Tess is a highly accomplished teacher who has worked with organisations including Scottish Dance Theatre, The Place, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, and Dance Base. Her teaching methodologies are strongly informed by her extensive training with internationally renowned teacher David Zambrano, encompassing Flying Low, Passing Through, Improvisation for Performance, and more recently, Couple Dancing. She shares this work across the UK and internationally. Tess also has extensive experience teaching in community and engagement settings, with a particular passion for youth dance.
CLASSES – ADV/PRO LEVEL
Class begins with dynamic tasks that connect us to the space and each other, as we travel and spiral through the room. Each class introduces a new focus, exploring movement through partnering, group work, or traveling patterns. We then move into sequences that gather and send the whole body, encourage expansive motion through the space, and guide us in and out of the floor with playfulness, fluidity, and the joy of dancing together.
Tess’s classes are grounded in the principles and practice of Flying Low & Passing Through, methods developed by David Zambrano, whose work has deeply influenced her teaching. Over time, she has evolved her own signature movement tasks and qualities, which she brings to this class.
WORKSHOPS
Flying Low focuses on the dancers relationship with the floor and with each other. Utilising simple movement patterns, which explore the principles of cohesion and expansion, gathering and sending the whole body. We learn how to move in and out of the floor more efficiently by maintaining a centred state.
Passing Through is an instant compositional group dance where we have infinite possibilities of pathways. Working together we learn how to connect with the environment around us, not forgetting any part of it or anyone. Being open to any possibility and prepared for any situation that may take us into a new pathway, keeping the doors open for the unpredictable.
Improvisation for Performance explores solo, partner and group material for spontaneous performance. Creating a deep state of listening through the body, enabling clear choices to be made and dance material to arrive from an authentic state. I encourage participants to use their own life experiences, interests and culture to express themselves through movement.
Couple Dancing moves through a series of playful and dynamic exercises in partners, this workshop will share specific principles and tools in listening, connecting, leading and following, to experience the joy and passion of social dancing.
TESS LETHAM 