Alice Condodina, California U.S.A 2019
Alice Condodina, California U.S.A
Alice Condodina was a principal dancer with Limon Dance Company under the directorship of Jose Limon, a crucial figure in American Modern Dance. A graduate of the Juilliard School, she created over fifty dance works and received grants and honors from the National Endowment for the Arts, and New York State Council on the Arts, as director of her own NYC based company. With her Santa Barbara based company, she toured internationally, and produced works by major theater artists. Alice is distinguished as a director of Limon legacy works for major professional companies, such as the Greek National Opera Ballet, The Mikhailovsky Opera Ballet, and Rome Opera Ballet. The University of California honoring Ms. Condodina’s nineteen years as Professor of Theater/Dance established the Alice Condodina Performance Award for distinguished students; the City of Santa Barbara honored her with a Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2011-12, and 2018-19, she received the prestigious Edward A. Dickson Emeriti Professorship Univ. of California Presidential Chair. Ms. Condodina created the Performance Techniques Course thirty years ago, and is known for her work with dancers and actors pursuing the innovative techniques of this training.
Performance Techniques (Condodina technique)
This course, which has been taught internationally for the past thirty years, develops the performer’s artistry, offering highly specialized techniques to create impactful performance communication skills and abilities. The student explores techniques which enforce focus on projection, timing, contact and the relationship of body to negative space, together with a heightened sensitivity to the nuance and spontaneity of the physical moment. Performers gain skills which help rivet the audience’s attention to the artistic moment of the theater experience. We begin with studies using contact sensitivity, move onto “memory of contact”, and memorization of spacial volumes and colorations which enhance our true moment in space. Our search is for authenticity, through memory of an actual physical experience. Timing and rhythmic sequences, when enhanced, can magnify their significance in our performance experience. Overall the course is approached physically, without verbal cueing, however, advanced experience in dance or movement theater is not a pre-requisite.