And what about the love for dancing?
Everybody who dances started off with love for it. Throughout training this love might get hidden somewhere, under physical pain, struggles to become better, corrections given from a teacher, injuries, fatigue. Finding a way to access the love for dancing is the source for any of my teaching.
Zarhy’s teaching is an extension of her choreographic practice and research interests.
Creating a supportive environment for asking fragile questions out loud where diverse voices can be expressed and listened to, is key in whatever class she’s giving. Slowing down and expanding one’s listening - bodily, auditorily, energetically - is central to her pedagogical propositions.
Zarhy's dance classes and workshops ('To Gather') integrate somatic work with influences from Feldenkrais Method and release technique, starting off with anatomical awareness warm-up directing focus inwards. Gradually, through exploration of breath and spine movement, the participants are guided into an in-depth physical research, shifting the focus outwards into space. Negotiation of space with others, integrating the relationality of moving and being is a central axis to sharing of her practice. The physical practice involves durational movement, where the participants have time and space to follow their movement interests and questions.
In her classes there are no combinations, and no need to memorize steps. It is constructed firstly by repeating simple movements to mobilize different areas in the body and allow one to focus on feeling rather than thinking about feeling. It's about becoming intimate with one’s body.
Thereafter, the topic of training is included - engaging core muscles and bringing the heart beat up, according to one's own ability and needs.
The class welcomes repetition of habits and movement patterns, so that they can be integrated and accepted, rather than judged and criticized. The wish is to deepen familiarity with one's movement habits so that they can expand and allow one's presence to rest on what’s there, rather than the ideal mover that we always wished to be.
In her choreography workshops and mentoring of projects, Zarhy sets an emphasis on one’s studio practice. Through choreographic exercises and group discourse, she encourages asking questions while moving and doing, while supporting a loss of an orientation in order to re-find it differently.
Zarhy regularly leads professional classes and workshops for dancers, students and movement based practitioners in a variety of contexts. She has over 15 years of experience teaching. She brings this experience and her practice as a choreographer when invited to work as a teacher or facilitator in any setting.
She has been teaching among others in: Tanzfabrik Berlin, K3 Hamburg, Ballett Basel, Tanzbüro Basel, the postgraduate program for choreography in Kelim center Bat Yam, Pro-Mornings professional contemporary classes in Suzanne Dellal Center Tel Aviv, Moving Communities - contemporary dance for people living with Parkinson’s Disease at Yasmeen Godder’s company Tel Aviv, the School of Visual Theater Jerusalem, and more.
