Improvisation Classes
From 2010 to 2021 Sigal taught a yearly course of improvisation at Hakvutza, a dance school for people who start dancing later in life. She had the privilege to initiate people of all ages into the art of improvising- from age 18 to 60. Working with beginners forced her to clearly define the skills needed to become a skilled improviser. She devised a system of interrelated ideas that form a tool box for the creative dancer. Some of those tools develop the ability to connect internally to images, feelings, impulses and sensations inside the body while others direct the attention to the outside- to other people, to the space and to the composition created over time.
She teaches improvisation workshops of varying lengths from a one time meeting to extended courses, for professional dancers as well as for non dancers who are interested in unleashing creativity though physical games.
Alexander Technique For Dancers
As a professional dancer/choreographer and a certified Alexander Technique teacher, Sigal is skilled at making the principals of the Alexander Technique useful and relevant for dancers. She teaches technique classes that focus on benefits that could be gained by learning the principles of the Alexander Technique.
Alexander Technique looks at the way we carry out the intention of moving into actual movement. In general this process is habitual, unconscious allowing us not to think about movement and to have the mindspace to concentrate on other things. But sometimes this habitual pattern of moving is counterproductive or harmful. It is at this point that the Technique becomes useful. It offers a practice of staying conscious, open and alert at the moment of initiating movement, observing familiar tensions and choosing to move without them.
Classes use traditional dance exercises as well as improvisation to observe layers of interference and to learn to release them, creating more flow and ease in the body and allowing for a wider range of expression.
Dance For People With Parkinson Disease
Sigal has been teaching contemporary dance classes for people with Parkinson at Yasmeen Godder Studio since 2015. Her classes combine Improvisation and principles from the Alexander technique and from Tai Chi. She brings in personal familiarity with the disease as her mother lived with Parkinson for many years.
The classes began as part of the “Störung/הפרעה”- a project initiated by Theatre Freiburg, Germany together with Yasmeen Godder Studio. This was a unique interdisciplinary collaborative project that brought together professional dancers and choreographers with scientists and physicians – along with people with Parkinson’s from Israel and Germany – to explore different aspects of human movement and movement disorder.
After three years of activity the project morphed into ‘Moving communities’, an ongoing project that includes bi-weekly dance classes, conferences and performances with mixed groups of dancers with and without Parkinson disease.
In 2018, together with Yasmeen Godder Studio and Shiri Tiecher, Sigal organized a two day international conference called MOVING COMMUNITIES which celebrated three years of the project.
In 2023 Sigal was invited to teach a workshop in the teachers training program DanceWell in Bassano del Grappa, Itay, a program that supports the professional development of dance artists and dance organizations that engage people living with Parkinson’s, or other movement disorders, with dance.
In 2024 she created a dance performance with the group titled Heart scenarios.