HEIDI VIERTHALER

Heidi incorporates her experience from working with William Forsythe into her teachings of ballet class and movement research. She is a certified gyrotonics instructor.

Heidi Vierthaler began her professional dance career at age 19 with the Pacific NW Ballet in Seattle, under the direction of Kent Stowell and Francia Russell.
She experienced a vast variety of George Balanchine's Ballets, as well as works by Merce Cunningham, Glen Tetley and Kent Stowell. After 4 years with the company, from 1986 -1990, she moved to Chicago and spent 3 seasons with Ballet Chicago, under the direction of Daniel Duell, performing works by David Parsons, Gordon Pierce Schmidt, and Daniel Duell. In 1995 she began teaching and danced one season with Spectrum Dance Theater.
In 1996, Heidi moved to Europe, which led her to work with the most prominent dance makers of our time, including Jiri Kilian, Ohad Naharin, and a 4 year collaboration with William Forsythe .
In 2006 her son Samuel was born in Gothenburg, Sweden.
In 2007 Heidi began teaching movement research and ballet at SEAD in Salzburg.
In 2008 she began teaching intensively for the The Theater School in Amsterdam (Hooge School voor de Kunsten), including the Modern Dance Department, SNDO ( The School for New Dance Development), and the Rotterdam Dance Academy.
Heidi is a regular guest teacher for Architanz studios in Japan, where she teaches movement research, ballet, and Forsythe repetoire.
Since 2009 she teaches regularly for the Dansgroep Amsterdam, and The Henry Jurriens Stichting.
In 2009 she began making her own work, and has recently been commissioned to make a piece on the graduating students of The Rotterdam Dance Academy.

MOVEMENT RESEARCH:
This class is designed to enable the dancer to search for, and develop his/her own personal movement language. A series of exercises, helping to create a highly articulated body, aids in producing a wide range of unpredictable movement. There is a strong focus on dynamic, as well as adding layers of different physicalities. For example, working with and without tension, and incorporating movement fragments from the dancers personal dance history. Heidi follows the flow of the dancers in the room, to create spontaneous movement tasks. The dancer is enabled to initiate movement from any, and all points of the body stemming from a deep place, allowing fuller movement pathways. Dancers are made aware of repetitive movement patterns, good and bad habits, and transferring emotions into a physical language.
Heidi incorporates Forsythe technologies, as well as her own, developed throughout her career.

BALLET:
Since her certification as Gyrotonics instructor in 1998, she has incorporated the principals of Gyrotonics in her Ballet class as a dancer, and a teacher. Gyrotonics gives a deeper understanding of the body, which can be applied to all areas of dance...There is an emphasis on finding more freedom of movement, awareness of opposition in the body, helping to create more length and strength, as well as initiating movement from the center of the body out beyond the extremeties, This awareness creates more balance, and articulation in the body. Heidi also emphasizes the importance of transferring weight, allowing the dancer to move more freely and powerfully through the space.

FORSYTHE REPERTOIRE:
Heidi workshops a series of solos performed during her collaboration with William Forsythe, giving the dancer a chance to learn first hand the ideas and physicalities that allow a deeper understanding of how to execute the movement

MODERN CLASS:
Heidi begins her modern classes with a series of exercises aimed at warming up the body from the inside out. This includes and awakening of the senses , which stimulates the nervous system and quickly brings blood flow to the surface of the body. She then continues on with bringing awareness of movement initiated internally, and allows the the dancers to go at there own speed and eventually experience articulated pathways that continue on beyond there extremities. The dancer then moves on to explore surfaces, which brings deeper awareness to 3 dimensional movement, and the physical body moving to it's entirety . The last half of the class is used to learn and execute a phrase of movement diverse in dynamic,
energy flow and spacial awareness.