CLASSES + WORKSHOPS

Frenetic Theater presents a Freestyle Poling Workshop with Blake Dalton Saturday, July 9, 10:00 a.m. – 12:30 noon. Location: Frenetic Theater, 5102 Navigation Blvd, Houston, TX 77011.

Freestyle Poling is a movement style that blends staff spinning patterns from martial arts traditions with a wide vocabulary of vaults and jumps. A seamless vision of applied physics, Freestyle Poling emphasizes the intelligent and pragmatic use of momentum to stir, cut and soar though space with surprising ease. This is not a movement style that requires the upper body strength of Olympic gymnasts. A play between release and engagement is the dialogue that makes the work possible. Some enthusiasts have called it ‘aerial dance without having to hang something from the ceiling’ or ‘parkour with a stick’. Even those who do not become full time Freestyle Polers can enjoy the different information provided to the body by the use of this instrument.

The workshop will start off with simple ways to safely and effectively warm up, stretch and strengthen using the pole as a helpful tool. Familiar exercises gain different emphasis and perhaps provide new perspectives and different inroads into the body. Working through some spinning patterns and smaller vaults participants will be led into larger more expansive vaults and explore different ways to combine and thread movements together. Of course you won’t get out without learning few fun tricks, Freestyle Poling mythology and subculture, and discuss how you can easily go to the hardware store and create your very own pole for under $20. The workshop is limited to 9 participants so that we can cover more ground both figuratively and literally.

Blake Dalton, choreographer, is in his 13th season as a dance artist with CORE Performance Company (www.coredance.org) and his 7th year as Artistic Director of Crossover Movement Arts (www.crossovermovementarts.com). Blake has worked with many other dance and theater companies, including Pilobolus, Gardenhouse Dance and Pickleshoes, performing throughout North America, Europe, and Abu Dhabi. He has acted in commercials, film and theater. He has spent years developing, teaching, performing and choreographing Freestyle Poling. His work with poling began in the nineties while learning martial arts staff forms, playing with a Freestyle walking group and creating a dance piece that involved vaulting off light trees. A six -foot staff with rubber stoppers became the converging point of these influences. Over the years he met more martial artists and dancers who worked with staffs and researched movement traditions from all over the world. The result is Freestyle Poling; a living growing style with a defined vocabulary and distinct approach to movement concepts. Blake shares this work with professional dancers, martial artists, and complete physical training novices from the ages of 6 to 60. In addition to dance and physical theater, Blake has studied the martial arts styles of Ba Gua, Taiji, Shaolin, Capoeira, Tae Kwon Do, Hsing I, Wrestling, and Thang ta. Blake delights in finding adventurous ways to combine martial arts, dance and parkour inspiration to further the art of Freestyle Poling and share it with as many enthusiasts as possible.