Block Four - Option 2 - Saturday 19th April

Limbs Repertoire - Body of Work - led by Mary-Jane O'Reilly

Note this class is a repeat of Block One yesterday

Class description

Mary-Jane O’Reilly

An intermediate level class where you will be learning a dance from one of

MJ’s classic Limbs repertoire

If you loved Limbs Dance Company this is a unique opportunity to get inside one

of her iconic works and experience it for yourself…a great dance challenge in

the present to visit this work from the past

We will start with MJ’s version of a fun ballet warm up (a little bit quirky, quite

dancey, very musical, slightly contemporary so its best you know the ballet

form quite well)

A barre for 30 minutes then she’ll be teaching her work

Talking Heads  - a unisex quartet from her Limbs repertoire.

“I think it’s best to do one dance well rather than try and touch on too many

works too lightly”

In the 90 minute class we will spend the remainder of the class (60 minutes) learning

this 3 minute quartet - the song is Seen and Not Seen by Talking Heads

We’ll learn the structure of the dance and the quirky transitions (shoulder shimmies,

etc) and then we’ll work on the in between moments (the fillings) in which you will be

invited to improvise “instead of the complex, energetic version I created for Limbs”

(see it at Nga Taonga website – https://www.ngataonga.org.nz/search-use-

collection/search/F5972/

Go to 26 minutes in this Limbs Benefit Concert recording)

The improvisation will be quite easy because it will be very simple