Amanda Byars
Amanda Byars is a dancer, choreographer, educator, and administrator. She currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Dance at Agnes Scott College, in addition to working as Moving in the Spirit’s Program Design and Curriculum Specialist. She holds a B.F.A. in Dance from the University of Massachusetts, a M.F.A. in Dance from the Ohio State University, certifications in Pilates and Labanotation, and is a certified Elementary Labanotation teacher trainer. Her choreography has been performed across the United States, from Portland, Oregon, to New York City. Since moving to the Atlanta area, she has presented work and performed at the Mint Gallery, Skwirlhaus, the Atlanta Ballet’s Small Plates series, the Beam Theater, and Synchronicity Theater. As an educator, Amanda has presented at many workshops and conferences, the most recent include the National Dance Education Organization Annual Conference and the Woodruff Arts Center’s Educators Conference.
Arts Disciplines: Dance
Core Content Curriculum Areas: Dance
Specialized Content Areas: Arts Integration
Grade Levels: 9-12, Colleges and Universities, Adults
Pre-Service Learning and Professional Development: Professional Development for K-12 Teachers, Professional Development for Teaching Artists
Geographic Availability: Metro Atlanta, North Georgia, Middle Georgia
Program Fees:
- Performances:? $500 for a single show, $600 for two back-to-back shows
- Workshops: $200 for a single workshop, $300 for two back-to-back workshops
- Residencies: $1,250 for a 5-day residency in a single week, meeting with 2-4 groups daily
Artistic Profile: Amanda Byars is a dancer, choreographer, educator and administrator. She holds a B.F.A. in Dance from the University of Massachusetts, a M.F.A. in Dance from the Ohio State University, certifications in Pilates and Labanotation, and is a certified Elementary Labanotation teacher trainer. Her choreography has been performed across the United States, from Portland, Oregon, to New York City. Since moving to the Atlanta area, she has presented work and performed at the Mint Gallery, Skwirlhaus, the Atlanta Ballet’s Small Plates series, the Beam Theater, and Synchronicity Theater.
Teaching Experience: Amanda Byars currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Dance at Agnes Scott College, in addition to working as Moving in the Spirit’s Program Design and Curriculum Specialist. As an educator, Amanda has presented at many workshops and conferences, the most recent include the National Dance Education Organization Annual Conference and the Woodruff Arts Center’s Educators Conference.
Sample Programs:
- Promoting Dance Literacy in the Creative Process – Often in the classroom we wonder why our students struggle with bringing their artistic visions to life. The culprit is sometimes a lack of language. We dance because words do not suffice, but how do we articulate our artistic visions or technical corrections? Showing our dancers is seldom enough. Through a series of exploratory exercises using Laban Motif symbols and Effort symbols, students ranging from K-12 to higher education can enhance their ability to communicate artistic visions. Exploring the Laban Effort system, teachers can also explore youth development goals by discussing what it means to their students to be direct, free, or strong. In higher education, these exercises give self-efficacy to young artists, empowering them with clear terminology. In this session we will experience the power of language to create phrase work, clarify movements, and give a springboard to easily discuss concepts such as theme and variation and call and response.
- Workshop: The World I live In – “The World I Live In” is a composition class for any level dancer. The objective is for participants to understand how creative processes help them better communicate their views, reactions, and feelings about world events. After introductions, students will read a headline from today’s or a recent newspaper or report. We will go around and give a one-word response to this excerpt accompanied by a gesture. (Instructors demonstrate example.) After a movement warm-up, participants will write a creative journal response to the selected new article. Students will identify a few action verbs in their writing, drawing attention to their emotional response. Students will then imagine a corresponding movement gesture for each verb, and combine these gestures into a short movement sequence. To conclude the movement portion, students will perform their gesture sequences in small groups. To synthesize our experience, the entire group will come together to dialogue about the emotions they understood and connected with as they witnessed each other’s creative movement. During the dialogue, instructors will prompt analysis.
- Introduction to Dance Composition and Basic Labanotation Concepts – In integrating a composition course and Labanotation, this course will provide specific concepts for students to use in their creative research. By incorporating Laban concepts of level, spatial relationship, motif, gesture versus support, front signs, body parts, accents, and floor plan, the dancers will begin thinking about their work holistically – space, time, effort, and body – rather than just in terms of shape or what their body was doing. Supplementing dance composition with Labanotation will give students language to discuss dance and to articulately define their personal aesthetic. Students will complete short assignments for each class, ranging from movement generation, video viewings, reading assignments, live performance, written responses, internet research, and generative projects. Through this course, students will:
- Heighten the ability to pay attention to ourselves and the world around us as inspiration, information, and grounding infrastructure in dance making.
- Explore diverse strategies for resourcing and developing movement material in dance making.
- Investigate the various forms that material can take to support content/context in dance making.
Sample Lesson Plans/Study Guides:
- Listing ID: 5993