W I N T E R I N T E N S I V E
2 0 2 6
JANUARY 5 - 9
Centennial Performing Arts Studios
Nashville, TN
Designed for advanced & professional dance artists ages 18+
I N V I T A T I O N
Join our founding artistic director + resident choreographer, Banning Bouldin, and members of New Dialect in a weeklong contemporary movement exploration rooted in community building, collaboration, and experimental interdisciplinary creative process.
M O R N I N G S
Each day begins with a group circle, where participants and New Dialect team members connect with each other in the round before warming up with an hour-long movement practice in Gyrokinesis® or Functional Patterns.
Warm up is followed by a two-hour workshop, Communal Research Practice, where Banning guides dancers in the improvisation modalities, movement generation games, and nonbinary partnering skills they use to create new works.
A F T E R N O O N S
Dancers who register for full days or the full intensive spend the afternoon with Banning in a creative process workshop
based on her latest work 21 Yeses.
Building on the tools from Communal Research Practice dancers will explore the lighting and production design elements used to create the interdisciplinary choreography for 21 Yeses.
Participants will practice sculpture building, partnering, and soloing with wireless LED tube lights as part of our choreographic exploration—experimenting with their own lighting design preferences and building production design skills in the process.
Shabaz Ujima, Madison Brott and Lenin Fernandez performing 21 Yeses
Banning in rehearsal for 21 Yeses with Lenin Fernandez, Shabaz Ujima, Madison Brott, and Emma Morrison.
W O R K S H O P S
January 5 - 9
Banning with Whim W’Him
communal research practice
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Communal Research practice
10:45am - 12:45pm
In this class we will think together with our whole bodies—collectively expanding toward unknowns in our shared movement practice. We will write, we will talk, and we will move through various improvisation modalities to generate immediate self portraits, explore nonbinary partnering skills, and deconstruct contemporary phrase work to reveal new possibilities.
January 5 - 9
creative process
21 Yeses
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21 Yeses
Creative Process Workshop
1:45-3:45pm
Register for full week or full days and engage with Banning in a daily, two-hour creative process workshop based on her latest work 21 Yeses.Building on the tools from Communal Research Practice we will explore the lighting and production design elements used to create the interdisciplinary choreography for 21 Yeses, where the performers’ movements generate the lighting design for the piece.
Workshop participants will practice sculpture building, partnering, and soloing with wireless LED tube lights as part of our choreographic exploration—experimenting with their own lighting design preferences and building production design skills in the process.
by Andrea Behrends
ABOUT BANNING
Banning is a choreographer, educator, community organizer, and published scholar with over two decades of international dance experience.
A graduate of the Juilliard School, she is the founder and artistic director of New Dialect, where she has created several works beloved by audiences and hailed by critics, such as The Triangle and 21 Yeses, in addition to choreographic commissions for Whim W’Him, Gibney Dance Company, Northwest Dance Project, Groundworks Dance Theatre, Visceral Dance Chicago, and many others.
Banning’s research explores adaptive choreographic structures and community-driven practices that are informed by her lived experience with disability, femme empowerment, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Her essay “Causing A Scene” wherein she tells the story of founding New Dialect in Nashville was recently published by the National Center for Choreography, as part of their new collection of essays Artists on Creative Administration.
Sign up for unlimited access to the full intensive
or join for individual classes/workshops
R E G I S T E R
Full Week
5 days | 9am - 4pm
includes everything + the complete 21 Yeses Creative Process experience
$500
Full Day
Drop in for any combination of single days
9am - 4pm
includes group circle + warm up + Communal Research Practice + 21 Yeses Creative Process workshop
$100
Half Day
Drop in for the first half of the day
9am - 12:45pm
includes group circle + warm up + Communal Research Practice
$60
Warm up
9am - 10:30am
includes group circle + warm up class
$20
C A L E N D A R
<<<< ALL TIMES ARE CDT >>>>
BIPOC FREE ACCESS FUND
Through our programming and partnerships, we aim to make active strides toward racial equity in our communities and to support Black and Indigenous artists in our field.
To this end, we offer the BIPOC Free Access Fund—a matching funds program that supports Black, Indigenous, and artists of color with full tuition support to our Winter Intensive 2026 sessions. 50% of each registration purchase will automatically be used to support this fund.
Grants will be awarded to applicants on a match-for-match, first come first serve basis.
THE APPLICATION DEADLINE FOR WINTER INTENSIVE 2026 ACCESS FUND IS OCTOBER 24.
If you would like to make a contribution to support free and discounted tuition for BIPOC artists, please donate to the Access Fund here.
PHYSICAL THERAPY
P3 - Precision Physical Therapy & Pilates has been taking care of New Dialect since the beginning.
Should you need care, we highly recommend Heather Herod Cole and her staff.
Their office is located within walking distance of our studio.
Click here for general info about P3 or visit p3nashville.com
Winter Intensive 2026 is made possible through the generous grant support of
21 Yeses was commissioned By
TRACEY FORD
and produced with the help of
