SHAGA
Comerford was personally invited to train in the Gaga movement language with Ohad Naharin and the Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv, Israel for their inaugural teacher training program. After returning to America, she continued to deepen her movement philosophy drawing from the development of her prior research, personal practice, and a keen passion to share with others through a larger field of movement practices including dancers, non-dancers, and special populations.
Over the course of 10 years, Comerford had formerly developed a Power of Identity through Movement curriculum and through exploring its synthesis with the Gaga movement philosophy, Shaga was born. Shaga is an improvisational playground that enhances increased sensitivity to our physicality while going beyond familiar limits and expanding our movement potential. Class begins slowly and builds in intensity to continuous motion, providing enjoyable exercise for both body and soul. It is designed for all people who want to connect to their passion to move and discover. Using evocative ideas and imagery, students are guided to experience the availability in their bodies in new ways that stretch, strengthen and reduce tension and atrophy while connecting their bodies to their imaginations. As we allow our innate, inner rhythms, we can experience freedom inside our movement and inside our minds. The practice opens us up to more pleasure, silliness, freedom, and the capacity to experience movement as a dynamic, healing force of vitality.
Shaga is based on the philosophy that what we do in the studio can affect our lives out side of it and that inhabiting our bodies allows us to more fully inhabit the world we live in. The practice continues to enhance the company’s training while also exploring its endless applications inside of various techniques including ballet, yoga, release, and physical theatre as a platform to hone the company’s technique while also deepening the physicality of sensation-based material. Comerford continues to work with dancers, non-dancers and a myriad of special populations.
