Stefanie « Tourmaline Z

Last Sunday of the Month

In these workshops you can expect to step into a different world: a world of rhythm, tone, creativity, musicality, and passion. This is a world of complex grace made in motion, experienced, and embodied. This is the best of America expressed through the most innovative instrument we have ever invented: the tap dance shoe! If you have experience Tap Dancing, you’ll be challenged and delighted. If you do not, you’re in the right place. You’ll be warmly welcomed into a world of fascinating rhythm.

These workshops are for everyone in the room.

Rhythm is universal and naturally a communal practice. There is always a way to adapt, modify, and be exactly where you are in the process of learning and still have fun. We will take a mini tour of rhythm tap from the basics to the beyond. This landscape is rich with history, survival, expressivity, and devotion. We’ll make stops along the way and hang out with various grooves, specific techniques that allow for a masterful approach, and steps passed on from various legendary dancers including some of the most creative black artists of the Jazz Tap tradition.

We will strive towards having guest artists, jam sessions, and live musical accompaniment during these workshops as they grow. This will allow us to practice this energetic and expressive dialogue and to develop our ability to listen with open ears, minds, and hearts.

Bring your own shoes or borrow ours.

Located in downtown Pittsfield on Wendell Ave at The Berkshire Music School whose mission is to foster the love and pursuit of music for all ages through quality music education activities, community collaborations, and performance opportunities. https://www.berkshiremusicschool.org

Contact TD4RKENYA@GMAIL.COM to pre-register, rent tap shoes, or more info.

Led by teaching artist and director Stefanie Weber.

Stefanie Weber is an action-based dance artist who specializes in the American vernacular art form of Tap Dance. She is a graduate of the Jazz Tap Residency led by Tap Dance legends Jimmy Slyde and Dianne Walker. Stefanie directs the cross-cultural dance exchange project They Dance For Rain in Nairobi, Kenya. Her original work with The Creatures of Habitat Physical Poetry Public Performance Project has been witnessed throughout Massachusetts and in NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, and Detroit. She presently performs with Nutshell Playhouse, a theater company dedicated to bringing innovative and exciting live theater & music to family audiences, regardless of ability to pay. Stefanie is a certified Gyrotonic trainer and has a passion for restorative and insightful experiences with movement and dance. Her most recent pursuit in Pittsfield, MA Tourmaline Z Studio is a space that offers unique and artistic approaches to movement, performance, and body-mind-soul connections including craniosacral fascial tuning and various somatic and energetic adjustments. Stefanie is the founder of the Fancy Nancy Foundation, a project-based collective that nurtures warmth and beauty in the world through acts of kindness, lovingness, and creativity, in remembrance of and inspired by the legacy of her mother Nancy A. Weber. Stefanie is currently in progress artistically with Civil Motions: Scenes of the Familiar and Absurd with theater artist JoJo McDonald, A Body That is Yours to Find with filmmaker Michael Sinopoli, and MOTHERLESSSHIP, a collection of interactive performance sketches and physical poems.