Teaching
Connecting to self, other and community
With over 15 years of teaching experience, I bring pedagogical training as well as my own artistic practice to each class.
Catch a glimpse of Contemplative Groove class and Deeper Groove Sessions
Trailer for Victoria’s contemporary class
Workshops & Specials:
Connecting Thread - Performance Project in the intersection of dance & textile handcraft.
Date & Time: January 5, 2026-February 11, 2026 / Mondays & Wednesdays 20.00-22.00
Showing: Wednesday 11.02.26 at 21.00 / Level: Open
If you are curious what movement and sewing/knitting/crocheting/weaving might have in common and want to explore our relationship to textiles in a creative process, then this performance project is for you!
Description: Connecting Thread unfolds out of the ambivalent necessity for tension and stretch in the dancing body, textile handcrafts and the social fabric. In this project, we seek potential similarities between the body, human tissues, and material tissues, to create dynamic textures of movement, to sculpt space with fabric and moving bodies, and to connect people across differences.
Victoria guides participants through her artistic research and the creative process from ideation to performing including observation, reflection and embodying gestures of sewing, knitting, and weaving to build dance phrases. We explore not only physicality, but also our layered relationships with clothing, fabric and the people involved in textile labour. We ask, where is the delicate balance between resistance which enables sewing or dance and that which blocks it? How can the tension between tradition and innovation, or nonconformity, become productive rather than divisive? In this performance project, the body and its stories become the connecting thread between abstract dance and concrete textiles, between heritage and more expansive futures.
Video Trailer from Contemporary Dance Intensive - Kunstdünger Sommerakademie July 2024
Teaching Philosophy
No matter what I am teaching, my eye is on relationship, on in-between spaces, connections. Whether professional training or beginning students, I cultivate awareness of self and others, body and space. My classes are thoughtfully structured to lead participants through warmup, elements of technique, improvisation, and, when appropriate, learning phrase work. Always connecting mind and body in order to expand dance vocabulary, my aim is for participants to investigate physical textures and individual movements as equally as experiencing healthy alignment and moving efficiency, so we can enjoy the full range of dynamics in any dance technique.
DEEPER GROOVE SESSION - next one coming soon!
Deeper Groove Session offers the chance to go deeper into the embodied mindfulness and joyful physicality by bringing together elements of contemporary dance practice, yoga, task-based improvisation, movement research, dancing in clubs, and meditative practice.
For this workshop-style format we divide the time into mini-sessions and move through different themes to create more space for exploration and re/connecting with the body, to your sense of creative flow and cultivating awareness of self and others.
By tuning in to thought patterns and to bodily sensations while moving and dancing, the workshop develops the idea of listening as a corporeal and mental practice. We will attune to our own body first and then we can broaden our awareness outwards into the space and towards others. Elements of dance technique emerge as a vehicle for exploring an idea and submerge again in improvisation. Reflecting and exchanging are equally part of the process through pauses between movement sessions as well as writing prompts, one-on-one dialogues or group chats.
DETAILS:
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Kunstdünger Sommerakademie, July 2024. Photo — Victoria McConnell
Course Descriptions
Victoria's Contemporary class begins with guided improvisation to activate somatic awareness and center the body. The class continues to move through both task-based and sensory improvisation as well as structured exercises for functionality and coordination, emphasizing alignment and engaging large muscle groups while flowing in and out of the floor. Weaving improvisation with technique, Victoria’s class progresses through space with spirals, floorwork and turns. Exploration meets short sequences to integrate improvisation with more complex movements. Bringing all these elements together Victoria's class often culminates in integrating individual movement qualities into a structured phrase.
Contemplative Groove is a movement experience where all are welcome. No matter what your background — whether you dance in clubs, do ballet, or don’t dance — you can join. This class is designed to be a welcoming space for all who are curious about mindfulness, like to move, or want to dance up a sweat. In Contemplative Groove, Victoria brings together her training and experience in contemporary dance, yoga, improvisation, and meditative practices to offer a joyful guided-flow.