Jodi Waseca at 3rd Coast Tribal Festival, photographed by Vance Strickland.
Monday night’s workshops with Jodi Waseca were such a fun treat! I’m so glad that Jodi and I were able to work together to make it happen.
This was really the ideal way to get my first workshop hosting experience. Jodi was already planning to come through Tucson, so I didn’t have to choose a date or make the travel arrangements. I just had to pick workshop topics (which, admittedly, may be the most emotionally difficult part, I want to learn everything!), arrange for the studio, advertise it, collect the money, and then make sure the money got paid to the studio and Jodi.
As for Jodi herself, she was great to work with! Always prompt to respond to emails, great at communicating, full of good ideas on how to tailor the workshops for what I told her about Tucson’s community and what I thought people would want to learn. On the day of, she was there early, ready to go on time, and kept things running right on schedule. Absolutely no “diva” attitude, just real fun and encouraging towards the li’l group of students who joined us for a Monday night of dance.
We started out with an hour and a half of good ol’ drills. After a nice warm up (including some good foot warm-up techniques that were new to me and need to get added to my lengthier practice sessions), we did a mix of belly dance, ballet and modern dance technique, covering a variety of skills useful for tribal fusion dancers. Since everyone was signed up for both workshops, she ended the first one by teaching us a mini-choreo that we would be able to return to in the second class.
After a brief break, we dove into theatricality and stage presence. This is always tricky material, but I’m happy to say that all of the students really threw themselves into it and we had a great time! There was a short lecture and Q&A period where dancers were able to bring up their specific concerns about stage presence. I really appreciate when an instructor does this at the start of the class, because then you can get advice which you can immediately apply to the exercises in class. After that we got up and did some fun ice breaker theater games. Then it was time to apply what we learned to dancing, and Jodi gave us a lot of fun challenges, from dancing at different intensities, to dancing the opposite of what a song made us feel. I really can’t stress enough how enjoyable this workshop was, it made theatricality FUN instead of getting us too wrapped up in our own heads. We ended by revisiting the short choreography and modifying it with different moods.
I really recommend Jodi as a teacher, whether you’re a student looking at signing up for a workshop, or an organizer looking for someone to host at your event or for an evening of workshops in your own town. I hope I get to study with her again someday in the near future!