Ayan Felix, MFA

images provided by Duke Dance Dept and Johannes Birringer

Ayan Felix (NC/TX) is an MFA in Dance. Ayan’s teaching practice is based in their dance experience of contemporary improvisational styles based in modern/post-modern dance, physical theater, house, and majorette training which they learned over years of experience in Texas, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. They seek to share dance as a form of community building by prioritizing consent as well as encouraging collaboration and multi-disciplinary approaches. Their most resourced performance practice is site-responsive, but they are also comfortable with concert-based productions from their time as a freelance dancer. They are currently researching how physical and social improvisational practices interact in spaces that affirm Blackness and gender fluidity. By approaching performance capaciously as a type of social movement, Ayan seeks to help share knowledge on how dance deepens our cultural and political education.

Sample Media

Video Descriptions

Left video, "Sample warm-up excerpt"

6 students and instructor (Ayan) do a brief energetic warm-up with a “ball.” They start in a circle formation. The ball is first passed around the circle with participants calling each other's names. The ball stops at the last student and then they are instructed to take solos with the ball by shaking out a body part before passing it to another student. The class makes their way to the ground for a brief rest with their feet planted and their backs on the ground. They are prompted to let their bodies sink into the ground and then make their way back to standing. When they return to standing they start to learn a phrase with 2 dynamics, high and flighty and then low and smooth. At one point the student on Zoom asks a question. Following the instructor answering this question, the video stops.

Right Video, "End of Semester Phrase for Beginning Modern Dance (Fall 2020)"

6 students and an instructor dance a phrase to drums in an 8-count rhythm. The students are in their mandated dancing squares. The instructor starts with them, but then verbally guides them through the rest of the phrase. The phrase starts standing in a jumping lunge then rolls onto the ground for leg and arm swings. Standing up, the students travel downstage to sway their arms behind and then circle them overhead. There is a rhythm change to the emphasis on the 3rd beat and the students start to do hops around their square in a coordinated circle. Upon returning upstage, the students drop to the ground and enter a solo section. Each student has two 8-counts to stand up, do a solo, and then make their way down to the floor. After the last student has gone, the students do a roll across their back and stand up to walk to the upstage right corner of their squares. They make their way diagonally downstage after a deep plie in second to prepare for a full turn with arms in Horton Open Egyptian arms. They end the last turn in crossing their right leg and arm across the midline to then tombe, pas de bourree upstage and prepare for a back attitude turn. Then end in two jumps (of their choice) coming back downstage and then a pose.