BIOGRAPHY
Billy Barry (New York, USA) and Gianni Notarnicola (Puglia, Italy) began their journey as co-creators while dancing together in the Batsheva Dance Company. Inspired by each other’s natural quirks and distinct movement languages, they began to develop a shared choreographic voice—merging their personal vocabularies into a new, playful physical language. He is currently serving as ballet faculty at SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance.
After creating several short works individually, they premiered their first collaborative piece, B.O.A.T.S (Based On A True Story), in March 2022. In 2023, they each presented solo works within a shared evening and premiered their second co-choreographed duet, G.O.A.T.S (Going On A Trip, Sis)—a half-evening piece debuted at the Tel Aviv Dance Festival, curated by Naomi Perlov. Their duet works, B.O.A.T.S and G.O.A.T.S, have been performed in a variety of venues and cities, including Varda Hall, Suzanne Dellal Hall, Tmuna Theatre, Habait Theatre, Tanzfaktur Cologne, Rotterdam, and Piacenza and recently performed at Umbria Dance Festival in Perugia and Kilowatt Festival in Sansepolcro.
CLASS DESCRIPTION
This workshop focuses on emotions and their physical manifestations, exploring how the
body can move from an emotion and how, through different materials and qualities of
movement, the body can also generate emotion from within.
We will play with the time of emotion, physically memorizing sensations until they become
embodied and integrated into movement. Once an emotion is assimilated, we will explore
how to increase or decrease its intensity, shift its rhythm, or make new choices to enrich and
expand the range of movements it can evoke.
Throughout the session, material will be created together with the dancers. We will
investigate movement language through improvisation, choreography, and movement codes
that can express emotional states, inner landscapes, or narrative structures.
The workshop aims to reach a state of freedom and availability through instinctive and
interactive tasks, both individually and in relation to others. Improvisation will be used as a
tool to practice being fully present, observing how the present moment shapes our ideas,
habits, and physical responses.
Participants will be invited to recognize and take ownership of their habits, using them as a
starting point to discover new possibilities and to observe how one idea can transform into
another. Through improvisation and choreographic exploration, we cultivate the awareness
that there are no bad ideas—only ideas that can be developed. There is no judgment. First
thought, best thought.
We will ask questions such as:
What moves us? What sparks us?
How does the body appear when we are excited, scared, confident, embarrassed, exhausted,
waiting, or bored?