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BAASE 2025

BAASE 2025

The Bay Area Axis Syllabus Exchange is back!

This year BAASE will be held at The Finnish Hall in Berkeley from June 24-29.

Register Now! Late Bird Full-Event Registration & Individual Drop-In Options available now until June 24!

Certified AS teachers not teaching at the event may attend for 50% off Standard All-Access Ticket and AS Teacher Candidates are offered 30% off Standard All-Access Ticket, respectively (Please use contact@team.nuriabowart.com to apply and to request discount code access)

Register Now!

The Bay Area has a long history of nurturing teachers of the Axis Syllabus.

BAASE is a chance for Bay Area and US West Coast Axis Syllabus Teachers and Teacher Candidates to share their research.

The Axis Syllabus is an evolving body of practical approaches, theoretical research, and pedagogical methods related to human movement. It is continually developed by an active international community and was originally initiated and written by the renowned American dancer, choreographer, and author Frey Faust.

AS draws on knowledge bases of biomechanics, anatomy, physics, Western medical sciences, physiology, anthropology, and empirical research. The Axis Syllabus explores anatomy in a dynamic, “alive” context, using dance and motion as investigative tools.

2025 BAASE Teachers

Nuria Bowart is a contemporary dancer, teacher and certifier of the Axis Syllabus, multifaceted performer, a mother and a Capoeira Mestra. She is the founder of a school for contemporary arts practices called the Field Center, as well as an afro brazilian arts center called the Berkeley Capoeira Collective (BCC). She has dedicated over two decades to teaching movement, performing, and working one on one with clients. Her movement work is embedded in her knowledge of anatomy and basic physical principles that help to create ease and efficiency. Her consistent commitment to practice and research, serves as a source of inspiration and discovery. Nuria is inspired to move through the energy of the places and people she is with.
Karola founded Alban Elved Dance Company (1994), SARUS Festival for Site-Specific & Experimental Art (2007), and MoRe Movement Research Festival & Summer School (2014). Merging American and European influences, their work is motivated by an inner need for expression as well as the notion that artists hold social responsibilities toward open and honest exchange and peaceful conviviality. For Karola, movement arts, as naturally investigative and immersive embodied-cognitive practices, are tremendously important to society, because they support moving toward free will, embodied liberation, and the decolonization of the psycho-physiological and the socio-political body. https://www.karolaluettringhaus.com
Emily Jones is a choreographer, dancer, movement teacher, and bodyworker based in Portland, Oregon. Emily is inspired by the ways the application of information from biomechanics, physics, and physiology can foster agency and inform movement possibilities for dancing bodies. Emily is invested in the upholding of clear consent practices and open communication in spaces of learning and collaboration. Emily makes interdisciplinary performances and is part of an ongoing artistic partnership with Hannah Krafcik. www.emilyannejones.com
Phoenicia Pettyjohn she/her- a longtime SF resident, movement artist, educator and certified Axis Syllabus teacher. She is faculty at the San Francisco Ballet School and teaching artist in the SF Ballet Dance in Schools and Communities Program. She is the rehearsal director/dramaturg for Catherine Galasso’s 10,000 Steps: A Dance About Its Own Making for ODC/Dance. Performance collaborators include Christy Funsch Dance, Catherine Galasso, Aura Fischbech, Jennifer Perfilio Movement Works and Risa Jaroslow. She has also worked with Miriam Wolordowski Sense Object, Rosemary Hannon, Susan Rethorst, Kira Kirsch and Honey McMoney among others and appeared in the works of Maguy Marin, David Dorfman, Neta Pulvermacher and Sara Shelton Mann. She is a longtime collaborator with Christy Funsch Dance, recently appearing in her 12 hour piece “Epoch”at ODC Theater and “Kid Subjunctive” at CounterPulse SF and New York City. 
Miranda is a long-time dancer with an extensive background in contact improvisation, acrobatics, and aerial dance. Since 2005 Miranda has been a teacher of the Axis Syllabus© as well as a certified Feldenkrais® practitioner. As a Pediatric Occupational Therapist for 35 years, she specializes in working with at-risk infants and children with neuro-muscular and sensory processing disorders. Currently, she is a MFA Candidate for Creative Writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Miranda is a story-teller weighted in the portrayal of the human condition whether on the page or the stage. She has a long history of collaborating with actors, dancers, musicians, circus artists, and improvisational performers as the Artistic Director of a theatrical aerial dance company, Mir & A Company. www.mirandacompany.com
Over the past 17 years, I have facilitated dance experiences in a variety of contexts, where I encourage a main focus of exploring new ways of understanding the body in movement through the knowledge that it already holds. Certified to teach the Axis Syllabus, I have been in alliance with its Research Network (ASRM) for over 10 years and am inspired by the pedagogical philosophy of learner-centered learning which is inherent to its community. I hold a Master's degree in dance from the Université de Québec àMontréal — a deep investigation of the expression "To Learn by Heart" — looking into possible relationships between the heart and meaningful, embodied learning in a dance class. These days, I am driven by the curiosity of how tradition, ancestry, territory and music live inside my dance

2025 BAASE Schedule

Tuesday 6.24.2025

3:15-5:15 pm | Teacher: Kerwin | Class: “To Learn By Heart” (1/4)

6:30-10:30 pm | CI Class and Jam @ Finnish Hall {Registration Not Required, Donation Time Of}

Wednesday 6.25.2025

9:00-11:00 am |Teacher: Nuria | Class: “The Logic of Support” (1/3)

11:15-1:15 pm | Teacher: Karola | Class: “The Spinal Engine: Transferring Motion Through The Pelvis” (1/1)

1:15-3:00 pm | Lunch

3:00-5:00 pm | Teacher: Kerwin | Class: “To Learn By Heart” (2/4)

7:00-9:00 pm | Potluck @ Location TBA

Thursday 6.26.2025

9:00-11:00am | Teacher: Nuria | Class: “The Logic of Support” (2/3)

11:15-1:15 pm | Lab Class with Marcus

1:15-3:00 pm | Lunch 

3:00-5:00 pm | Teacher: Kerwin | Class: “To Learn By Heart” (3/4)

6:30-10:30 pm| CI class and Jam @ Finnish Hall {Registration Not Required, Donation Time Of}

Friday 6.27.2025

9:00-11:00am | Teacher: Nuria | Class: “The Logic of Support” (3/3)

11:15-1:15 pm | Lab Class with Michelle

1:15-3:00 pm | Lunch

3:00-5:00 pm | Teacher: Kerwin | Class: “To Learn By Heart” (4/4)

6:00-9:00 pm | Outdoor dance party Oakland Days Like These @ Lake Merritt Pergola {Registration Not Required, Donation Time Of}

Saturday 6.28.2025

9:00-11:00 am | Teacher: Emily | Class: “The Space Between” (1/2)

11:15-1:15 pm | Teacher: Miranda | Class: “The Alchemy of Walking: Part I” (1/2)

1:15-3:00 pm | Lunch

3:00-5:00 pm | Teacher: Miranda | Class: “The Alchemy of Walking: Part II” (2/2)

7:00-9:00 pm | “The Thing:” A curated improvisational and not experimental performance sharing @ Finnish Hall {Registration Required, Suggested Donation $20}

Sunday 6.29.2025

9:00-11:00 am | Teacher: Emily | Class: “The Space Between” (2/2)

11:15-1:15 pm | Teacher: Phoenicia | Class: “Part and Parcel: Choreography as Research” (1/1)

1:15-2:15 pm | Closing Circle and Feedback

Register now!

Direct any questions to: contact@team.nuriabowart.com

Registration Information Here!