Sandra Kaufmann
Sandra is recognized internationally as a leading authority on classical modern dance technique and repertory with extensive experience as a dancer, director and educator. Her commitment to dance and social advocacy culminated in her distinct invitation to produce and perform “The Legacy of the New Dance Group” at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Sandra serves as the founding director of the Dance Program at Loyola University Chicago.
Sandra performed worldwide as a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company. While based in New York City, she served on the faculty of the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance and as Artistic Director of the Martha Graham Ensemble. Sandra continues to work actively with the Martha Graham Center, teaching in their international summer intensive workshop and serving as a regisseur staging the repertory of Martha Graham throughout the country. She performed extensively with celebrated choreographers, Pearl Lang and Richard Move.
With MOMENTA and Silo Chamber Dancers, Sandra danced and directed choreographic works by Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. She taught Humphrey/Weidman technique and theory on faculty at Barnard College and New York University.
Sandra’s embodied research consists of the study of foundational techniques, rehearsing and coaching by authorities and performance of works by modernist dance masters: Ruth St. Denis, Doris Humphrey, Isadora Duncan, Deborah Zall, Eleanor King, Pearl Lang, José
Limón, Charles Weidman, Anna Sokolow, Martha Graham and Jane Dudley. Her research project, “The Body as Archive,” presents historic work to expose audiences and contextualize contemporary dance practice and to preserve and transmit these dances for the future.
A prolific choreographer, Ms. Kaufmann has created work for concert dance, musical theatre productions, protest dances, aerial dance, opera, video and site-specific works. Her choreography received awards from Dance Magazine Foundation, Tidmarsh Arts Foundation, The American College Dance Festival, Bossak/Heilbrun Foundation and The National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts.
Ms. Kaufmann graduated summa cum laude from the College of Education and the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Northern Illinois University and delivered the commencement addresses for both colleges. Her research project “Movement, Gnosis and Scientific Literacy,” includes choreographic and pedagogical innovation.
Sandra served on the faculty of Barnard College, New York University and The Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in New York City and in Chicago at The Chicago Academy for the Arts, University of Chicago, and The Academy of Movement and Music.
PRESENTATION OVERVIEW
Masterclass in Doris Humphrey's technique Fall and Recovery
Sandra proposes an applied technique workshop featuring Doris Humphrey's theory of Fall and Recovery. This intensive would be a movement seminar demonstrating and practicing the primary principles utilized in the technique and repertory of Doris Humphrey, José Limón and Charles Weidman. Participants would be led through sequences taught to Sandra by Ernestine Stodelle, an original Humphrey/Weidman company member and member of the Little Group with José Limón. In addition to foundational sequences and principles (Fall and Recovery/Breath Rhythm, Successional Flow and Opposition), phrases from Humphrey/Limón repertory will be taught and explored through technique principles.