Movement Research

🍂🌞 Movement Research | Sep 28 - Oct 4 - https://mailchi.mp/movementresearch/2026-weekly-schedule-sep-28-oct-4

Photo by Rachel Keane.

🍂 Movement Research Schedule: Sep 28 - Oct 4, 2026 | Classes, workshops, and events!

Register TODAY on our website: movementresearch.org or view our weekly newsletter

First time taking a class with MR? Please review our locations page on our website before you join us: https://movementresearch.org/classes-and-events/locations/

🍂 Events this week:
Join us for MR FRIENDS NIGHT on Mon!
RSVP for Studies Project happening on Tue!

💻 All virtual classes take place in (EDT).

🌱 Please note all Physical Inquiries & Somatic classes will take place at 280 Broadway

Save on classes and purchase an MR class card!
Class Cards: A 10-class card is available
for $160, or $16/class. Class cards can be used for any classes labeled “class card eligible.” OR ⏥ on our weekly schedule released every Friday. Class cards are nonrefundable and expire 6 months after the purchase date. If you encounter any issues with purchasing or using your class card, please email [email protected]

🥳 Open Performance returns in October! Mark your calendar for Oct 6!!

Visit our website and subscribe to our newsletter for more information: https://movementresearch.org/events/series/open-performance/

🎉 What is Open Performance?
A program of non-curated shared showings of experimentation and work-in-process, for artists at all stages of their development selected through a randomized lottery. The events are centered around a moderated discussion between the artists and audience providing an opportunity to experiment with different feedback methods to support and inform the artists’ process.

All events are held on Tuesdays at 7pm at the Movement Research Studios at 150 First Avenue, New York, NY 10009.

🍂 Fall 2026 dates:
Oct 6, 20
Nov 3, 17
Dec 1, 8

[ID: 2019 Open Performance; audience members watching a dancer holds a handstand in the MR Studio. Photo by Harry Shunyao Zhang.]

📚 Events at Movement Research | Studies Project: Root Work – Mapping Our Black Dance Lineage with Black Dance Change Makers

Learn more and RSVP by visiting our website: https://movementresearch.org/events/1450/ or click on the

When: Tue, Sep 29, 2026 | 6:30-8pm
Location: MR Studios, 122CC (150 First Avenue)
Price: Donation-based ($5 suggested) | Spaces are limited and RSVP Required!

For the first Studies Project of the Fall 2026 season, Black Dance Change Makers returns to MR to offer Root Work, an interactive workshop that invites participants to trace, map, and celebrate their personal and collective lineage through dance. Drawing on the work of Black feminist scholars like Sylvia Wynter’s call to undo the stories that overrepresent a narrow version of the human, and the understanding of Black history as lived and non-linear by Christina Sharpe and Saidiya Hartman, we center Black dance lineage as a counter-narrative. Our lineage is woven through memory, movement, mentorship, and community. It’s the people, spaces, and traditions that shaped us.

Facilitated by Black Dance Change Makers, this workshop invites you to ask:
Who taught you to dance? Who taught them? Whose shoulders are you standing on? And what does it mean to carry that forward?

We gather to say their names, and to trace what has always been moving, even when it wasn’t being recorded.

We come from deep roots. The seeds planted before us are still sprouting in us.

(ID and photo credit in the comments/alt text.)

[ID: Black dancers at the BDCM Summer Untensive lean over a large floor poster, writing notes and adding sticky notes as they map their Black dance lineage together in community. Photo by Martin Nuñez-Bonilla.]

🤩 Open Performance returns Oct 6! - https://mailchi.mp/movementresearch/2026-open-performance-fall-artists

2019 Open Performance. Photo by Harry Shunyao Zhang.

📚 Events at Movement Research | Studies Project: Root Work – Mapping Our Black Dance Lineage with Black Dance Change Makers

Learn more and RSVP by visiting our website: https://movementresearch.org/events/1450/ or click on the

When: Tue, Sep 28, 2026 | 6:30-8pm
Location: MR Studios, 122CC (150 First Avenue)
Price: Donation-based ($5 suggested) | Spaces are limited and RSVP Required!

For the first Studies Project of the Fall 2026 season, Black Dance Change Makers returns to MR to offer Root Work, an interactive workshop that invites participants to trace, map, and celebrate their personal and collective lineage through dance. Drawing on the work of Black feminist scholars like Sylvia Wynter’s call to undo the stories that overrepresent a narrow version of the human, and the understanding of Black history as lived and non-linear by Christina Sharpe and Saidiya Hartman, we center Black dance lineage as a counter-narrative. Our lineage is woven through memory, movement, mentorship, and community. It’s the people, spaces, and traditions that shaped us.

Facilitated by Black Dance Change Makers, this workshop invites you to ask:
Who taught you to dance? Who taught them? Whose shoulders are you standing on? And what does it mean to carry that forward?

We gather to say their names, and to trace what has always been moving, even when it wasn’t being recorded.

We come from deep roots. The seeds planted before us are still sprouting in us.

(ID and photo credit in the comments/alt text.)

[ID: Event graphic: Black dancers at the BDCM Summer Untensive lean over a large floor poster, writing notes and adding sticky notes as they map their Black dance lineage together in community. Photo by Martin Nuñez-Bonilla.
Bio photo: Smiling portrait of Antuan in a beige button-up, hands adjusting the collar, warm window light on a neutral wall. Photo by Nick Suarez.
Bio photo: Close-up portrait of Alysia with slicked-back hair and large hoop earrings, gazing left in soft studio light. Photo by Kevin Michael Briggs.]

🥳MR@Judson returns next week!! Join us for MR FRIENDS NIGHT!!

Join us for Movement Research at Judson Church! Click our for more info or visit: https://movementresearch.org/events/1468/

When: Mon, Sep 28 | 7pm, doors open at 6:30pm
Price: By donation, no RSVP required!
Location: Judson Memorial Church (Please enter at 243 Thompson St.)

Featured Artists:
🥳Oda Brekke (MRX/Sweden)
🥳Andrea Muñiz
🥳Mona Namér (MRX/Sweden)

What is Movement Research at the Judson Church?
A free, high visibility low-tech forum for experimentation, emerging ideas, and works-in-progress held in the Fall and Spring seasons. Artists are selected by a rotating committee of peer artists, and join Movement Research Artists-In-Residence and international guests each season in performing at the historic Judson Church.

MR FRIENDS NIGHT!!
At the start and end of each season of Movement Research at the Judson Church, we celebrate the MR FRIENDS: the members of our community that donate to our legacy of artist-led and artist-driven programming, enabling our community to continue growing while empowering all that we do! On September 28, 2026, be sure to stop by the MR FRIENDS booth during the MR@Judson Monday Night to start or renew your FRIENDSHIP and receive special one-night-only perks with any MR FRIENDS donation level!

Mona Namér and Oda Brekke are 2026 Movement Research Exchange Artists, made possible through The International Dance Programme at Konstnärsnämnden/Swedish Arts Grants Committee.

[ID and photo credits: Cover image: Paul supports a dancer as they lay over Paul's back. Paul stands in a deep squat. Photo by Rachel Keane. 2026 MR@Judson; Paul Singh. Photo by Rachel Keane.

Oda Brekke bio image: Selfie of white young person. Up close and underneath perspective. Wearing black jacket in a green outdoor environment. Serious frowning face, short dark blond hair covering one eye. Photo by Oda Brekke.

Andrea Muñiz bio image: A close-up portrait of Andrea with a long dark wig and heavy theatrical makeup under dramatic blue and magenta stage lighting. Their face is scrunched into an exaggerated pout, with furrowed brows and downturned lips, conveying sadness, disappointment, and melodrama. Photo by Sanchez Productions.

Mona Namér bio image: Dancer sitting on a white high podium in a dance studio with white walls - dramatic shadows in the room. Photo by Senay Berhe.

MR FRIENDS infographics followed by the MR@Judson season dates on a photo of 2026 Spring MR@Judson; Valentina Baché performing in a white skirt; she is mid twirl with her hand to their chest and the other gesturing palm faced up. Photo by Rachel Keane.]

🍂 Movement Research Fall Events returns TONIGHT! -

🍂 Movement Research Fall Events returns TONIGHT! The AoCC meets every second Saturday and is looking to expand their reach for the 2026-2027 year. Artists of Color do not have to apply to be part of the AoCC, just show up and engage. Artists of Color are invited to join the Artists of Color Council monthly meetings by registering for desired d...

🌐TOMORROW!! | RSVP for GPS Chats: Reports from the Field – Dancing Feminist Kin-aesthetics with luciana achugar

Learn more and RSVP by visiting our website: https://movementresearch.org/events/1449/ or click on the

When: Tue, Sep 22 | 6:30-8pm
Location: MR Studios, 150 First Avenue
Price: Donation-based ($5 suggested) | Spaces are limited and RSVP Required!

This event is part of a yearlong celebration of the 10th Anniversary of the GPS program at Movement Research!

The GPS Chats: Reports from the Field series returns in the Fall 2026 season with luciana achugar sharing a presentation about her GPS Project “Dancing Feminist Kin-aesthetics”, hosted by New Dramaturgies Platform in Sofia, Bulgaria, Lokomotiva – Centre for New Initiatives in Arts and Culture in Skopje, North Macedonia, and Nomad Dance Academy in Ljubljana, Slovenia. luciana will share her experiences teaching and offering lectures on her work and the origins and ideology of her practice. In dialogue with local artists she also learned about other artists' practices and will share her perceptions of the social, cultural, and artistic landscape from a subjective and non scholarly perspective.

luciana achugar is a Brooklyn-based choreographer from Uruguay who grew as an artist in close dialogue with the NY and Uruguayan contemporary dance communities. Her work is concerned with the post-colonial world, searching for an undoing of current power structures from the inside out. In her work the theater is a space for Utopia; Utopia is a practice; Practice is Ritual; Ritual is Devotion; Devotion is Dance; Dance is Alchemy; and Alchemy is growing oneself a new body with a practice of being in Pleasure. She is a two-time “Bessie” Award recipient, a Guggenheim Fellow, Herb Alpert Award recipient, Creative Capital Grantee and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grantee, amongst other accolades; most recently she received a 2022 USA Doris Duke Fellowship... (learn more on our website!)

[ID: luciana standing by a graffiti in Ljubljana, Slovenia, She has wide legged jeans and birkenstock sandals a Mexican Chiapas embroidered shirt with an open jean jacket on top. She has a big smile dark sunglasses and pink hair pulled back. The graffiti is in Slovenian: "skinimi ses picke" Translates roughly to "Get these pu***es off me". Photo by Melanie Maar. Bio photo: Portrait from waist up of middle age light skinned luciana achugar, femme with long hair below breasts with dyed red ends and brown hair with some grey hairs on top, half pony tail. luciana's arms are bent, hands hidden resting in back of waist, elbows pointing back. eyes looking straight at the camera with red lipstick stained lips; Some wrinkles around mouth and between eyebrows. Photo by Scott Shaw. ]

🍂 BEGINS NEXT WEEK! | Morning Class: Cypher Practices with Marguerite Hemmings

For more info each class and to register visit our full calendar via the or visit: https://movementresearch.org/classes/3066/

When: Mon & Fri | Sep 28, Oct 2, 9 | 10am - 12pm
Price: $18/Card eligible
Location: MR Studios (150 First Avenue)

About this class:
Cypher Practices is a class focusing on the cypher as a space of study. Marguerite will lead us in exercises that activate technologies of the cypher; entrance/exit, witness/witnessed, circle/spiral, amplify/conceal, receive/emit etc etc. Our goal is to let the durational practice of the cypher lead us into material for choreography and intentional responses to the moment. Each class’s cypher will have a theme that affects which prompts we use and what kind of music is played. Marguerite generally pulls from music and dance techniques of the African Diaspora, but will experiment based on the energy.

What to expect:
Participants will be led in different improvisational exercises where they will be witnessing and witnessed. We will engage in discussion to talk about what we experienced. And lastly Marguerite will lead us in choreographic experiments based on what comes up. All skill levels are welcome.

About the Artist:
Marguerite Hemmings specializes in emergent, improvisational and social movement styles and technologies. They research the subversive role of dance and music throughout the African Diaspora and channel this research through performance, body, text, social/public media, and moving image. Hemmings’ work is also embedded in alternative pedagogy and social practice/research and they have worked at University of the Arts in the School of Dance, Arizona State University, Princeton University, and many afterschool programs and community centers.

[ID: Class image: Marguerite's head is tilted back with eyes closed as she dances in front of a projection of Black youth dancing. Image by Scott Shaw. Bio image: A black and white photo of a deep cocoa skinned person with locs pulled back in a messy bun looking at the camera with a serious and soft expression. Photo by Dante Napoli.]