Image is a flyer that contains all the info in this message/post, in white, black blue and orange text on a primarily blue and sometimes yellow backgrounds. The main image is of Krishna in a wearable art piece by artist Ntilit. Krishna is seen from the side, with hair braided, her eyes covered with black and white cups, and her arms bent, one close to the body and one in front of her face, both wrapped by small dark pillows that are filled with small bells and crinkle balls (inside unseen).
Hosted by Movement Research, Dark Room Ballet anatomy workshops are designed specifically for the educational needs of blind and visually impaired adults (though all are welcome).
NOTE: This is a FREE class, but donations are welcomed.
No Diagram Anatomy for Dancers in the Dark Room:
➣ The Distal Arm Complex (April 1)
➣ The Proximal Arm Complex (April 8)
4 PM to 5:30 PM (Eastern / New York Time)
This workshop is offered online via Zoom – participants can attend ONE or BOTH sessions.
To register, please email: info@darkroomballet.com and let us know which sessions you would like to attend
Workshop Description
In this two-part workshop on the complete arm complex, we will use movement, touch, and conversation to not only cultivate scientific knowledge related to the shoulder, arm, and hand, but also initiate a higher degree of body awareness and neurological learning in this area. Evolutionary history and the marvels of human variation will also be addressed in this workshop.
No prior knowledge of human anatomy, dance, or self-audio description are required to participate, but all students will come away with deep anatomical knowledge, reduced movement anxiety, and tools to start learning how to talk about movement in a visceral way. Let’s get right down to the real nitty gritty!
Material covered in these two workshops will include:
The skeletal structure of the shoulder, arm, and hand
The locations and functions of musculature of the shoulder, arm, and hand, and their relationships to commonly known dance vocabulary
The nerves and nerve plexuses of the shoulder, arm, and hand, and what it means to cultivate neurological connection to this part of the body
The connective tissues (fascia, tendons, cartilages and ligaments) of the shoulder, arm, and hand.
All students will receive the complete script of the workshop two days beforehand, and the script can be reviewed either before or after the workshop. Although these two workshops are meant to be taken together, students are allowed to register for one or the other and they can both stand alone.
This workshop is designed for the educational needs of blind and visually impaired people and does not use diagrams.
About No Diagram Anatomy Workshop Series
No Diagram Anatomy workshops are in-depth dancer’s anatomy workshops that de-center sight and are designed for the educational needs of blind and visually impaired people. Participants will learn about their bodies’ layered anatomy from the outside-in using a combination of guided audio description, imagination, touch, and movement experimentation, and will also be given opportunities to practice talking about how the movement feels in the body (self-audio description).
These thoughts were recorded a while ago, but they are on a topic re-visited during a recent Monday night Open Level Class…
Listen to Krishna discuss her feelings on the Flow State in this audio recording (transcript available):
Audio file of Krishna speaking about Flow State, on SoundCloud
Transcript (work-in-progress):
Hello, everybody. It’s time for another edition of Krishna’s Mailbag. So this is the lovely little occasional program where I check in the mailbag for Dark Room Ballet and I answer interesting questions. So let’s check in the mailbag and find out what I have to talk about today. Let’s see what we’ve got. Oh, this question is really great. It asks, “Hey Krishna, what is the flow state? I’m a new dancer and I’ve heard about this, but I have no idea what they’re talking about.” Well, let me tell you about something. People who study education and who study learning about 10, 15 years ago, started to really pay a lot of attention to this special moment in a person’s life which is called the flow state.
The flow state is a moment of activity in which a person is just on the edge of the maximum difficulty that they can execute without losing confidence. They’re just on the edge. Oftentimes these moments require great focus, but also create great focus in the person. I find that the best way to explain a flow state is to describe moments of flow state that I myself have had. Flow state in dance for me happens a lot, a lot when I’m studying with other teachers, when I am developing work for my students. Flow state happens a lot for me. In fact, it happens while I’m teaching class a lot. It is a really intense experience. Pretty much every brain cell feels like it’s firing and nothing in the world could distract me from what I’m doing at that moment.
I’ve had moments working with particular dance teachers where I’m really on the edge of my capacity to learn something new and something becomes apparent to me while I’m learning it. And I understand how I’m going to work through the movements that I’m studying. Something becomes more clear, something becomes more obvious, but it’s brand new for me still. So I have to put every ounce of focus into what I am doing. I think oftentimes about work that I have done with a dance teacher here in New York City. A contemporary teacher, her name is Bethany Perry and I would oftentimes experience flow state in Bethany’s class because I’m ballet dancer. I stay up upstanding, I stay up tall, but in contemporary always changing levels, always changing direction.
And Bethany like many contemporary choreographers did not work with an eight point compass, but with a 12 point compass like a clock. So I was always changing direction and the precision of my direction had to really be taken into account. For a blind dancer that’s really, really hard, but what it was for me was really finding the memory capacity almost a preliterate like hunter gatherer kind of memory capacity. Remembering where I was, remembering where I’m going, rotating, keeping my body in space, keeping aware of it. And I always know that I’m in the flow state because my breathing changes a lot. I become very aware of it, I breathe really, really deep and really, really slow.
My heart is beating like a butterfly’s swings so fast, but my breathing is really deep and it’s really slow. And I almost feel my skin vibrating, I feel like every nerve in my peripheral nervous system is just on fire, [inaudible 00:05:28], vibrating. It is such a special experience. Now, that might sound like something you might want to experience yourself as someone on their dance education journey. Here’s some tips for me if you really want to allow yourself to enter the flow state. Here’s some things that you can do. You can make it really more accessible for yourself, you can’t force it to happen, but there’s things you can do to make it more accessible for yourself.
Number one, number one, remember that you have the capacity to learn the thing that you are studying. Do not psych yourself out. If you psych yourself out, no flow state for you. You have to go into it with the understanding, okay, I am here learning this thing and I have the ability to learn it. That’s number one. Number two, feel good and comfortable about the space where you are dancing. Before you start dancing, check everything, feel comforted that you know how much space you have, that you know all of the textures on the floor, that you know where your sound sources are, that you know where other sources of sound might be coming from. Take the time before you start dancing to really get to know where you are dancing. So you’re not going to get surprises from your space, you’re going to feel comfortable where you are.
Number three, allow yourself to enjoy dancing. I know that, that sounds like really ridiculous, but some people, they have this internal critic which is like, “Oh, I’m not doing it right, I’m not going to get it as the way that I want it to be.” If you have that little voice going on, that’s like, “Oh, I know that I didn’t point my foot as hard as I could have, oh, I lost my balance for a split second there, oh, I’m not moving my hand in the way that I know that I should.” Those things, those little critical voices in your mind might be preventing you from learning something much more exciting and allowing yourself to be excited in the moment. Those small things that we work on in technique class, sometimes you need to let it go and go towards a bigger goal of being fully immersed in what you’re doing.
Sometimes the most impressive things that come to us being able to hold big balances, being able to really change direction and not get lost, not forget, being able to access core muscles that we’ve found difficult to access. Having those feet alive with electricity, those hands alive with electricity, maybe it’s overcoming vertigo which plagues a lot of us blind dancers. Sometimes you need to let go of the small little critics voice and let yourself be in the bigger moment of what you’re doing. There’s always time to perfect the little things, but if you sense something is changing inside you that day, that you might be moving into somewhere new, somewhere important, let it go, let the excitement take you.
Go for it and trust that you can learn and that you can be in the thing that you are doing and the world will change, and you will change. When I think about what I’ve just shared right now, it is such a marvel to me that there have been people in my life who’ve discouraged me from following my path as an artist, following my path as a dancer, because how could I live without this kind of experience? How could I live bereft of this kind of excitement? This kind of joy that I so, so love and I so, so need deep in my heart, deep in my psyche. That’s who you are too, that’s who you are too. Always find joy in your dance practice and if you feel yourself teetering on the edge of something special, something important, dive in. It’s going to be great.
Beginning Saturday, January 21st from 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM (Eastern / New York Time)
NOTE: Sponsored by Movement Research, this class is designed specifically for the educational needs of blind and visually impaired adults.
About Saturday Introductory Level Class:
This is a FREE class!
This class is suitable for people with no prior knowledge of ballet. This repeating series of eight classes introduces students to the most common ballet vocabulary that they would need to know in order to participate in Open Level Dark Room Ballet Class. The class introduces students to necessary anatomical concepts like turnout, torso stability, foot sensitivity and mobility, sightless balancing, and the use of a taped floor for orientation.
Classes are taught by Krishna Washburn, a blind ballet dancer and dance teacher, and take place on 8 Saturdays online via the Zoom platform; there is also the option to call in via phone.
The next Intro Level cycle begins on Saturday, January 21, 2023.
If you are a blind or visually impaired individual interested in learning ballet remotely, you MUST contact us by no later than January 14th, so you can complete the intake process to register for this class.
You can also reach Dark Room Ballet by phone at (929) 367-0025
If you have some ballet experience, you may also qualify to join the ongoing Dark Room Ballet: Open Level Class on Monday nights; please contact us if you are interested.
Returning students are welcome to re-join intro level classes, as well as encouraged to join Dark Room Ballet: Open Level Class. Please let us know if you would like to re-join intro class as a returning student.
If you work with an organization that serves blind or visually impaired people, please share this information with people who may be interested in registering for this class.
If you are NOT a blind or visually impaired student, you may qualify to join the ongoing Dark Room Ballet: Open Level Class on Monday nights on a select basis; please get in touch with us to explain your interest.
Other Classes in the Dark Room
In addition to online Introductory and Open Level ballet classes for blind and visually impaired adults, Krishna often teaches workshops on related topics open to everyone, including anatomy, improvisation and audio description.
Using the framing device of Act 1, Scene 1 from Giselle, participants will develop a different set of expectations for audio described traditional ballet performances, and will co-create a manifesto for ballet audio description for wide-spread dissemination among traditional arts presenters.
Audio describers can create their best art when they can form real partnerships with dancers that have self-audio description skills. Whether you are a dancer who wants to hone your self-audio description skills or an audio describer who wants to learn the questions to ask when developing descriptions (and what to do with the answers), this crucial teamwork will be cultivated here.
Cyber Monday is coming to a close, which means that tomorrow is Giving Tuesday!
You may have heard about the Telephone Film project before.
3 photos of Krishna side by side. In each she is holding a cordless phone to her ear in a playful pose, in front of a doorframe. She also wears one of her handmade Dark Room Adorned bracelets on her wrist. The left photo is tinted with a blue effect, her expression coy. The second photo is tinted to look like a sepia mosaic, and she is making a surprised face. The right photo shows Krishna laughing, edited in watercolor style pink, purple and red tones.
If you haven’t, here is some more info:
The first of its kind, Telephone is a work-in-progress short film bringing awareness to the important art form of audio description (AD) for dance. Audio description allows blind and visually impaired people to be included fully in the joy of artistic expression.
Co-directed by Dark Room Ballet founder Krishna Washburn and choreographer Heather Shaw, Telephone is the first screendance film created specifically with a visually impaired audience in mind, while facilitating an immersive sensory experience for audience members of all sight levels.
Created during the global pandemic, the film features diverse disabled and non-disabled artists from across the globe, demystifying and legitimizing AD, not just as an access tool, but as a beautiful, rich art form in its own right.
Telephone is at the forefront of a completely new approach to audio description. Most of what is considered “best practice” for AD is meant for television or film. A neutral AD voice describes the visuals and does not express emotional content. In television and film, the performers’ voices (layered over the AD) inform the audience of the emotional themes. However, in dance, performers rarely speak. Is the neutral AD voice really the best choice for dance? How do those listening to the AD connect with the emotional content of the performance?
The audio describers of Telephone are reshaping the world’s perception of AD, adding emotional context and allowing their words to dance in the same way a dancer’s body moves. The result is a beautiful merge of poetry and movement, proving that:
But we need to raise funds which will go directly towards the fantastic team of artists we have on board, as well as to cover costs to produce the film. Our original goal was met (covering initial costs) and we are now fundraising to cover post-production needs such as editing, accessibility providers, composers and more.
Interested in making a one-time donation? You can do so on Ko-Fi. 💰
Have you had a chance to buy a bracelet made by Krishna at DARK ROOM ADORNED? There are over 60 to chose from, like BLINDING LIGHTS. 💎
And don’t forget, there are 3 Dark Room Ballet tote bags left! You can buy one to support Telephone: Heels like Magnets (thanks to JazeluCreations on eBay) 👜
Before you go…
Watch the Telephone film trailer (with credits and expanded description) and tell a friend about it…
In this image, a pair of bare feet is together at the ankles. The left foot points up, and the right foot angles more to the right, with toes more curled. They are strong disabled dancer feet with tendons visible and a bandaid further up on the right leg. The image has been tinted so the feet and legs appear to be purple.
In the foreground, a gradient purple background is layered with a light teal background above it, and against these backgrounds there is text in different areas, in white, purple and black fonts.
The text reads:
DARK ROOM BALLET WITH KRISHNA WASHBURN
SATURDAY OCT 29TH
4 PM TO 6 PM (Eastern/New York Time)
No Diagram Anatomy for Dancers in the Dark Room Presents:
The Lower Leg Complex (Foot Class)
No prior knowledge required
Priority given to Blind/Vl students
All Dark Room Ballet classes and workshops take place online via Zoom - visit darkroomballet.com or LINK IN BIO for more info
Hosted by Movement Research, Dark Room Ballet is designed specifically for the educational needs of blind and visually impaired adults.
NOTE: This is a FREE class, but donations are welcomed.
No Diagram Anatomy for Dancers in the Dark Room Presents:
The Lower Leg Complex (Foot Class)
Saturday, October 29th , 2022 4 PM to 6 PM (Eastern / New York Time)
The third and final in a series of three highly detailed workshops analyzing specific anatomical areas in detail. In this workshop, we will use movement, touch, and conversation to not only cultivate scientific knowledge related to the lower leg complex (the foot and related structures!), but also initiate a higher degree of body awareness and neurological learning in this area. Evolutionary history and the marvels of human variation will also be addressed in this workshop. No prior knowledge of human anatomy, dance, or self-audio description are required to participate, but all students will come away with deep anatomical knowledge, reduced movement anxiety, and tools to start learning how to talk about movement in a visceral way. Let’s get right down to the real nitty gritty!
Material covered in this workshop will include:
The skeletal structure of the lower leg, ankle, and foot
The locations and functions of musculature of the lower leg, ankle, and foot, and their relationships to commonly known dance vocabulary
The nerves and nerve plexuses of the lower leg, ankle, and foot, and what it means to cultivate neurological connection to this part of the body
The connective tissues (fascia, tendons, cartilages and ligaments) of the lower leg, ankle and foot.
All students will receive the complete script of the workshop two days beforehand, and the script can be reviewed either before or after the workshop.
This workshop is designed for the educational needs of blind and visually impaired people and does not use diagrams.
On a gray gradient background that transitions into white, a photo of Krishna in a side profile, edited in green and purple tones . Her hair is pinned up, she wears a short sleeve black top, and a large necklace of translucent stones around her neck.
On a diagonal, highlighted in yellow over part of the image is the word: RESCHEDULED
Black and white text across the rest of the image reads:
DARK ROOM BALLET WITH KRISHNA WASHBURN
FRIDAY AUGUST 26
6 PM to 7:30 PM (Eastern/New York Time)
No Diagram Anatomy for Dancers in the Dark Room: The Cervical Complex ("Neck Class”)
No prior knowledge required - priority given to Blind/Vl students
All Dark Room Ballet classes and workshops take place online via Zoom - visit darkroomballet.com or LINK IN BIO for more info
Hosted by Movement Research, Dark Room Ballet is designed specifically for the educational needs of blind and visually impaired adults.
Note: This is a FREE class, but donations are welcomed.
No Diagram Anatomy for Dancers in the Dark Room presents:
Anatomy in Detail: The Cervical Complex (Neck Class)
NEW DATE & TIME!
FRIDAY, August 26th, 2022 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM (Eastern/New York Time)
The second in a series of three highly detailed workshops analyzing specific anatomical areas in detail. In this workshop, we will use movement, touch, and conversation to not only cultivate scientific knowledge related to the cervical complex (the neck!), but also initiate a higher degree of body awareness and neurological learning in this area. Evolutionary history and the marvels of human variation will also be addressed in this workshop. No prior knowledge of human anatomy, dance, or self-audio description are required to participate, but all students will come away with deep anatomical knowledge, reduced movement anxiety, and tools to start learning how to talk about movement in a visceral way. Let’s get right down to the real nitty gritty!
Material covered in this workshop will include:
The cervical spine, the hyoid bone, and neighboring related skeletal features
The layered musculature of the front, sides, and back of the neck
The cervical spinal cord, nerves and nerve plexuses of the neck
Organ systems of the neck (respiratory, digestive, endocrine)
All students will receive the complete script of the workshop two days beforehand, and the script can be reviewed either before or after the workshop. This workshop is designed for the educational needs of blind and visually impaired people and does not use diagrams.
About No Diagram Anatomy Workshop Series
No Diagram Anatomy workshops are in-depth dancer’s anatomy workshops that de-center sight and are designed for the educational needs of blind and visually impaired people. Participants will learn about their bodies’ layered anatomy from the outside-in using a combination of guided audio description, imagination, touch, and movement experimentation, and will also be given opportunities to practice talking about how the movement feels in the body (self-audio description).
For 2022, the theme for No Diagram Anatomy has been Nitty Gritty, in which a single anatomical region is demystified and explained in depth. These three workshops are:
If you’ve never taken Dark Room Ballet Open Level, this is what the pedagogical self-audio description sounds like in a typical plié combination.
This exercise integrates three types of reverence cambré; can you figure out what they all have in common? Come dance with us in the Dark Room, the music is great and the learning never ends!
