Category: Journal

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A New Work: A video dance made during the Coronavirus Pandemic

It’s been an odd year to be a performing artist. It’s also been an odd year to be a human. I’ve had more available time that ever this year to reflect on what my artistry is, what my personal aesthetic looks and feels like, and how I want to continue to share myself with the world. Enter this new work, created in these times, from these times, for these times.

A new camera dance work was in the making. This video dance premiered November 25th, 2020, and can be viewed here. Excited to share with you what creating has been like over the past 9 months.

The project was created by me this autumn, in true isolation fashion. No crew or other dancers, just me. My husband synthesized the music for the piece. All the video footage was self-shot using my iPhone, and the video clips edited and composed at home with iMovie. The setting, my community garden plot in Neenah, WI. The sunflowers, vegetables, plants, all grown and tended by my hands. A true, homemade project, that just is a reflection of our current realities, and that I hope speaks to you.

Creating is the part for me; the sharing is the part I hope feeds you. I hope you enjoy my new work “resisting phototropism”. Thank you for taking time to view. Consider messaging me to share any thoughts, reflections, or feelings on what comes up for you after viewing. This provides me with creative fuel.

–Keep pressing on, Courtney Anne Holcomb

For more insight into this work, you can read about a brief reflection I wrote and published in FSM. Magazine in the November 2020 issue .

FSM. Issue-7-November-2020Download
Stills from the video, for video viewing: https://vimeo.com/476344578
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The 920 Feature

I am so grateful to have been featured in the 920 Feature of the Appleton Monthly Magazine. This feature highlights people in the area that have unique jobs, passions, and interests. Learn more about what brought me to becoming a movement educator and Pilates instructor at the article below!

The 920 – Jan/Feb 2021

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What Brought Me to Pilates – Finding Mobility, my Manifesto

-Courtney Holcomb

I always knew the I was designed for movement.  Having been a dancer since age three, I loved the feeling of my body traveling through space.   It wasn’t until I was a preteen that I realized that my body was so much tighter that I wanted it to be.  Though I moved, I felt stiff, and when I tried to move more, it felt rigid. Being someone who has always dealt with chronic low back pain as well as stiffness/rigidness throughout my whole spine, I operated in the world for years thinking that this was “simply how I was created” and I would have to learn to endure through the pain my whole life, and then, I found Pilates, at age 15. 

Hamstring 3 Oblique Twist on the Pilates Chair

Through the consistent practice of Pilates I have been able to create more mobility in my spine than I ever though possible. With all of the movement principles of Pilates working together–breathing, core activation, neutral pelvis, abdominal strengthening, lumbo-pelvic stability, spinal strength and mobility, scapular strength and mobility, alignment and posture analysis, release work, and stretching–I have felt more length, mobility, and strength in my body and spine than ever before and I have been able release years of chronic tension from my muscles and skeleton. I now feel I have access to more space in my joints and spine and I continue to work towards opening and accessing more of my body each time I practice Pilates and dance.

Re-patterning the body does not happen overnight, but there is a great reward associated with creating new muscle memory that facilitates optimal anatomical efficiency throughout the body, producing a pathway to operate with a sense of ease and availability to movement. Whether it be in a dance class, performance, or just walking around, or standing for a long period of time, Pilates grants me the ability to move properly from the body’s natural design. Joseph Pilates, who created the system in the early 1920’s stated, “It’s not about what you do, but how you do it.” Or as my dad always says, “Train smarter, not harder.” Yes, we have to work with what we have, but this should not be limiting. We DO have the capacity to change and transform our bodies, with time, patience, and proper practice.

Now for myself personally, now have been practicing Pilates for over 11 years and remain as engaged in the practice as when I began. I continue to see and feel changes within my body and make new discoveries with every class I take. Now, as a fully Certified Pilates Instructor, I get to share my passion for movement with the world.  It’s so exciting to share Pilates with others through teaching and sharing in the joy that others experience when they make new discoveries in their own bodies. Transformation is something wonderful to celebrate.

For more information on Pilates practice, or to schedule a free consulation, please e-mail me at: courtney.anne.holcomb@gmail.com

I would love to share my work with you.

The Pilates Reformer

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Putting my Tap Shoes Back On! Point Tap Festival 2014

-Courtney Anne Holcomb

I just got back from Point Tap Festival 2014, a large tap-dancing Festival in non-other than Stevens Point, Wisconsin.  Famous tap dancers from all over the United States attend and teach master classes for the 3-day festival.  This year, we took classes from: Sara Reich, Mark Goodman, Ryan Casey, and Jeannie Hill.  Above is a picture from the master class with Ryan Casey.  

Those who do not know me well, would not understand what a feat attending this festival was for me.  I had two semester of tap in college, and cried for the beginning few weeks of each semester.  For me, as a dancer who loves to loft out of gravity, and be very upright, getting down and in gravity to perform tap weight-shifts, and tap movements always proved incredibly challenging for me.  I have always loved watching tap dancing, the musicality and percussive elements, and the groove of it all, but never had classified myself as a tap dancer.   This weekend I learned a lot of new techniques to help me along the way, and began to refine a lot of the rudimentary skills associated with tap dancing.  

This fall, I will be teaching beginning tap at the Renaissance School for the Arts High School, and am excited to transcend my new-found knowledge, and excitement about tap dancing.  Below is a video taken at the festival of Jeannie Hill, my former professor and tap dancer extraordinaire, and I doing the end of class combination.  A few errors from me, but oh so much fun!