Marsha Barsky
Choreographer/Movement Educator
- ABOUT
Marsha Barsky
Since 1997, Marsha has created thought-provoking work that addresses tangible aspects of existence through the beauty and strength of a unique contemporary dance aesthetic. Marsha’s movement invention considers the nature of embodied presence through contemporary dance, improvisation, ballet, yoga, ideokinesis, the Alexander Technique, meditation, tennis and, most recently the GYROKINESIS® Method. She received her BFA in Dance from Arizona State University and her MFA in Performance and Choreography from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Marsha has trained in somatics, the Alexander Technique and yoga with many of the field's most notable teachers both in the US and abroad, including David Dorfman, Bebe Miller, Liat Waysbort, Katherine Duke, Nada Diachenko, Michelle Ellsworth, Elina Mooney, Cliffe Keuter, Joe Goode, Mary Fitzgerald and members of Ballet Preljocaj. Marsha is an avid traveller, and spends her summers studying throughout Europe.
Marsha Barsky was the Artist Director of Company Rose, a Nashville-based contemporary dance company from 2007 - 2017. Her choreography has been presented at venues throughout the US and abroad. She has been a company member of Desert Dance Theatre and Shelter Repertory Dance Theatre, and has danced in works by Isadora Duncan, Katherine Duke, Gabriel Masson, Sean Curran, Pat Graney, Bill Evans, Kim Neal Nofsinger, Ana Baer, Stephanie Batten-Bland, and Ivan Pulinkala. She has collaborated with numerous visual artist and musicians including David Heustess, Aaron Walters, VORTEX Percussion Ensemble, Benton C Bainbridge, Mark Hosford, Liz Scofield and SoPercussion.
As a university professor, Marsha has taught a broad array of classes in the studio and in the classroom. She has been on faculty at the Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music, Western Kentucky University and CU Boulder, and has taught at numerous studios, festivals, intensives and residencies. From 2003-2007 she served as the Director of the Vanderbilt Dance Program, a community-oriented dance center housed in the Office of the Dean of Students. She is a certified yoga instructor, through the Eldorado Yoga Ashram in Boulder, CO (2002). After years of study and research, Marsha became a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique (ATI) under the direction of Robin Gilmore, in 2011.
Marsha, Associate Professor, is currently the Director of the Dance Program at Middle Tennessee State University, where she teaches courses in contemporary dance, choreography, improvisation, the Alexander Technique, and dance studies. She has been recently appointed an Affiliate Professor, Chengdu University in Chengdu, China.
- MOVEMENT EDUCATIONAs a teacher / guide, I access 20 years of experience as a professional dance artist and movement practitioner. My teaching integrates insights from the training and certifications I have received in yoga, Reiki, the GYROKINESIS® method, and the Alexander Technique.I strive to combine the precision and depth acquired in formal practice with the creativity of passionate engagement in order to fashion an approach that is tailored to the specific needs of my students and clients.
ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE
The Alexander Technique (AT) is a process of learning how to move with more ease, freedom, efficiency, support and balance. The technique encourages integration and coordination of the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual spheres of the Self, by awakening and refining sensory awareness. AT promotes a deep understanding to the means whereby we respond to stimuli, fostering a harmonious relationship between the Self and the world. The heart of AT is to recognize our "primary control" and thereby promotes free, easy, unfettered and invigorated movement throughout our entire being.
Marsha Barsky teaches the Alexander Technique to individuals in her Nashville, TN studio, and also provides lessons to groups on location throughout Middle Tennessee. She is available for introductory workshops in the technique, and she can tailor a workshop to the specific needs of a group, ensemble, orchestra, team, company or organization.
LESSONSYour Alexander lesson will involve gentle hands-on guidance and verbal instructions to expand awareness of your body's nervous, muscular and skeletal systems. Lessons are designed to reawaken and restore your body's natural balance through recognizable and familiar movement pathways -- sitting, standing, walking, speaking -- so that you can exert less effort and tension while performing these tasks. As a result, nefarious habits are unlearned, and you develop 'good use' that gradually comes to be incorporated into daily activities. You will find yourself performing all types of activities with ease and poise, and you will be better able to respond to the many stresses of life.LENGTH
The length of private lessons varies according to the needs of the student or group, but are typically 30 - 60 minutes long, and 5 - 10 lessons are suggested in order to receive the benefits of the technique.RATES
Contact Marsha to receive more information on rates for private or group lessons and workshop, or to schedule your session.For more information about the Alexander Technique visit:
CHOREOGRAPHY
Marsha Barsky aims to create and present high-quality contemporary dance that thoughtfully combines historical awareness with contemporary relevance. Primarily project-based, she presents work in traditional and non-traditional spaces including warehouses, art museums, galleries, theatres, universities and public spaces. Her choreographic approach has led to original evening-length works relating to Impressionism, Expressionism, Pop Art/Andy Warhol, John Cage, Japonisme, memory and consciousness, migration and plastic.
Left Behind
This work is a reflection upon the mass proliferation of plastic waste in our oceans, and a warning about the destructive legacy it embodies within our ecosystems.
The Suppliants
The objective of “The Suppliants” is to examine how contemporary choreography can serve as a path for trans-disciplinary research in migration and refugee studies. To frame these questions, I referenced the Aeschylus play The Suppliants (Ancient Greek: Hiketides; Latin Supplices), also known as The Suppliant Maidens, or The Suppliant Women, which was performed for the first time almost 2,500 years ago (around 470 BC). Although created for a world quite different from our own, its themes and approach resonate today in light of the massive flows of people fleeing their homeland in search of protection, and the heavy burden this is placing upon border states and those states that are at the periphery of the European Union, notably Italy, Greece, Turkey, Spain and France. My objective in drawing from this ancient work is to demonstrate the longstanding pervasiveness of a plea for protection, and its continued importance for today’s world.
The You Have (excerpts)
That You Have, was created for,Company Rose, alongside students from the MTSU Dance Program. That You Have was presented at the Frist Museum in January 2016 and was commissioned by the Frist for the Phantom Bodies Exhibit. The phantom limb here represents absent persons whose vestiges link memory, representation, consciousness and the concept of the soul. That You Have responded directly to the Frist Museum exhibit, while exploring related areas that overlap with contemporary dance. The dance evoked images of light, shadow, presence, and absence, like glimpses of lives lived, only to fade into the obscurity of memory and fantasy.
Chantier
In this work, themes of construction, boundaries, borders, networks, limitation and freedom were explored through studio-based movement research. The process involved reception and response to new movement sequences, physical partnerships and improvisational movement scores that addressed the dancers own ‘construction’ of self in response to other. This process encouraged the dancers to find their personal borders and seek networks of new movement pathways as the space was altered by the lowering of the wall. This collaborative research evolved into a 11-minute contemporary dance work, in which dancers and audience find freedom in limitations and move beyond obstacles.
- EVENTSUpcoming Performances, Workshops and MasterclassesCurrent Events
Forthcoming in May, 2019: The Histories and Practices of Movement in the Alps, an intensive one-month course of hiking, yoga, Laban and the foundation of Contemporary Dance.
Press"Company Rose is a modern dance troupe founded by Marsha Barsky, who has choreographed performances inspired by Frist exhibits as disparate as Andy Warhol and the collection of the Musée d’Orsay. If our instincts are correct, the performance they’ve arranged to coincide with the current exhibit of German Expressionism may be the best one yet. We’re thinking Fritz Lang films, Cabaret-style Weimar Republic references, and tons of emotional tension." - Laura Hudson, Nashville Scene“The first half included a fabulous dance piece set to Cage's 'Fads and Fancies in the Academy,' featuring local dance troupe Company Rose. Their performance might best be described as a comic mini-ballet, as dancers alternated between movements of athletic grace and clownish parody, and I've rarely heard so much laughter during a dance performance. If last night's Company Rose performance is any indication, fans of modern dance would be well-advised to check out their performances.” - Jack Silverman, Nashville Scene
"I had the pleasure of seeing [Company Rose's] premiere of A Place A Part, choreographed by artistic director Marsha Barsky. This particular piece juxtaposed routine-like, mechanical pedestrian gestures against high energy exploding jumps, wringing twists of the torso, and spiraling turns. The work made use of several lifts and counterbalances often between two dancers, but also between one or more dancers and a hauntingly beautiful wire sculpture.... By the time the first high energy unison section arrived, the piece became a living, breathing organism and it was almost impossible to discern where the music, lights and sculpture ended and the dancing began." - Teresa Simpson, The Crafty Ballerina
- CONNECT
Please contact me to schedule an Alexander Technique lesson, Gyrokinesis session, masterclass, guest artist residency or workshop.
Copyright 2018