Michael Parmenter
 Contemporary & MB Tutor
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Michael
Parmenter has been dancing and making work for over 30 years and been teaching
for nearly the same amount of time. His choreographies range from intimate solo
text-based works such as A Long
Undressing and Nightingale Fever to
full-length opera-house productions. He has created such classic works such as The Race, The Dark Forest, Jerusalem
and TENT for his own Commotion
Company, as well as shorter works for the Royal New Zealand Ballet, Footnote
Dance Company and numerous other artists.
His teaching draws upon three major dance traditions. During the 80’s in New York Michael studied and danced for modern dance pioneer Erick Hawkins, and he believes that Hawkins Technique represents the best and most enduring aspects of classic modern dance. Michael has also danced with Stephen Petronio and so draws upon the American new dance style which incorporates Alexander technique, Klein technique, Ideokinesis and contact improvisation. The third major influence on Michael’s teaching has been the Body Weather Laboratory training of Japanese dancer Min Tanaka, with whom Michael studied intensively. Recently Michael’s teaching has been strongly influenced by the insights of French somatics researcher Hubert Godard, his own doctoral research into the phenomenology of life and his development of the partner-improvisation forms, Piloting and TACTICS. Class Description A Parmenter class is musical, economical, physical and ‘cool’. |
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