 is no stranger to uncertainty, but of course this pandemic brings it to a whole new level. We must find ways to support one another, honouring our diverse contexts and coping strategies. In May, we hosted a Town Hall with resident artists and studio users. Our biggest take-away was a collective need to slow down, to listen and to observe; an imperative to re-evaluate our relationship to systems and to time.

Today we find ourselves in a historic moment of deep mourning and powerful protest following the brutal murder of George Floyd – a tipping point for collective awakening, racial justice and police reform. We are moved by the brave wave of momentum generated by those on the front lines and are determined to amplify marginalized voices and fight white supremacy as individuals, as a team, as part of a community, and as an institution.

We need to work more deeply and thoughtfully. We are cutting back “productivity” next season: reduced programming will better support artists at their rhythm, and allow for ideas which have yet to take shape. We will take 12 months to nurture an inclusion project we had initially planned to do in three. We envision a paperless year, and gentle, incremental and minimalist communications, allowing us to channel funds and energy elsewhere while better embodying our environmental aspirations. We look forward to trying to think and do things differently.

We are very fortunate: governmental emergency aid is ensuring our short-term survival, and core funding means we can protect staff, teacher and artist wages. However, the rental and workshop losses we anticipate threaten our ability to hold onto our beloved studio – our creative home for the past 30 years. We are counting on your support to help us navigate the rough waters ahead, and thrive as a physical space where thinking can be embodied.

We know many of you are exhausted and facing financial hardships of your own. And we don’t want to add noise to your inbox and social media feed unnecessarily.

Thus, this fundraising campaign will be brief and discrete.

This is it.

For those who are able to help out this year, thank you in advance!

You can donate from now until June 30th 2020 via Simplyk or by cheque.

Take very good care of yourselves, in solidarity,

Team 303

– Kim-Sanh, Miriam, Noël, Ola, Ornella et Victoria

CREATIVE MOVEMENT AND IMPROVISATION

  • Online: April 30th to June 4th, 2020 (6 classes)
  • Wednesday 6 p.m. – 7 p. m.
  • Price: voluntary contribution*, $10 per class suggested
  • E-transfer to ariana.psanchez@gmail.com
    514-972-9062 / Bilingual teacher


CONTENT //A course adapted to do at home and in small spaces. We will use an approach combining dance, improvisation and yoga. Through simple exercises on the ground we will activate the body and the senses by relating them to internal and external space. We will awaken the body to lead it to an effective and sensitive coordination.

This course will allow dancers to improve their skills by using their curiosity and creativity in the dance movement.

With guided improvisations or choreographed sequences, dancers will be encouraged to work in different isolations from the body to explore their own way of moving. By trusting their intuition, participants will explore different states: physical, mental and emotional to find the balance between control and letting go.

BIO // Ariana Pirela Sánchez is a choreographer, dancer and researcher living in Montreal. She graduated from L’école de danse de Québec and have a complementary practice in yoga and physical training. She presented her solo, “Manos de Mujer,” at the Phenomena festival, Cuisine Ta Ville and the Festival Vue Sur la Relève. She is a 2020 artist in residence of the Montreal Arts Intercultural Support Program with the Conseil des Arts de Montréal. She has an intimate approach and her work is inspired by a quest for identity, cultural and political issues as well as human relations.


(*): If you are struggling to contribute financially at the moment, you can still come and take the class. We would like to offer you the opportunity to connect with movement despite the circumstances.

By participating in this online offering, you acknowledge that there are inherent risks of physical exertion to any activity, and agree to hold harmless Studio 303 and its employees and contractors from any and all liability for personal injury, however caused, arising from your participation. You freely accept and assume all such risks from participation in any ctvity or event with Studio 303. Please note that RQD members usually covered by CNESST are NOT covered during online activities. Thank you for your understanding!

Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement Classes

Online: April 28th to June 2nd, 2020 (6 classes)
Tuesday 5:45 p.m. – 7 p.m.
$60 for the full session or $16 drop-ins
Payment methods: e-transfer by email (sarah@inhabit.life) or paypal 
514-929-1635 (texting preferred) / Bilingual teacher

Following registration/payment, you will receive the link for the online class by email. The class will take place on ZOOM.

CONTENT // Find physical ease, become more embodied, and develop your somatic mindfulness practice with Sarah’s gentle, verbally-guided movement meditations. Whether you have a relationship with your body that’s close or complicated, you’re welcome here. We’ll explore movements while lying, sitting, or in our imaginations. The emphasis is on how a movement feels rather than on how it looks, so you can expect a truly non-judgemental environment to explore.

These classes are body positive, LGBTIA+ supportive, sex and sex work positive, and trauma-informed.

BIO // Sarah is an enthusiastic teacher who’s known for their welcoming presence, warm sense of humour, and engaging teaching style. They’re especially passionate about helping clients develop skills needed to practice embodied self-respect, curiosity, and creativity. Sarah graduated from their 800-hour Feldenkrais training program in 2016 and facilitates group and one-on-one somatic sessions in English at their office in Montreal and virtually online.

www.inhabit.life

@inhabit_movement

By participating in this online offering, you acknowledge that there are inherent risks of physical exertion to any activity, and agree to hold harmless Studio 303 and its employees and contractors from any and all liability for personal injury, however caused, arising from your participation. You freely accept and assume all such risks from participation in any ctvity or event with Studio 303. Please note that RQD members usually covered by CNESST are NOT covered during online activities. Thank you for your understanding!

All Nuit Long

Saturday, February 29th 2020, 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. @ Studio 303 — FREE