Sasha Amaya

COLLABORATIONS & TEACHING

COLLABORATIONS

MVT Journal
MVT investigates the interplay between art, architecture, and landscape. We inquire into how different art forms — sculpture, sound, movement arts — relate to, impinge on, express, and transform our ideas about landscape and the built environment. MVT explores how artists, urbanists, and designers use experimental landscape art and architecture to respond to aesthetic, ecological, political, social, and philosophical questions. Showcased artists and designers include Assemble, Philip Beesley, Jeremy Deller, Collective Disaster, Florian Dombois, Sarah Anne Johnson, Oliver Kellhammer, Public Studio, Matana Roberts, Fazal Sheikh, Diana Thorneycroft, and TOPOTEK 1. www.mvt-journal.com

tick tock performance
Yes, believe it or not, we actually were tick tock before tiktok. Directed by Sasha Amaya and Naomi Woo, tick tock focuses on sonic and choreographic performance: curating and interpreting works of opera and music that move. www.tt-tt-tt.com

SWAN ATTACK
Having fun in sound.

TEACHING

On Teaching: An Active Exchange

As a pedagogue, I delight in creating exciting and challenging material for students to work through. Dance, choreography, opera, and inter-arts are all subjects which demand years of training, precision, and dedication, but they are also media which benefit from open minds, unusual collaborations, new ideas, and genuine experiments. As such, I try in my teaching to foster an environment which places emphasis on both the craft and the experiment of artistic practice, and furnish students with the mental, physical, intellectual, and emotional skills to work independently and collaboratively in their field.

Group dynamics, needs, and interests invariably play a role in each course, and I try to be sensitive to and take advantage of the different offerings and challenges presented. As artistic practice is a social endeavour, navigating material with the students while embracing a respectful, inquisitive, and active nature is integral to the success of a class. Social life is different from artistic and academic life, but not separate. I expect students to take work, and to take themselves, and their peers, seriously. At the same time, I am always trying to understand new ways in which students’ strengths can be brought to light through different communicative approaches, assignments, and activities.

I enjoy both teaching in the studio, and providing lectures and seminars, immensely. I am lucky to have a bilingual foundation both in music and dance, but also in artistic education and academic training. As such, I feel particularly adept to pull ‘outliers’ in each scenario into the group to create a richer patchwork from which all the students ultimately benefit.

I have a great interest in working with diverse groups. Having lived and studied in five countries and cultures, and three languages, I am sensitive to ideas about and feelings of foreignness, inclusion, exclusions, and normativity. Additionally, my three-year community artistic collaboration with youth wheelchair athletes in Canada, as well as the completion of Inclusive Teacher Training with Candoco London, has further enriched my understanding of and skills as an inclusive teacher.

It is with passion and enjoyment that I hope to foster curiosity, rigour, creativity, and perseverence amongst my sutdents. Art work is important work, and I hope through the transmission of knowledge and dialogue with students that together we can continue to create exciting new paths forward.

Letters of teaching and guest lecture appraisal available upon request.

Contemporary Dance - classes and workshops in contemporary dance, comprised of warm up, conditioning, floorwork, combinations, and improvisation techniques. Offered as a separate class or combined with a creation workshop.

Movement Coaching - private sessions for individuals with specific objectives; especially, but not only, targeted to singers and musical conductors seeking to improve their physical comfortability and natural presence.

I have worked with Sasha over the past two years on a range of projects. Her approach to movement and voice is experimental, playful, and creative. Through her work, she brings a deeper understanding of the relationship between voice and body, ultimately freeing the singer and complementing formal vocal training. I would recommend working with Sasha to any singer who is looking to deepen their creative practice, and connect their body to the voice.

• Rosie Middleton, Mezzo Soprano
  

  
  Sasha’s ideas are communicated clearly. She supplies useful tools for character development and asks interesting questions when needed, working to guide but never to stifle the creativity of her singers. In this way, she empowers her singers to express what is real and true to them in rehearsal and performance. 

• Chloe Allison, Mezzo Soprano

  The coaching session was thorough, informative, and tailored to my needs, and I really enjoyed giving time to this neglected part of my performance. Sasha is clearly both very experienced in her art and in tune with the people that she teaches. Her coaching was deft and comprehensive, but never rushed. I really think it has improved my performance.

• Louis Wilson, Bass
  
  

Sasha pushed the whole cast to achieve more at every stage of the game and helped us to explore our characters much more deeply than we would have done without her. One of the things I most enjoyed were her physical warmups which helped the whole team bond a lot more closely, which meant some of the more challenging intimate scenes were much easier to portray. I finished the project with a lot more confidence than before.

• Lottie Greenhow, Soprano

Creative Tools - classes and workshops in creation with the aim of sharing and experimenting with tools, games, and techniques for the creation of new material; my particular focus at this time is on text, sound, and movement creation tools.

It’s rare to have the opportunity to be creative in the frame of a dance class, especially outside of a formal educational programme, which is why I found the class so amazing. The fact that there was no specific goal or agenda behind it made it very interesting because it allowed us great freedom in the way we developed our ideas during the process.

• Student, Creative Tools weekly class, Germany

It was a completely new experience, so everything was really interesting and fresh! It was challenging to be aware of text and movement at the same time, but great to experience. Thank you!

• Student, text, tongue & toe lab, Germany

I was able to overcome some of my tendencies using words to inform my improvisation¦ [it was] really, really awesome!

• Participant, Movement Practice Lab, Canada

  Contemplative, intellectual, relaxed.

• Participant, Movement Practice Lab, Canada