Dance Practice

Shantel's dance practice is grounded in contemporary dance, predominantly release technique, with strong influences from Hanya Holm technique, improvisation, hip hop, ballet, and yoga. Her experience as a dancer follows the relatively recent tradition of what dance scholar Susan Foster (1997) calls 'the multitalented body': '...choreographic experimentation with eclectic vocabularies and with new interdisciplinary genres of performance [circumventing] the distinctness of [dancer] bodies.[...] Dancers [of this genre are encouraged] to train in several existing techniques without adopting the aesthetic vision of any. They require a new kind of body, competent at many styles'; melding together a variety of styles, such as ballet, Graham, contact improvisation, Cunningham, release (p 253).

Shantel's over twenty years experience as a dancer, performer, and teacher include notable highlights working, performing and/or training with/at the following:

London, UK
Gill Clarke, Marina Collard, Zoe Dimitriou, Lyndsey McConville, Sonia Rafferty, Emma Redding.
University of California, Irvine
Loretta Livingston, Donald McKayle, Lisa Naugle.
New York, NY
Jeanne Brescianni, Trisha Brown, Colin Connor, Laurie DeVito, Doug Elkins, Jana Hicks, Deborah Jowitt, Rhapsody James, Dianne McCarthy, Leslie Partridge, Marc Santa-Maria, Guido Tuveri, Jackie Vilamil.
Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts
Sherry Alban, Robert 'Tigger' Benford, Donald Byrd, Mark Dendy, Claudia Gitelman, Sarah Hook, David Parsons, Lisa Race, Don Redlich, Ruthlyn Salomons, Paulette Sears.
Minneapolis, MN
Sam Costa, Cathleen Donnelly, Mary Harding, Tom Kathak, Hennepin Centre for the Arts (various), MN Centre for Arts Education, Paula Mann, Linda Shapiro.