Join us for a FREE Masterclass/ADF Pre-Professional Dance Intensive Audition with American Dance Festival faculty member, Anna Barker!

When: February 11, 2024

Cost: FREE

Where: 417 Brooks Street

            Wake Forest, NC 27587

Time: 3:00PM-4:00PM (Masterclass for ages 13 and up)

          4:00PM-5:00PM (ADF Pre-Professional Intensive Audition for ages 13-17)

TWO $500 SCHOLARSHIPS will be awarded towards ADF 2 week Summer Pre-Professional Intensive tuition. The scholarships are graciously funded by the American Dance Festival and the Dancing Angels Foundation.

Students interested in auditioning for ADF 2 week Summer Pre-Professional Dance Intensive, must attend the masterclass and prepare a 1 minute solo. For more information about the program and additional requirements please click HERE.

Video by Alexa Vélez, courtesy of the American Dance Festival.

Anna Barker (she/her) was introduced to Pilates during college as a strengthening and supportive tool for her dance career, and it quickly became an integral part of her training as a movement practitioner. She received her BFA in Dance and BA in Psychology from Temple University in 2009. She completed her classical Pilates certification through The Pilates Center, and was trained at Body Precision (Mat, 2009) in Philadelphia and InsideOut Body Therapies (Apparatus, 2013) in Durham. She has taught throughout Philadelphia, New York City, and the Chapel Hill/Durham area for the past 13 years. Anna opened The Movement Studio, a Pilates-based movement studio, in June of 2022 on Radical Healing’s wellness campus in Durham, NC. In addition to her studio work, she has an in-home practice supporting clients in recovery from major injury, surgery, and birth. Anna is fascinated by the healing and reconstructive elements of Pilates and has used the system to combat her own dance-related injuries. Her movement practice consists of an ever-expanding synergy of classical Pilates exercises and other movement ideologies including dance, yoga, functional range conditioning, PT-based movement rehab, slings myofascial training, TRX suspension weight training, movement for clients with neurological conditions, and perinatal and postpartum work. Anna’s choreographic research draws from the shared human experience to create an exchange about our social and interpersonal existence within an evolving sociopolitical context. She founded her dance-theater company, real.live.people, in 2014 with collaborator Leah Wilks. Since its inception, the company has presented three evening-length works and one feature-length dance film. Her work has been presented in various festivals and venues across the US. She was the recipient of the NC Arts Council Fellowship (2019) and the Ella Pratt Emerging Artist Grant (2018). Anna currently creates dance work both in Durham and in NYC. @annasaurusrexx

Class description: This class will focus on sequencing movement organically through progressions in the body. We will explore this through improvisation and set phrase work, investigating our own movement patterns and learning how to safely distribute force when moving in and out of the floor. This class is a space to find our grounding and lay a foundation of stability so that we can experience freedom within our practice.