Venese Alcantar

Movement Through a Pedagogical Lens

Preferred Pronouns: she/her/hers

About Venese

My work challenges fixed notions of gender and sexuality, the female archetype within the family, and the body as landscape. Within my work the observer will find varied explorations of grotesque corporeal wit, human narratives through anthropomorphic expressions, and the intermingling acts of birthing and composting. My work has shown at the Ohr-O’keefe Museum of Art, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, the UCCS Galleries of Contemporary Art, The Mesa House, the Ent Center for the Arts at UCCS, Cossit Hall at Colorado College, and the Terri Goodhue Gallery. Venese has worked with Ormao, Pantera Chamber Ballet, HIJACK, Larry Keigwin, Body Shift, and others. In 2015, I was an artist in residence with Pantera Chamber Ballet, while conjunctively teaching at Kazan University of Culture and Art, in Kazan, Russia. In addition, some of my teaching experience includes the teaching residency at the Beulah School of Natural Sciences, adjunct at the Colorado Springs Conservatory, the Positive Note Program for people with mixed abilities. The Ormao Dance School, The Dance Center, and the Mathtastic education-through-dance program. I would like to acknowledge the Apache, Comanche, Caddo, Tonkawa, and many other tribes who were the traditional custodians of the land we move and create on.

Venese’s Offerings

I teach movement through a pedagogical lens, in the sense that there is no way to untether knowledge from dance. We consume space with purpose. Whether the reason or cause is readily available to us or not. Our bodies are holding thousands of stories that expand across generations. I’m opening up a space to identify, analyze, sense, and draw from those stories. Memory is a corporeal phenomenon. I’m offering an inclusive space to distill meaning from the body through polyrhythmic forms, cooperation with the ground, and somatic investigations. We will utilize many somatic forms to witness our habituations, those that do and do not serve us, we will explore new relationships with the ground, and we will engage in polyrhythmic dance; expanding our kinesthetic lexicon.

What to expect from a class with Venese

Let us regard movement as a form of digestion – a way to acknowledge past, present, and future happenings. A vehicle, used to transmit our stories across time. Yes, we defy time with movement. Movement is organically and by nature for Everyone- Every Body. When I am facilitating movement, I am shaping a democratic space in which each mover has the opportunity to bring their wildest imaginings and dreadful fears. I will always honor the stories we hold in our bodies. Our contemporary societies are experiencing extreme play deficits, and I will challenge you to reject this static state through the joy of movement. Be prepared to breathe, make funny faces, melt into the floor, and sweat.

Fun fact about Venese

I once had to out-scare a bear during a camping trip in the rocky mountains in order to protect my daughter. Do not ask me to do it again, the guttural sound that came out of me cannot be repeated.

Venese Alcantar
Dance