Masterclass with Wanjiru Kamuyu

Master Contemporary Dance Technique Classes are designed to provide the pre-professional and professional a solid dance training experience that deepens technical and artistic sensibilities all while having fun. The dancer is encouraged to question, explore self-identifcation, and experiment with their relationship to dance and space while taking risks. The movement experience cultivates an intelligent and conscious mind/body awareness, with a strong emphasis on the dancer’s efficient use of effort and energy flow.

Set to recorded contemporary music, the class organically unfolds with a somatic approach centered around breath, sensation and imagination, which leads to structured excercises that focus on gravity, release, weight shifting, flexibility, stamina, endurance, spinal and pelvic range of motion and strengthening, all in preparation for challenging and fun choreographic sequences. The contemporary movement vocabulary draws from the rich traditions and aesthetics of modern (Horton, Dunham), release, ballet, African, Butoh and yoga techniques, blended together to create a delicious movement experience. Above all, play and pleasure are at the core of the movement experience!

Wanjiru Kamuyu’s career began with its genesis in New York City. As a performer she has worked with Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Bill T. Jones, Molissa Fenley, Anita Gonzales, Okwui Okpokwasili, Nathan Trice, Dean Moss, Tania Isaac… and in Europe with choreographers Robyn Orlin, Emmanuel Eggermont, Nathalie Pubellier, Irène Tassembedo, and Stefanie Batten Bland.

Alongside Kamuyu has performed in industrials, television and Broadway musicals, The Lion King (Paris) and FELA ! (UK and Equity European and US tours).

Kamuyu founded dance company, WKcollective based in Paris, France and is associate artist with Theater L’Onde and creative production agency camin aktion (France). Her choreographic projects include tours in the US, Africa and Europe. Commissions include musical À la recherché de Joséphine, director Jérôme Savary (Paris and International tours); Love is in the hair, director Jean François Auguste (France tour); Maître Harold, director Hassan Kassi Kouyate (Paris); US esteemed dance departments (Mills College, University of Michigan, Wayne State University, Stephens College; artistic consulting/outside eye for choreographer Bintou Dembele’s ZH; choreographer assistant to Nathan Trice’s Their speech is silver, Their silence is gold; storyteller Nathalie La Boucher’s La Chevauchée du Gange;) and community engagement projects with New WORLD Theater (USA), choreographer Eun-mi Ahn’s project 1:59 (Festival Paris Quartier d’Été), Euroculture and the National Center for Dance project Assemblé (France).

While touring she offers master classes and workshops for dance companies, universities, community and dance centers. Kamuyu also served as Visiting Guest Professor at Mills College (USA) and is currently core faculty for University of South Florida’s Dance in Paris semester and summer programs.