Class Description

In this three-week session, you will learn tools to create movement and dance from your personal stories. Using writing/storytelling prompts and choreographic practices for translating memories and experiences into movement, we will create short dances to be shared virtually at the end of the session. This course is open to anyone interested in using movement to tell their story--no experience in dance or choreography necessary. Class can be taken seated or standing. About the teaching artist: Sarah Ramey is a dance artist focused on building community through dance and music. Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Sarah now makes her home in Columbus, Ohio with her husband, musician Steve Ramey, and their two children. Sarah is passionate about providing older adults opportunities to develop their creative skills and maintain their physical health. In 2015, with funding from an Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, she created a dance program for adults over 50. Now known as Perennial Movement Group, the program includes weekly online and in-person classes and opportunities for local participants to teach and perform in retirement communities and other venues. Sarah’s approach to teaching and art-making is heavily influenced by her six years as a dancer and choreographer with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, a Washington, DC based intergenerational dance company whose members ranged in age from mid-20s to mid-70s. With Dance Exchange, she originated roles in new work and toured extensively with the company to perform, teach, and create dances with people of all ages and backgrounds. She continues to work with the company as a guest teacher. Her own choreographic work has been presented on the small scale (her front yard) and the large scale (The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts). Sarah’s work, which frequently includes text/song, explores the joys and aches of life on this earth, and the longings that make us look inward and outward and upward for meaning. Currently, she is exploring motherhood through the solo “mamamama,” first presented by the Columbus Dance Alliance and performed on Instagram live from Sarah’s kitchen in October 2020.Sarah received her BA in Dance from the University of Maryland, College Park, and her MFA from The Ohio State University.