Joan Skinner Overview

Skinner Releasing Technique™ (SRT) is the pioneering approach to dancing that has evolved from the simple principle that when we are letting go of habitual holding patterns we can move more freely, articulately and powerfully. Joan Skinner, the American choreographer, dance... [more]

Skinner Releasing Technique™ (SRT) is the pioneering approach to dancing that has evolved from the simple principle that when we are letting go of habitual holding patterns we can move more freely, articulately and powerfully. Joan Skinner, the American choreographer, dance improvisation pioneer and former dancer with the Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham companies, created the technique from early experiments in the 1960's. Today, Skinner Releasing Technique is a comprehensive training system that has become a considerable influence on leading artists and dance practice across the world. Now an esteemed dance elder, Joan Skinner continues to teach SRT each summer in Seattle and occasionally at international dance festivals, most recently in 2005 at Impulztanz, Vienna. Europe and Britain have embraced Releasing - particularly in dancers' training - in such a way that SRT is fast becoming mainstream. London has become the European centre for SRT training and is the home of the biennial London Skinner Releasing Easter School. 'Skinner Releasing is a dance technique that has the same objectives as other concert dance techniques: alignment, flexibility, strength, speed, dynamic range, musicality, and control of nuance. This technique, however, is a system of kinesthetic training that refines the perception and performance of movement. Images are given which are metaphors of kinesthetic experience of technical principles. The poetic imagery kindles the imagination, thereby integrating technique with creative process' . Joan Skinner, May 2005 . Joan Skinner. Photo credit: photograph courtesy of Joan SkinnerSkinner Releasing Technique is the origin of the wide proliferation of 'release-based' dance practice. SRT is, however, distinguished from 'release-based' work by its organisation into a formalised teaching pedagogy and its highly specific use of poetic imagery - rarely deploying any direct anatomical imagery - in integrating students' technical, creative and intuitive capacities. The term 'Releasing' (coined by Joan's students in the 1970's as a result of being encouraged to 'let go' of holding patterns) or 'release' can be misleading, since it is often thought to imply a dance aesthetic that is 'relaxed' or exclusively 'fluid'. Releasing is in fact concerned with liberating or 'releasing' power and strength, and our capacity for physical articulation: the letting go of unnecessary, habitual holding patterns aims at cultivating multi-directional alignment and engaging a far deeper and more powerful musculature. This enables economy and greater efficiency in our dancing. As such, Skinner Releasing is a technique that can enhance any movement style. [show less]