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celebrating who you are

What is Performance Analysis? It is taking a look at how you move and receiving feedback on ways you can improve, and be more dynamic, authentic or present. You are connected with resources and tools to assist you in this evolution.

Performance Analysis or Performance Assessment may include energy work like Reiki, Rosen Method, Laban or acupressure. You dance or perform while a performance analyst watches.

A performance analyst is trained as a dancer, has had experience teaching, and also has developed special skills in looking at the body and knowing where movement comes from as well as how it is conveyed.

At Embrace Your Magic, Melanie A. Stinson, LMT, RMT, ACCTP is a performance analyst. She and Michael Ellison offer sessions to help dancers embrace their magic, embody light, perform life and celebrate who they are. Michael is a kind of performance analyst and that forms part of what he does.

How is Performance Analysis different from dance criticism? Performance Analysis is a term coined by a dancer, Melanie, as a way to support dancers and performers at any level of experience. Most often, it is a bio-energetic assessment… how energy is used, how it flows through the body and from the inside out, and whether a performer is conveying what s/he intends.

“I have had dancers come to me and say, “I can’t get through a performance. Can you take a look and see what I’m doing that’s hanging me up?” Melanie says. “A good coach can help a dancer in this way, too. We’re both guides and personal teachers.”

Sometimes dancers hold their breath. Sometimes a dancer is doing steps with no awareness of how to convey a sense of presence or character. At other times, a dancer is gesturing (perhaps flinging the arms or legs). That dancer may have no concept of how to change the experience the audience receives.

A performance analyst in these kinds of situations is like a teaching associate who says, “You’re doing gestures as you’ve been directed. However, what are those gestures intended to convey and where are they coming from inside you?” A performance analyst may help the teacher/choreographer or artistic director clarify what they wish to convey and explore different methods of achieving this.

Performance Analysis can be conducted in the studio (with the cooperation of teachers and directors), and in private sessions, before a dance competition or series of performances, or added to a workshop.