/ Theatre/ Tiffany Mills Dance Company Workshops

main content Tiffany Mills Dance Company Workshops

Tiffany Mills Dance Company offers five dance workshops, free and open to the public April 1st-5th.

April 03, 2025

Photo: Lewis & Clark Fir Acres Theatre presents Tiffany Mills Dance Company

Tiffany Mills Dance Company Viola Trilogy

Credit: Robert Altman

Tiffany Mills Dance Company Offers Free Public Workshops

As part of their Residency at Lewis & Clark, Tiffany Mills Dance Company will hold five workshops at Lewis & Clark and Reed College. These workshops are free and open to the public of all skill levels, also welcoming those with neurodiversity and physical diversity. Focusing on the power of movement to communicate through touch, weight and sight, these workshops explore ways to become more embodied as a human being.

The six diverse Tiffany Mills Company Dancers leading these workshops hail from China, Taiwan and the United States. These talented artists will collectively provide rich and varied teaching perspectives.

The University of Oregon will bring their dance majors to Lewis & Clark on Friday, April 4th for the master class and performance as a way to build community between Oregon dancers across college campuses.

Tiffany Mills Company Workshop Information:

Our Workshops provide an in-depth exploration into partnering, improvisation, and the company’s creative process. We dive into weight, space, gravity, and momentum as tools to fly. We push boundaries, test extremes, and enjoy falling, in pursuit of finding a rich language and meaningful journey.

Partnering and Improvisation classes begin by bringing attention to our internal environment, working primarily with imagery and breath. From here we focus on tools to access weight, space, gravity, and momentum. We hone and sensitize ourselves to various qualities and states by bringing awareness to the layers of our body (skin, bone, muscle, organs, etc). Special attention is directed to our senses, heightening all five, to become better at listening and dialoguing through movement.

In Partnering, we demystify weight sharing by looking at the structural basics in the roles of basing and flying. Our progression into weight-bearing duets includes delving further into anatomical structures, destabilizing movement habits and assumptions, while recognizing and nurturing different personalities and individual predispositions. We encourage risk-taking and welcome unfamiliarity.

In Improvisation, we embrace spontaneous composition by honing skills as a mover and thinker. We ask: How can we stay true to ourselves? How can we expand our palette of movement? How can we embrace the space inside and outside of our body? How can we make smart and kinesthetically engaging choices within a group setting?

All classes culminate with physically robust partnering and/or improvisations where students can draw upon their experiences throughout the class. We actively straddle the line between conscious, intellectual engagement, and abandonment, making space for movement and interactions that surprise and resonate.

All workshops are FREE and open to the public. Register here or contact theatre@lclark.edu.

At Lewis & Clark College Black Box