Professional workshop
Kelly Keenan + invité·es – Mouvement Educator's Forum : Bodies, practices and embodied values
11 ⇾ May 14 2026 (Monday – Thursday)
09:30 to 12:30
Weekly rate:$80
Drop-in:$28
Monday & Tuesday only
Teaching Language: Frenglish
Questions can be asked in:
French, English
The Forum reunites artists (teachers in dance or if interested) to exchange on the theme Bodies, practice and embodied values.
Exchanges and exercices will be facilitated by Kelly Keenan, and invited artist-teachers Mathi LP, Benjamin Herrero, Hanako Hoshimi‑Caines et Marie‑Claire Forté.
Exchanges and exercices will be facilitated by Kelly Keenan, and invited artist-teachers Mathi LP, Benjamin Herrero, Hanako Hoshimi‑Caines et Marie‑Claire Forté.
Categories
#Somatic #Technique #Toolbox
#Somatic #Technique #Toolbox
© Marie-Ève Dion
Objective
This year’s Movement Educator’s Forum: Bodies, practice and embodied values, invites dance artist-teachers, as well as artists interested in the reflection, to exchange on how values both shape and are expressed through practice.
Together, we will explore how values are uniquely embodied, negotiated and experienced in the body through diverse practice propositions, while attending to specificity and relational contexts. What are we practicing? What are our practices doing? What would we like to be practicing/mobilizing? What do our practices make possible, or impossible? What is rigor and what form does it take?
Together, we will explore how values are uniquely embodied, negotiated and experienced in the body through diverse practice propositions, while attending to specificity and relational contexts. What are we practicing? What are our practices doing? What would we like to be practicing/mobilizing? What do our practices make possible, or impossible? What is rigor and what form does it take?
Content
Each day follows a similar format: welcome, practice facilitated by one of the artist-teachers, a collective documentation process and a facilitated dialogue. With that form, the Forum is an occasion to exchange and collectively reimagine our practice culture, toward the future.
This year’s invitees will offer insight into how different dance-artists-teachers approach their work. All are deeply invested in re‑imagining and articulating the values that underlie their respective traditions of practice :
This year’s invitees will offer insight into how different dance-artists-teachers approach their work. All are deeply invested in re‑imagining and articulating the values that underlie their respective traditions of practice :
- Mathi LP will explore the somatization of activism through dance and somatic approaches to movement;
- Benjamin Herrero will explore the integration of queer pedagogies in recreational dance;
- Hanako Hoshimi-Caines will explore her return to and reappropriation of ballet;
- and Marie Claire Forté will explore how contemporary dance can be a site to enact the reality, the self and the togetherness we wish for, to practice a better world.
Workshop Rhythm
~ Adaptable to the group’s needs
~ Variable rhythm
Accessibility Features
~ Cardio exercices
~ Exercices are adaptable
~ Jumps and shocks
~ Short verbal explications
~ Standing up for a long time
~ Sub-groups exercices
Biography
Kelly Keenan is a dance artist, teacher, researcher, and event organizer based in Montreal/Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang. With twenty years of experience teaching, both in and outside of institutions, locally and abroad, Keenan is now a professor at the Département de danse at Université du Québec à Montréal. As a dancer, she has collaborated with several choreographers. With an interest in holding space for practice and dialogue across practices, she has organized several workshop festivals and community events, notably the Movement Educator’s Forum (2012–present). Keenan’s teaching and research revolve around attention to values in practice and contribute to the ongoing transformation of dance pedagogy, encouraging a critical and situated engagement with practice.
“The Forum allowed me to learn new ways to teach skills/movement, as well as to adapt standard movement exercices” Victoria
“I was able to share with other beings and learn from their practices” Isabel
“I was able to share with other beings and learn from their practices” Isabel