teaching

Elyse teaches 4 unique classes of her own design, pulling from multiple influences in her diverse movement background:

Contemporary Jazz: built on 30 years of studying the form, Elyse’s contemporary jazz class uses the principles of jazz to bring precision and musicality to contemporary dance training. Elyse is passionate about educating aspiring and professional dancers who wish to increase their power, dynamism, fluidity, and joy in their dancing. This class focuses heavily on footwork, traveling, fluidity, stamina building, and performance quality.

QP: short for ‘Quadrupedagogy’, QP is a floorwork conditioning system Elyse began developing in 2019. These classes are designed to safely build full body strength, improve coordination and agility, and increase access to variety and versatility on the floor. QP aims to boost dancers’ confidence in ranges of motion that might be considered extreme, and encourages courageous exploration of floorwork possibilities. Elyse’s functional movement background influences this method as a way to sustainably push physical limits, while respecting anatomical truths, preventing injury, and prioritizing longevity for today’s contemporary dancers.

Ballet•esque: influenced by her therapeutic movement background, Elyse’s “ballet•esque” classes explore balletic concepts through a feel-good lens. While prioritizing safe alignment and sound mechanics, these classes luxuriate in the grace and beauty of classical ballet sequences, following an extensive warm up focused on pain-free mobilizations. Elyse enjoys blending the rigor and intensity of her years of serious training with a lighthearted approach to ballet as a tool for technical proficiency and maintenance.

Feet|Lungs|Heart: inspired by years of study in footwork-heavy dance styles and various forms of cardiovascular training, this class builds from simple to intricate footwork and jumping patterns in a continuous flow, challenging coordination, movement complexity, and cardiovascular endurance. Feet|Lungs|Heart classes improve rhythm and coordination in a fun, continuous, music-centered format.