Hannah Garner (she/her/hers), recently named ‘25 to Watch’ by Dance Magazine, is a NYC based dancer/choreographer making dance-theatre work that “tackles topics like death and queer identity through rigorous, inventive movement and wit” (Dance Magazine). Having graduated from SUNY Purchase with a BFA in Dance Performance and Composition, minor in Arts Management, and semester at the Beijing Dance Academy, Hannah has gone on to work with Doug Varone, Raja Feather Kelly, Sue Bernhard, and Megan Williams, in venues such as The Joyce Theater, NY City Center, the Park Avenue Armory, and New York Live Arts.
Under the banner of her dance-theatre company 2nd Best Dance Company, Hannah and her collaborators connect to audiences, students, and professionals alike as they share emotionally accessible work that is relatable and resonant. Since its inception in 2016, 2nd Best Dance Company has been creating and performing physically rigorous, sometimes virtuosic, almost always slapstick dance-plays. Their work has gone past the traditional dance proscenium to include collaborations in sculpture, animation, theatre, film, and site-specific works and has been commissioned by GroundWorks DanceTheater, GALLIM x CreateArt, Triskelion Arts, Kizuna Dance, and SUNY Purchase. Hannah teaches regularly at Triskelion Arts and has guest taught classes at The Playground NYC (at Gibney), SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Dance (including a month of subbing for Doug Varone’s senior level composition class), Cleveland State University, GroundWorks DanceTheater, and Mark Morris Dance Center. 2nd Best creates and performs frequently all over New York City. Hannah and 2nd Best continue to seek multidisciplinary partnerships, explore limits of the body, and find solace in the humor of being human. In real life Hannah lives in Manhattan, on the internet she lives at 2ndbestdance.com.
Contemporary
This 1.5 hour [or appropriate class length] shared practice will cycle through a grounded warmup intended to organize the body, conditioning to further investigate use of tone and economical energy, sequential and momentum-based traveling material, and will culminate in a final phrase designed to continue our physical research of that day. Text and/or vocalization is often utilized within this class structure in order to familiarize the body and mind with the task of speaking and dancing so that when we are asked to do so within a performance context we don’t FREAK OUT.