BAX 35th Anniversary: Workshop Weekend

Join us in celebrating our 35th Anniversary Season for a special Workshop Weekend featuring classes from some of BAX's artist alumni!
About this Event

Welcome to Workshop Weekend, a teaching series led by BAX artist alums in celebration of BAX’s 35th Anniversary Season!

What is it? Two days of back to back workshops led by artists who have called BAX a creative home over the past 35 years. Join us at our Annex studio in Fort Greene, ready to move, connect and work together. Celebrating artistic process, community, and good old fashion dance class, our workshops represent what body-based research looks like in our field today. All proceeds benefit the BAX 35th Anniversary Fund.

Each workshop will last 75 minutes, with 15 minutes in between workshops. Classes are sold individually as well as bundled packages. Tickets are offered on a sliding scale, and no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Tickets will also be available for walk-in participants. Learn more about the artists and workshop descriptions below!

TEACHING ARTISTS:

Saturday, November 14

• Christopher "Unpezverde" Núñez, 11:30 - 12:45PM
• zavé martohardjono, 1:00 - 2:15PM
• Adrienne Westwood, 2:30 - 3:45PM
• Alexandra Pinel, 4:00 - 5:15PM

Sunday, November 15

• Dani Criss, 10:00 - 11:15AM
• Edisa Weeks, 11:30 - 12:45PM
• Kim Katzberg, 1:00 - 2:15PM
• Kyle Marshall, 2:30 - 3:45PM
• Anna Sperber, 4:00 - 5:15PM

These workshops were organized by BAX Artist in Residence alum and board member, Mariana Valencia, whose work is invested in improvisation, representation, and fostering community through dance and performance.

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS:

Vortex - Christopher "Unpezverde" Núñez

• Vortex is an invitation to explore dance as something felt. In this workshop, we’ll transform visual-motor concepts into sensory-motor experiences, using proprioceptive breathing and the body’s natural bioelectricity to guide alignment, positioning, and fluid motion. Your body’s five sacred points—the third eye, sternum, sacrum, wrists, and heels—will become anchors for angular, curved, and spiraling movement, aligning with the body’s axes as they traverse the spatial planes.

ReMAp: Resiliency Motions 4 Apocalypse - zavé martohardjono

• This workshop explores our bodies’ regenerative systems and ecological resilience for times of crises. Through a series of dance, movement, and sounding scores, ReMAp helps participants find rest, increase bodily mobility, recharge the nervous system, and consider how we can strengthen our collective relationships to the lands we live on and marginalized communities we belong. ReMAp activities and modalities include somatic warm ups, deep and quantum listening exercises, shaking practice, and choreographic prompts to build improvised dance works exploring climate crisis, decolonization, composting, Deep Time, geology, regenerative natural cycles, and interspecies relationality. No prior experience with dance or singing is needed and all bodies are welcome to this accessible and multimodal workshop. Research for ReMAp scores, meditations, activities, and group reflections draw from somatics, Butoh, Qi Gong, ecological science, and queer feminist praxis from the work of Audre Lorde and Pauline Oliveros.

PERSON, PLACE & THING - Adrienne Westwood

• This workshop explores three generative entry points for moving and making: person (the body), place (sites, locations, histories), and thing (objects and materials). Through the focus of each lens, we’ll draw on multiple modalities to generate material and experiments – an expansion of interdisciplinary creative practices I’ve been developing and using in my work for over a decade. After teaching in different formats over the years, this class gathers and synthesizes these approaches into a shared workshop space. Approaches may include: improvisatory movement scores; guided somatic noticing; writing as generative seed and expressive element; hands-on investigation of objects; visually “mapping” a meaningful-to-you space; drawing as observation and reflection; form and format through use, metaphor and "shape" of a meaningful object; layering and juxtaposition of these elements. We will be inspired by aspects of these key inquiry points – body, location and objects – as “teachers” - sites of limitless information to be investigated for their qualities, shapes, patterns and contents, and to be employed as meaningful poetic elements to be woven through the work we make. Participants will leave with multiple, practical approaches and methods to apply their own curiosities, as well as “seed” material for a future project, if they wish.

A Body of Time - Alexandra Pinel

• A creative gathering for former dancers, movement lovers, and curious bodies seeking a moment of pause amid the rhythms and demands of daily life. With children welcome in the space, we’ll begin with a gentle body check-in before moving into guided improvisation, movement exploration, and reflective writing prompts. Together, we’ll investigate sensation, memory, imagination, and the stories our bodies carry, allowing movement and language to inform one another. This is not a technique class or a return to who you once were as a dancer. Rather, it is an invitation to meet yourself where you are now.

Diasporic Dance Workshop (DDW) - Dani Criss

• Diasporic Dance Workshop (DDW) is a liberative movement experience like no other! This workshop explores the vastness and healing of African Diasporic dance cultures under one occasion, DOIN IT FOR THE CULTURE! A fusion of traditional and contemporary West and Central African, AfroBeats, Hip-Hop, and more in this communal celebration and opportunity to uplift the beauty and knowledge of movement cultures. Includes the engagement of spirit filled and high energy movement vocabulary with a warm-up and cool-down, set to contemporary diasporic music. An experience for the whole family, young and old, a celebration of community, of self, and all that we are! No dance experience required, come as you are.

Wood Spoons for Freedom - Edisa Weeks

• Wood Spoons for Freedom emerges from a desire to have an action, a dance, that can be done at protests. The dance is in the spirit of Toyi Toyi protest dances in South Africa during Apartheid; the Baila Capucha Baila dances against sexism, rape culture, and other forms of violence inflicted on women in Chile; and Maculelé a warrior dance from Brazil. The dance is about solidarity, resilience, tapping into JOY, and resistance to oppression. All you need is two wooden spoons. Wood spoons will be provided, however, if you have wood spoons, please bring them. Wood Spoons for Freedom is the brainchild of Edisa Weeks and is organized by artists in Circle Up, a group facilitated by Yanira Castro, including Ariel Lembeck, Martha Sherman, Kimiko Tanabe, and Rishauna Zumberg.

Kim Katzberg

• In this 90-minute workshop, we’ll build a short solo piece by stepping into an original character and following what insists on being spoken. Using improvisation, writing prompts, props, costume, sound, physicality, and voice, we’ll generate material that is theatrical, immediate, and alive. The focus is on discovering who this character is, where they are, why they are speaking now, and what kind of world they carry onto the stage. This session is for performers, writers, and makers who want to create from impulse, transformation, and play. We’ll treat character as an engine for story, structure, and surprise, using the body, objects, and space as collaborators in the making of a live moment. Come ready to experiment, take risks, and leave with the beginnings of an original solo work.

Kyle Marshall

• My class combines traditional modern dance alignment, post-modern curiosity around momentum, with Black dance traditions that embrace rhythm, power and musicality.I use rhythm, footwork and body percussion in my movement class to hone a student's sense of musicality,groove and coordination. Stretch and strengthening exercises are approached somatically to focus a student’s integration, agility and injury prevention. Phrasework that finishes each class is often sourced from KMC’s body of repertory. The material encourages the inner groove, memory, precision and power of each dancer. My emphasis on physical rigor, powerful playfulness, and ease of movement creates a positive, challenging space for students from diverse backgrounds, dance experience and cultural exposure to learn and build community.

Anna Sperber

• Class will begin with a grounding warm-up that invites awareness, ease, and support through the energetic and anatomical pathways of the body. We’ll take time to locate where movement initiates, tracing how breath, gravity, and skeletal alignment can serve as both anchor and source. We’ll move through gentle sequences into more expansive and physically challenging patterns. Through both structured movement and improvisational exploration, we’ll activate sensory attention. We will engage with scores to activate spontaneous impulse and physical imagination. Learning choreographic material, we’ll work with attention to presence, initiation, and the relationship between weight, gravity, and momentum. Looking to move with clarity, freedom and power – dancing for and with one another.

ARTIST BIOS:

Alexandra Pinel

• Alexandra Pinel known as Allie to friends is a choreographer and performer from Paris, France and has showcased work in DC at the Capitol Hill Arts Blackbox, in New York at DNA, Gibney Dance, Triskelion Arts, the House of Scandinavia, Dixon Place, Green Space, the Living Gallery, BabyCastles, Sofar Sounds, Spectrum NY, The Secret Theater in LIC and Brooklyn Arts Exchange and at the University of Santiago, Chile. Her dance films have been shown on NPR Radio’s Blog for the anniversary of the Rite of Spring, at Dance Film Association Screenings and at the House of Scandinavia. She has choreographed music videos for Chinese band Re-TROS and Prince Rama and is a Luther Rice Research Fellow and Maida Withers Dance Construction Company Award Recipient for Innovation in Dance. Alexandra works for Half Straddle, Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company, New York Public Radio and choreographer luciana achugar and has recently performed in her work at JACK, The Chocolate Factory, Fusebox Festival and New York Live Arts.

Christopher "Unpezverde" Núñez

• Christopher “Unpezverde” Núñez is a Costa Rican/American choreographer and performance artist known for his sensory-based movement and innovative audio description. His work examines immigration, disability, and indigeneity, earning features in Art in America’s “New Talent” (2023) and a BESSIE nomination for Outstanding Performer. Recent projects include Electric Fish (Lincoln Center), The Square: Displacement with No End (Abrons Arts Center), and I OBSOLETE (Jacob’s Pillow, Brooklyn Museum). He has been in residence at Loghaven, BAM, Movement Research, and The Kitchen, and is a fellow of Jerome Hill, Dance/USA, Princeton Arts, and Leslie Lohman Museum. As an educator, Núñez developed the Vortex Methodology, merging proprioceptive breathing and bioelectricity to trigger bodily movement. He is on faculty at Movement Research and has lectured at Princeton, The New School, and Rutgers. Currently, he is writing a book on his methodology, and researching for his new projects "Tamata" (a votive offerings and disability exploration) and Hulero, a performance based on the history of rubber extraction in Nicaragua.

zavé martohardjono

• zavé martohardjono is a trans, queer, Southeast Asian artist working across dance, installation, and sound. Their time-based works, rooted in ecological and political liberation, activate audiences' senses through rituals that facilitate dreaming of more just futures. They are a 2022 Bessie/New York Dance and Performance Award nominee for Outstanding Performer, Mertz Gilmore Foundation and Puffin Foundation awardee, 2025 Center for Experimental Ethnography fellow, 2024-2026 NEW INC Member, 2023 BAX Space Grant recipient, and 2011 EmergeNYC fellow. Their work has shown at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Storm King Art Center, 92Y, Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, Asian Arts Initiative, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, El Museo del Barrio, Issue Project Room, Winslow Garage, and in Amsterdam, Berlin, Glasgow, Jakarta, Montréal, Skopje, and Zurich.

Adrienne Westwood

• Adrienne Westwood is a Brooklyn-based artist whose multi-layered work incorporates objects into embodied explorations of memory, bringing traces of other times and places into the present moment. Her work for cottages, flip books, nooks, crannies, screens, gardens, voicemails, a truck, as well as traditional theaters, been presented widely in NYC and at Jacob's Pillow, CCN-Ballet de Lorraine (France), WUK (Vienna), The Firkin Crane (Ireland), ODC Theater (San Francisco), and The Philly Fringe. Her collaboration with composer Angélica Negrón, will premiere Fall 2026 hosted by Target Margin. Adrienne was a 2023 Lead Artist at Mercury Store for her interdisciplinary “box/truck;” and a 2018-19 CUNY Dance Initiative recipient through which she created “s o u n d i n g line” for Snug Harbor’s historic Gardener's Cottage. Recent support includes Harvestworks, BRIClab, NYSCA Support for Artists, and the New Jewish Culture Fellowship, as well as residencies at Barnard Movement Lab and SLIPPGE Lab at Northwestern University (dir. Prof. Thomas DeFrantz). Adrienne is proud to have received the pilot Parent-Artist Space Grant from Brooklyn Arts Exchange through which she developed her work “Record” (2012). From 2011-2018, she served on the selection committee for “The Bessies” NY Dance and Performance Awards.

Edisa Weeks

• Edisa Weeks is a choreographer, educator, and director of DELIRIOUS Dances. She is the recipient of several awards including a 2024 MAP Fund Grant, a 2022 Creative Capital Grant, and a 2024 Bessie for Outstanding Performance. She creates multimedia interactive work, which explores issues in society such as how the media is used to manufacture consent; examining what is the promise of America; and why life, liberty and happiness were included as unalienable rights in the United States Declaration of Independence. As an artist her practice involves gift giving which manifests in gold tattoos, communal meals, creative reuse workshops, roots parties, and elaborate hair designs that incorporate objects that can be repurposed such as silk flowers, wind-up toys, cooking utensils, condoms and more. Edisa is interested in providing creative spaces and performance rituals where people can engage with ideas, as she believes that art revitalizes the everyday to reveal something new about ourselves, and the revelation is an energy, a spark, that has the power to change the world.

Kim Katzberg

• Kim Katzberg is an NYC-based queer writer and performer creating genre-bending, darkly comedic theatrical work that explores family trauma through a new wave lens. The New York Times called Katzberg’s work “Audacious... Rich with emotional truth... Katzberg has a gift for writing her own material.” Katzberg has performed original work at HERE, The Bushwick Starr, Ars Nova, BAX, The Brick, La MaMa, Wild Project, Dixon Place, and UCB Theatre NY. Her piece Strays won the 2016 NYIT Award for Outstanding Original Short Script, and Dad in a Box won the 2019 NYIT Award for Outstanding Solo Performance. Katzberg co-wrote and stars in Like Going to a Hardware Store for Bread, which premiered at NY Shorts International Film Festival in 2023, won Best Short Comedy at the City of Angels Women’s Film Festival, and premiered internationally at the London Independent Film Festival in 2024. Her TV pilot was a Quarterfinalist for the 2024 Final Draft Big Break Contest and a Semi-Finalist in the Cinequest Screenwriting Competition. She was a Lead Artist in Mercury Store’s 2025 Project Week Residency, has a forthcoming Project Week Residency there in November, and is a 2026 Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellow in Playwriting. She holds an MFA in Acting from Columbia University. www.kimkatzberg.com

Dani Criss

• Affectionately known as Dani Criss, The Artist; a multidisciplinary artist, cultural arts educator, and community organizer hailing from Durham, North Carolina, now based in Brooklyn, NY. Uplifting the principles of the African Diaspora, inspiring an appreciation, acceptance, and historical experience in each interaction. A cultural arts educator in multigenerational communities in New York, NY and surrounding areas including NYC Public Schools, Nassau Community College, Urban Bush Women-BOLD, Mark Morris Dance Center and several arts organizations around the city. The current director of the Africana Performance Ensemble at Nassau Community College and the coordinator for the annual New York City Arts in Education Roundtable’s Black Women's Wellness Retreat. Check out www.danicriss.com for more information.

Kyle Marshall

• Kyle Marshall is a choreographer, performer, teacher and artistic director of Kyle Marshall Choreography (KMC). Since 2014, KMC has performed at The Joyce Theater, Chelsea Factory, BAM Next Wave Festival, The Shed, PS21, and Roulette. Kyle has received choreographic and dance film commissions from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Baryshnikov Arts Center, "Dance on the Lawn" Montclair's Dance Festival, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston). Touring has included: Barbican Centre (London), Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out (Beckett, MA), FringeArts, (Philadelphia), and New World Center (Miami). Recognitions have included two NY Dance and Performance Bessie Awards, and a 2020 Dance Magazine Harkness Promise Award. Kyle was a 25-26 Grant Wood Fellow and visiting assistant professor at the University of Iowa. Kyle was a member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company, doug elkins choreography etc., and Tiffany Mills Company. He is a graduate of Rutgers University with a BFA in Dance.

Anna Sperber

• Anna Sperber is a Brooklyn-based choreographer and performer. Her work is rooted in the poetic potency of choreography and its capacity for perceptual transformation. It grapples with the exhilarations and constraints of living in a body, grounded in presence and viscerality, and embraces aggression often denied within the feminine. Through an exploration of collective attention and action, her performances draw audiences into heightened states of noticing—revealing how bodies and environments transform one another, and how sound and light can alter our sense of time. Sperber was named a 2026–27 Princeton Hodder Fellow at the Lewis Center for the Arts. She received a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Choreographer for Bow Echo. Her work has been presented and commissioned by venues including Lincoln Center, The Kitchen, The Joyce Theater Unleashed at New York Live Arts, The Chocolate Factory, Roulette, Dance Theater Workshop, and the American Dance Festival. She has received fellowships and residencies from MacDowell, Yaddo, the Bogliasco Foundation, Ucross Foundation, Loghaven, Gibney Dance, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Movement Research, among others. Sperber was a co-founder of classclassclass, and has taught as a guest artist at American Dance Festival, Movement Research, Freeskewl, Pageant Space, Gibney Dance, Hunter College, George Washington University, and Wayne State University. Sperber founded and ran BRAZIL, a studio and intimate performance space in Bushwick, Brooklyn from 2004 to 2014, and Sunset Space Studio in Sunset Park, Brooklyn 2019-2020.