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Move. Evolve. Belong

 What is excavating?

Houston Met Dance offers Excavating Workshops & Movement Research Weeks to support dancemakers  who are interested in sharing their practice and process with the public through workshops and classes that culminate in documented informal presentations.

The program is part of HMD;s choreographic initiative Made In Houston and designed to support artists who are looking to engage with their peers, and expand their roster of dancers while developing a supportive and informed audience for their work.

Excavating Six Week Workshops Series

Excavating Contemporary Practice, Process and Presentation is a contemporary workshop series that activates the dance-making and sharing process.

Each 5 class series culminates with an informal public showing in Houston Met Dance’s Phoenix Studio Theatre.

These workshops are available for registration. Workshop participants who are interested in participating in the informal showing should be prepared to stay for the rehearsal period. There is no additional registration required to participate in the Rehearsal or Showing.

Please contact classes@metdance.org if you have any questions.

Workshop (6:30 - 8:00pm), Rehearsal (8:00 - 9:30pm)

Workshop registration can be found our Open Adult Class Schedule.

Inner Landscapes: with Lori Yuill

Inner Landscapes: Thursday Evenings 6:30 - 8:00pm, February 10th, 17th, 24th, March 3rd and 10th

Intersecting Anatomy, Technique, and Improvisation


Inner Landscapes asks us to tap into our inner child to move fluidly from information to imagination to creation. Each workshop in this series includes a short discussion on anatomy, a movement practice related to the topic covered and time to explore creatively. In addition to dancing we will use crafting and writing exercises to ignite our imagination. We will put our anatomy into motion discovering both the functional and expressive capabilities of different parts of the body.  

Taking Up Space: with Brittany Bass

Taking Up Space: Thursday Evenings 6:30 - 8:00pm, March 24th, 31st, April 7th, 14th and 21st

Moving into, away from and around …


For the duration on this choreographic workshop Brittany guides dancers through a movement class focusing on utilizing momentum safely, quality of movement in and out of the floor and "taking up space” while dancing. Dancers will also explore spacial patterns through the use of improvisation scores to build upon choreographic ideas in the studio.  

A Tender Provocation: with jhon r. stronks

A Tender Provocation: Thursday Evenings 6:30 - 8:00pm, April 28th, May 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th

Exploring the trajectory between abstraction and representation


This workshop charts the curved path as we project our physical and psychological bodies through space in time with energy. Through described and improvisational movement we engage in the external expression of physics and identity, answering the question, Who Am I? Through resistance and surrender to the gravitation of our planet, politics and personalities we excavate the curiosity of being, asking the question, Who Else Can I Become?. The movement research I offer in the workshop fluctuates between sensation based improvisation models and stylized/vernacular/social/jazz and modern dance vocabulary.

Excavating Movement Research Weeks

Full Workshop - $150

Day Pass - $30

***MetWork Membership discounts applied at checkout

Workshop Details:

Morning Class faculty includes HMD resident artist Persi Mey who will offer their weekly Open Contemporary Practice Classes as part of this movement research week.

Daily Schedule:

9:30a Morning Class/ Somatics

11:00a Morning workshop session

12:00p Lunch Break

1:00p - 3:00pm Afternoon workshop session

3:00p - 4:00p Public Showing (Friday only)

Register for a day pass or for the full week here

About Excavating Workshops and Research Weeks:

Houston Met Dance offers Excavating workshops and research weeks to support dancemakers  who are interested in sharing their practice and process with the public through workshops and classes that culminate in documented presentations. The program is part of HMD;s choreographic initiative Made In Houston and designed to support artists who are looking to engage with their peers, and expand their roster of dancers while developing a supportive and informed audience for their work.