Bend & Balance

Welcome to Bend and Balance, a class designed for everyone—from beginners to experienced practitioners and even professionals. The focus is on improving flexibility, strength, and balance, all while promoting overall well-being. Whether you want to enhance your splits, work on backbends, or master handstands, this class will guide you through each step with a clear and supportive approach.

What to Expect
Strength Building: Work on building core stability and overall body strength, essential for advanced flexibility and balance poses.

Flexibility Training: Focus on splits, backbends, and dynamic stretching to improve range of motion, prevent injuries, and boost overall well-being. Stretching is key to improving performance, preventing injury, and aiding in recovery.

Handstands & Balance Poses: Learn and refine handstands and other balance poses, with a focus on proper alignment and technique. Handstands are the ultimate inversion, combining strength, body awareness, confidence, and grace. They may seem out of reach, but with time and practice, they are absolutely achievable.

Dynamic Movement & Conditioning: Engage in exercises that prepare the body for functional movement, ensuring that flexibility and strength are practical and beneficial in everyday life.

Who Can Join
This class is open to everyone, from beginners to more experienced practitioners, and even professionals. All levels are catered to, respecting where you are in your practice. You will be challenged, but always in a way that encourages growth and keeps you coming back for more.

Class Structure
Weekly Focus: Each week, zero in on a specific area, like splits, backbends, or handstands. Join for targeted practice or come regularly to see steady progress.

Complement Your Other Classes: This class is a perfect complement to other classes you might be taking at Tanzwerk101. It’s especially beneficial if you also attend the Tuesday class, which focuses on ballroom performance in the voguing scene and involves some contortion work. Bend and Balance will help develop the flexibility, strength, and overall well-being needed for both.

Along with handstands, practice headstands to master the basics of inversion training. Handstands are broken down into core skills called the ‘pillars of handstand’ training: Specific Strength, Endurance, Alignment, Consistency, Shape, Mobility, Flexibility, and Balance. The class remains creative and playful, so regular students are encouraged to share any pose goals for future classes.

Follow-Up Option
After Bend & Balance, consider joining the Ultimate Stretch class to further deepen your poses and enhance flexibility in a restorative and playful manner.

Ultimate Stretch

Introducing Ultimate Stretch, a class designed to deepen poses and enhance flexibility. Perfect as a follow-up to Bend & Balance, after another dance class, or as a standalone session, this class focuses on full body stretching in a playful and restorative manner. It's also an opportunity to take the time to work on the stretches.

What to Expect
Targeted Warm Up: Begin with a short, focused warm up to prepare the body.
Deep Stretching: Explore classic stretches inspired by Iyengar and restorative yoga, contortion, and dance, with anatomical guidance. This class allows you to take the time to work on each stretch.
Goal-Oriented Practice: Been working on that split for weeks? Here, target the main stretches needed for your dance practice and reach your goals together. Whether it's improving flexibility for splits, enhancing backbends, or refining other poses, this class is designed to support your progress.
Restorative Yoga & Relaxation: Conclude with restorative poses and Shavasana to promote deep relaxation and restful sleep. Ultimate Stretch is designed to allow the body to unwind and relax.

Who Can Join
Suitable for everyone, including those with injuries or back issues. This class is designed to complement other dance or fitness routines.

Class Structure
Flexible Participation: Join after Bend & Balance, another dance class, or on its own for a comprehensive stretch experience. Please bring your own yoga mat if possible. Maximum participants: 12

Voguing

Voguing is a vibrant dance form that emerged from the Black, Latinx, and Trans communities in Harlem, NY, during the 1960s. Rooted in the philosophy of freedom and empowerment, voguing is an art of self-expression and identity, celebrating history, pride, politics, and creativity.

The Ballroom scene, known for its fierce "Voguing" battles, evolved from New York's drag competitions called "Balls" between the 1960s and 1980s. It became a haven for LGBTQ+ individuals, where participants vogue, walk, pose, and support each other across various performance categories. Ballroom also serves as a platform to educate younger generations on political issues.

Precision, Elegance & Style: New Way can be summarized in three main qualities, but there is more.

New Way Vogue is a dynamic style that evolved from "Old Way," characterized by precision, geometric movements and stretches, emphasizing precision, style, and grace. This art form incorporates complex angles, boxes, lines, and illusions with the arms, wrists, and hands, drawing inspiration from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

New Way can be seen as a modern form of pantomime, showcasing extreme flexibility and poses inspired by haute couture fashion, gymnastics, ballet, martial arts, contortionists, and circus performers. All movement backgrounds are welcome to learn "New Way."

Class Details
Open to All Levels: While physically intense, this class welcomes participants of all levels.

Cultural Insight: To gain a deeper understanding of New Way, watch the documentary Paris is Burning, the show Pose, and ballroom videos. Check out Balls and Kikis in the scene; there are regular events in Zürich, Basel, Lausanne, Geneva, and Bern.

Focus Areas
The class emphasizes building stage presence for the ballroom, enhancing walk, expression, and storytelling.

Class Structure
The session includes an intensive warm-up, a short choreography, an improvisation segment closer to what you can expect if you walk on a Function