David is an active professional artist and teacher, performing and conducting master classes and residencies at universities throughout the United States and abroad. He has been a guest instructor at Utah Repertory Dance Theatre Summer Dance Workshop, The Brickyard in Mutiyanu China, Movement Arts and Design in Europe (MADE) in France, Tsinghua University in Beijing China, Beijing Modern Dance Company, American Dance Festival, University of Iowa, University of Illinois, Chicago Academy of the Arts, Stephens College Winona State University, Purdue, University of Northern Colorado, Scripps and Pomona College. master classes and guest residency activities
David has staged dances for Utah Reperoty Dance Theatre, Dance Repertory San Francisco, Suzanne Grace & Dancers, Purdue Dance Company, Western Illinois University, Scottsdale Community College, Chicago Academy of the Arts, University of Northern Colorado, and University of Iowa’s touring company. He has been commissioned to create new work for Missouri Contemporary Ballet, Atrek Dance Collective and Winona State University. His choreography has been selected six times by a jury of professional peers for encore performances at the American College Dance Festival Regional Conferences, and the National Conference in 1996.
ZOMotion Arts is a project created by David Marchant and Holly Seitz Marchant, investigating the beauty of human aesthetic motion in natural spaces. Our mission is to bring attention to the symbiotic relationship between living beings. As a person breathes out, a tree breathes in. As the tree breathes out, a person breathes in. Our existence is intimately tied to these ancient beings. We hope to foster awareness of the beauty and movement of trees and other natural landscapes.
Many people are interested in learning how to develop more awareness and control in their activities. F.M. Alexander (1869-1955) demonstrated that the difficulties many people experience in learning, in control of performance, and in physical functioning are caused by unconscious habits. These habits interfere with your natural poise and your capacity to learn. When you stop interfering with the innate coordination of the body, you can take on more complex activities with greater self-confidence and presence of mind.
The Alexander Technique provides a concrete means for overcoming these impeding habits, and for helping people learn better and do things more freely — from learning to play a musical instrument better to moving with more comfort and ease through your daily life. From back pain to learning blocks, whether you are a musician or an office worker, Alexander lessons remain fundamentally the same: You are guided through simple movements and learn to develop more control in your activities.
The Alexander Technique, however, is not a therapy that treats a passive patient. It is for the person interested in working towards his or her goals with increased awareness and practical intelligence. Although the Alexander Technique does not treat specific symptoms, you can encourage a marked improvement in overall health, alertness, and performance by consciously eliminating harmful habits that cause physical and emotional stress, and by becoming more aware of how you engage in your activities. American educational philosopher John Dewey, Nobel-prize-winning scientist Nikolaas Tinbergen, Aldous Huxley, George Bernard Shaw, and many others have recognized the Alexander Technique as an effective aid in improving physical and psychological well-being.
©NASTAT, Inc. 1988
(North American Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique)
December
” Another Highlight was December, a solo by David Marchant of Washington University in St. Louis, who instructed the audience to listen to the sound score, the sound of breathing, and to close their eyes on every exhale and open them on every inhale. The result was an organic strobe effect that Marchant used brilliantly.”
— Shelley Maser, Dance Magazine
“…a marvel of ingenuity…. If you did it right, you experienced an odd strobe effect…. When your eyes opened, his position had changed. He made a rose “disappear,” then reappear and then die.”
— Sally Cragin, Riverfront Times
“…one of the true standouts was Marchant’s “December,” a piece, that at least to this reviewer, read as cyclical – indicative not only of the seasons, but of one’s life. Beginning at front left stage, Marchant worked his way around to wind up under snowfall, first fearful, then embracing it, before returning to front left to seemingly open a door to the unknown.
The key to his evocative performance, however, was the audience participation; the soundtrack played inhales and exhales, code for opening and shutting one’s eyes, respectively. And there was an added effect: As the visceral breathing increased and decreased in tempo, the emotional associated with those kicked in—fear, calm, peace, frustration. As the audience looked on when cued, the performance became a series of moving photographs, glimpses from a life—and only those which Marchant chose to share with them.”
–Krystin Arenson, Alive Magazine
Losing Hi(s)tory
“What would it be like to live life backwards, seeing the past as the future? …moving and speaking his impressive text…David Marchant took that voyage to chilling, unforgettable effect in ‘Losing Hi(s)tory’”
Jennifer Dunning, Dance Critic for the New York Times
“This piece confirms the high wit of Marchant and supports the intelligence of his work. His inimitable style abandons verticality, trusting the laws of physics for equilibrium.”
— Mary Ann Rund, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“… the second section of dance is a symmetrical reverse of the first, even down to a counterclockwise run about the stage to match an earlier clockwise run. Framed in between is a long, beautifully spoken, ingenious conceit that the dance lyrically mimes. Marchant seemed as subdued as the lighting he chose, but ‘Hi(s)tory’ is actually a tour de force of performance art—costly of emotion and experience…”
— Harry Weber, Riverfront Times
Atrek Contemporary Dance: Decadance
“…the troupe exemplifies what’s exciting, innovative and emotionally resonant about modern dance. Angela Culbertson de Benevides, David Marchant, and guest performer Janis Brenner simply dazzle…”
–Sally Cragin, Riverfront Times
Right Through You
“Benevides and Marchant squared off and then marched, strode or actually ran at each other before ricocheting. Violent and passionate each time, once was a surprise, five times was unsettling and a dozen times was just hypnotic…”
–Sally Cragin, Riverfront Times
“Particularly effective was Right Through You… The dynamics of combining percussion accompaniment with what appeared to be simply walking and body-slamming developed into an exciting and complex performance.”
–Nathalie Le Vine
Naked: an evening of Improvisations
“Culbertson and Marchant have incredible presence. They both have an “aura” about them that is more than just the sum of their talent and Physical proportions.”
–Intermission
We’re All Naked Under Our Clothes
“…the best received piece of the evening…a pedestrian mix of modern, jazz, and strength, Marchant’s laughable yet pitiable character entered carrying a small suitcase…In a Willy Lohman-esque way, the suitcase was a metaphor for life: The emptier it got the more of burden it was to carry.”
— The Daily Iowan
BitterSuite
“…an impressive solo, BitterSuite…countered weighty, speedy, masculine moves with exquisitely sensitive hand and arm moves… The result was striking….”
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Here was a depth that was soulful and moving…Earthbound, intense and precise… each movement lingered as if creating ripples in my mind that kept repeating even after it was finished.”
— Jan Eigner, Intermission
Life Boat
“Other Highlights included… ‘Life Boat,’ created and performed by a sharply precise Mr. Marchant and by Angel Mendez, whose big, powerful body moved like melting taffy.”
— Jennifer Dunning, Dance Critic for the New York Times
“Life Boat, …a highly charged pas de deux for men…[Marchant and Mendez] danced it full-out in a tense, restrained manner that made it all the more powerful.”
— Harry Weber, Riverfront Times
“…Marchant communicates eloquently through his dance and choreography. His body speaks articulately and his compositions are structured with a similar precision. The lasting impression [of Life Boat] however, was not the weight of the leap or the strength of the catch. It was the lightness with which they moved and the gentleness with which they touched, that lingered.”
— Jan Eigner, Intermission
Velvet Lullaby
“His fingers moved, weaving soft, meandering designs in the air. In random moments he lovingly cradled the unseen…the effect was profoundly tender and fleeting.”
— Brenda Shoss, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Nos In Unum
“In David Marchant’s ‘Nos in Unum,’ detailed gestures accompanied lush fall-and-recover movements to suggest a theme of suffering and deliverance…. Maybe. One is never sure about Marchant’s work, since he typically invites audiences to interpret his dances from a personal perspective. Movement-wise, Marchant’s lean steps logically flowed from one to the other. …deftly executed.”
— Brenda Shoss, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“I am usually uncomfortable with dance set to liturgical music, but Marchant did more than simply respect the Gregorian chant and polyphony as music; he responded to the words of worship in the text. …powerful but controlled as the nun in contemplation that Wordsworth compares to a flag stretched taut in the wind.”
— Harry Weber, the Riverfront Times
Following is a list of classes/workshops that I offer for guest residencies, masterclasses and workshops. Each can be done as single, stand-alone classes, or expanded over a series of classes for more depth.
Technique
I have developed a coordinative movement technique I call “Quadruped,” which applies principles of the Alexander Technique and the Dart Procedures to a low-level, “four-footed” dance style that refines whole bodymind, integrally coordinated strength and dynamic movement skills.
Improvisation
I teach various improv forms, including contact improvisation. I perform improvisation as a concert form, so I teach and/or demonstrate what I prefer to call “spontaneous composition.”
Alexander Technique
I am an AmSAT certified teacher of the work and can do various presentations/classes on this. I am also interested in sharing how the language I use to direct/correct students has changed from this point of view (see “Speaking of Dance” below).
Experiential investigations
These are guided perceptual experiences toward shifted states of awareness. It is my feeling that dance, in addition to being a visual art to see and a form of expression/communication, is also an incredible way to meditate, to experience/know yourself and the environment. When we move-think differently, we experience Self and “the world” in ways that can expand our meaning of “reality,” illuminating the nature of the self/not-self boundary. For the performing dancer, I find these experiences develop sensitivity, awareness and presence.
Vision and Motion Workshop
A technique for the dancer’s visual focus that helps them to improve movement quality, clarity, and weight. This method examines visual perception and offers a set of “focal modalities,” or visual choices that best take advantage of our physiology to coordinate our movement.
Technique Topic focus classes
Addressing a technical concept, like “control,” “balance,” “line/design” or “strategies for learning movement” (many possibilities here depending on what is interesting, relevant in your other classes).
Speaking of Dance: The Language of Teaching
A workshop forum for all teachers and those interested in teaching dance to share, compare and re-investigate how we speak of dancing and how our language, spoken or thought affects movement. I introduce the subject from the perspective of the Alexander Technique and its approach to proper alignment and optimal coordination of movement. Open to teachers of any style or genre of dance training.
Lec/Dem/Performance
I perform conventional, theatrical dances, and I also do naturally situated movement performances. In particular, I have developed tree-climbing as a performance form.
Lectures
I have several lectures, on topics such as touch deprivation in American culture, Phenomenological approach to dancing, and Movement as a form of thought.