Modern Dance Technique
With unique blend of eastern and western aesthetics, Ting-Yu Chen modern dance technique is a movement study that cultivates virtuosity, musicality and authenticity through self discovery.

Ting-Yu Chen's Modern technique class begins with body awareness exercises that awake the mind and body connection.  Floor warm-up series, working from general to specific, increase the body heat and lubricate joints to prepare the body for the class.  From lying down to sitting, floor warm-up exercises build in length and complexity of rhythmic and spatial patterns while exploring various ways the body responses to the gravity.  After the body is fully warmed-up, conditioning the body to increase strength and flexibility is safely and effectively executed.  From standing position, traveling through space and finally aerial section, more range, detailed and complex movement patterns are introduced to cultivate virtuosity, musicality and authenticity in performance.

Solo & Group Dance Composition: Essential elements and principles of dance making. 
Creativity, authenticity and play are engaged in the study of dance making. Choreographic devices for generating, manipulating and developing movement materials and over-all structure are stressed. Relationship of music and dance and a sense of production including lighting, costuming and set design are explored. A repertoire of questioning strategies in literal, interpretive, analytical and evaluative thinking is developed in both oral and written forms.  This study develops a foundation of knowledge, skills and processes of choreography for performance and teaching.  Technology skills that support choreographic creativity are developed.

Zendance is a structural improvisation method developed by Chen to facilitate the body and mind coming to a meditative state of being, free to access one's endless imagination. Still or moving through space, forceful to delicate, one experiences creativity and vitality expressed in extreme ranges of space, time and weight. When the body and mind become one and as a readily paint brush suspended from an empty canvas, the journey of calligraphy as movement art begins.

Chinese Calligraphy
With attention to breathing and mindful brush strokes, instructor Ting-Yu Chen leads her students to experience the harmony, beauty and serenity in Chinese Calligraphy. Starting from learning the basic technique of simple brush strokes, students will be able to write Chinese characters and create framable art at the end of the session. See samples of former students' calligraphy.

More samples of student works resulted from cultural educations taught by Ting-Yu Chen in the subject of Calligraphy and Zendance.

Modern Dance Pedagogy (the art of teaching modern dance)
Analysis and establishment of content material specific to the pedagogy of modern dance focusing on sound principles of technique, curriculum development, implementation of goal-specific teaching strategies and evaluation of student performance.  Insights on technical objectives, teaching philosophies and strategies of widely practiced codified modern dance techniques: Martha Graham, Erick Hawkins, Doris Humphrey/ José Limón, Lester Horton, Merce Cunningham, and Alwin Nikolais/Murray Louis are gained through research projects. Awareness and ability to incorporate alternative dance trainings/somatic practices while designing sound principles of technique programs are cultivated.  Technology resources appropriate to teaching are identified, examined and utilized.  Supervised teaching experiences provide opportunities to develop effective classroom management skills and employ a variety of teaching methods.

Dance & Technology Seminar
Technology skills necessary to create media support for Marketing/Publicity/Event or Program Promotion.   Students will explore basic elements and principles in web design, sound design, desktop publishing software Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign, video editing software iMovie and iDvd.  A promotional website, posters and postcards, video documentation of choreographic portfolio and an interactive DVD are end products.  This course develops students’ technological knowledge and skills to become effective communicators of their dance works via conventional and internet based platforms.

Argentine tango (Nuevo) is a mindful movement dialogue between two people in an embrace. Its intricate footwork elegant, seductive, at times aggressive is led by the lead while interpreting music. Dazzled by the passion, beauty and virtuosic dancing of Argentine Tango, the technique starts with the basic concept of lead and follow. After learning the vocabulary, acquiring musicality and understanding the improvisation nature of tango, the dance begins simply step by step, moment by moment. The experience of tango is often ecstatic and beyond words.