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Musicality Concepts in Ballet — A Pro-Level Intensive Workshop Series with Hannah Werbel

photo is described in the caption
Hannah stands on a large rock in a mountain meadow, surrounded by wildflowers and tall pine trees. She stands with her left leg held straight and supporting her, while her right leg is lifted high to the side, nearly horizontal. Her left arm curves overhead, and her right arm stretches toward her raised foot, creating a diagonal line across her body. She wears leggings, a short-sleeve shirt, trail shoes, and sunglasses, with her hair in two braids. The sky is clear, and snow-capped mountains are visible in the distance.

Presented as part of our Fall/Winter 2025 guest artist workshop series:

Musicality Concepts in Ballet — A Pro-Level Intensive Workshop Series with Hannah Werbel (October/November 2025)

About Hannah Werbel:

Trained in classical ballet, with forays into jazz, contemporary and modern swing dance, Hannah has been dancing and playing with music since before she can remember.

As a student of Dark Room Ballet herself, Hannah is excited to share her love of music and expression with the community. She believes in teaching from a perspective of curiosity and play, and is looking forward to helping students discover a sense of expression within the structure of ballet. 

About This Intensive Workshop Series:

Musicality Concepts in Ballet is a special intensive workshop series that analyzes and reinforces select  musicality concepts in the context of a pro-level ballet technique class. Each week, we will explore two contrasting concepts and experiment with them through different combination-based movement patterns. This workshop is designed for disabled dancers who have been dancing ballet consistently for at least one year and have strong ballet vocabulary recall. (If you’re taking ballet class every week, this series is for you!)

Workshop Dates and Details:


 These intensive workshops can be studied either in a standalone or in a cumulative way.

They will be offered virtually on Zoom.

The format of each workshop is similar to a ballet technique class, but with an open floor for questions after each few combinations.

Each workshop is two hours long:

Wednesday evening classes will run from 8 PM to 10 PM (Eastern Time)

Saturday evening classes will run from 6 PM to 8 PM (Eastern Time)

  • Wednesday, October 22, 2025: Accents and Rhythms (8 PM to 10 PM)
  • Saturday, October 25, 2025: Dynamics: using the floor to generate and dampen energy (6 PM to 8 PM)
  • Wednesday, October 29, 2025: Staccato and Legato (8 PM to 10 PM)
  • Saturday, November 1, 2025: Rubato: playing with the music (6 PM to 8 PM)

    If you are a taped floor dancer, have your floor taped as you would normally for ballet technique class, and be ready to dance ballet in a richer, more expressive way!

To register for this workshop series, send an email to info@darkroomballet.com with the subject line Musicality Concepts in Ballet

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October 2025 Improvisation Intensive Workshop Series with Shannon Brooks

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Shannon crouches on the floor holding a microphone with neon yellow/green tulle draped across their body and smushing their face. They speak/sing into the microphone with their eyes closed. Photo credit: And Keller

Presented as part of our Fall/Winter 2025 guest artist workshop series:

Improvising with our Ecosystems: a Laboratory and Introduction to Improvising with Movement, Sound, and Self-Audio Description with Shannon Brooks

About Shannon Brooks:


Shannon Brooks is a multi-sensory, multimedia  artist working across movement, sound, sculpture, moving image, installation, and social-based practices.

Shannon’s work combines the heightened ritual of performance with the glorious imperfections of process. Their practice revels in the seams and edges of their work, lingers within transitions, and creates strange worlds. Shannon is a self-identified freak/weirdo and uses play and clowning to embrace the nonsensical. Their practice is iterative and spans time, it shifts form and medium to experiment to follow a thread of research or question, is it archival, it pierces into other dimensions.

As a Disabled and low-vision person, Shannon believes access is for everyone, is always transforming, and is a creative force that transforms time, space, and power structures.

Shannon will be accompanied musically on Saturdays by George Shands and Josh Meakim.

image is described in post
A two tone blue and white photo of George. His head is tilted to the right and he is making a calm face with a slight smile.

About This Intensive Workshop Series:

Improvising with our Ecosystems is laboratory to experiment with different approaches to improvisation, ground into your body’s impulses, explore imaginative embodiments, and play with self-audio description improv with live music. 

Workshop Dates and Details:

These four workshops are set up to build on one another but can be taken separately. 

They will be offered virtually on Zoom.

Each workshop is two hours long:

Thursday classes will run from 6 PM to 8 PM (Eastern Time) and will introduce new improvisation concepts

Saturday classes will run from 4 PM to 6 PM (Eastern Time) and will provide opportunities to more deeply explore those concepts while listening to live music!

  • Thursday, October 9th (6 PM to 8 PM): Improvising with our Interior Ecosystems: improvising with our bodies, impulses, memories, and self audio description.
  • Saturday, October 11th (4 PM to 6 PM): Improvising with our Interior Ecosystems: review + practice laboratory with live music.
  • Thursday, October 16th (6 PM to 8 PM): Improvising with our Exterior Ecosystems: improvising with our environments, materials, and others.
  • Saturday, October 18th (6 PM to 8 PM): Improvising with our Exterior Ecosystems: review + practice laboratory with live music.

To register for this workshop series, send an email to info@darkroomballet.com with the subject line Improvising with our Ecosystems