EVENT POSTPONED UNTIL MID-JANUARY

Inviting a fluidity between sorrow and celebration. Creating reverie and enchanted aliveness. Together we sense the self, other, and space. Be prepared for surprises and communal journeys inspired by the rooms where we gather. Explore movement in the historic Hart-Cluett House. 

Registration and materials- $35

Scholarships available! Reach out to Amanda at airwin@hartcluett.org or 518-272-7232 x 115 

THANK YOU TO OUR FUNDERS:

Troy Savings Bank Charitable Foundation

The Arts Center of the Capital Region

Arts Thrive and Grow has been funded by New York State, Kathy Hochul, Governor. We thank Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins for her extraordinary commitment and leadership, and our elected officials who represent our grantmaking region: Senators Jake Ashby and Neil D. Breslin; Assemblymembers Scott H. Bendett, Patricia Fahy, John T. McDonald III, Angelo Santabarbara, Phil Steck, and Mary Beth Walsh.

Learn more about Natalie's work here:

nataliederynjohnson.com  |  mysticdare.com

NATALIE DERYN JOHNSON . . .

I’m here for the subtle, lush, and imaginative experience of the body.

I am a choreographer, movement director, facilitator, movement artist, energy practitioner, muse, oracle, and poet.  

My art practice is a portal of body and spiritual sensitivity. I believe in cultivating a depth of relationship that rebels against objectification.  

My lens is one of relationship, poetic transmission, ceremony, and witch craft . . . mixed with an appreciation for humor and bewilderment. Mysticism and multi-dimensional perception now seems unavoidable after years of becoming intimate with performance, injury, nature, and the wisdom of the body.  

I value deep listening, improvisational and intuitive methods of creative direction, and a welcoming in of the banished: eros, grief, whimsy.  

I will not hide that I am someone that sees, that I am someone willing to work with the unknown and forgotten parts of our individual and collective stories. That I am someone daring to enter into choreographic space to recalibrate to newer energetics of intimacy and release histories of painful relating . . . while playing with absurdity, sincerity, and joy.  

I’m currently available for speaking, movement direction, and facilitation engagements.

I’m based in both Troy NY, and NYC, with frequent travel to LA.  

Paris feels inevitable.

Movement and Style beyond objectification.  

I resonate a lot with snails, slugs, moss, gorgeous fabrics, and prismatic consciousness. The whales feel like kin and I remember the fish as my older ancestors. I’m most likely dripping in the rain right now, deep in a book, improvising new lyrics, or running innovative energetic protocols through my body. 

My work requires and unleashes a depth of embodiment that goes beyond steps or choreography. In a way, it is an equalizer for seasoned professionals and movers that don’t identify as dancers. It is of great importance to me to prioritize tending to the holistic nature of the being within my collaborators, I shed the old paradigm of placing dissociative demand on dancers, and I reveal a higher resolution of being and wholeness in presence. For me, the most vital virtuosity is from subtlety and presence. While trained in ballet, contemporary, improvisation, partnering, and rigorous concert dance styles, I also have developed a unique devotion to an intimate, absurd, and sensual interplay of style that transcends genre. I am not opposed to traditional standards of virtuosity so much as I am here to call in a depth of experience that recognizes performance as ceremony and performance as alchemical process.  

It isn’t all so serious. A lot of it is truly fun.  

I do my best to integrate the reality of people into my work before honoring the creative impulse that wishes to be in dialogue with subtle style. Call this tenderness, fierceness, sensitivity, provocation.