I teach dance classes, Feldenkrais classes, and dance+live performance composition classes and workshops. I have been a certified Feldenkrais practitioner since June 2011, and find that what and how I teach is more and more influenced by this work and way of thinking. I also see clients privately for one-on-one Feldenkrais sessions - feel free to email me if this is of interest to you.
Beginning/Intermediate Adult Ballet
These ongoing class/labs are fun, relaxed, but very serious explorations of ballet based on my understanding of the Corvino approach, which I have been exploring for the last 30+ years. In small classes with a relaxed learning atmosphere and personal attention, I work on the fundamentals of this classical western technique, alignment, and principles of movement, with an emphasis on clarity and ease, so that my students can experience the joy of movement embodied in ballet as well as the satisfaction of understanding the principles governing it. Using a quiet eye, an open mind, and Feldenkrais principles, I also try to carefully untangle the illusions, noxious rigidities, and patriarchal underpinnings this highly complex movement form has developed over its 500 year life, so that its wealth of information about the physics of the human body in movement is available to all bodies.these classes are in-person currently
Intermediate 6:15-7:45pm Wednesdays, 1/2 hour optional pointe class after
Advanced Beginning 7-8:30pm Thursdays
Fundamentals 10:15-11:15 Sundays
Beginning 1 11:30-1 Sundays
Beginning 2 1-2:30pm Sundays
Ballet Fundamentals Workshops happen several times a year - 7+ weeks of exploring the very basic building blocks of ballet technique
at Danspace 473 Hudson St. in the Rockridge area of Oakland 510 420 0920 or www.danspace.com for more info
Feldenkrais Awareness through Movement (ATM) Classes
The Feldenkrais Method (TM) is a wide ranging system for understanding how the human being functions and learns how to learn, using the body as its primary laboratory. It is also a wide ranging, elegant, and deeply probing system for understanding the myriad layers of how movements in the human body work, and for teaching you how you can learn to manipulate the structure of your movements. Learn to deeply experience - from the inside out - how different parts of your body move and work together. Discover how very subtle changes can fundamentally alter and refine all the movements you do - from sitting to walking, to making a cup of coffee, to double pirouettes or standing on you head - and how this can release inefficient patterning, chronic tension, and pain, while increasing ease, awareness, joy in movement, and flow. This is a wonderful opportunity for dancers and non-dancers alike to bring greater felt understanding of how their body is constructed, as well as greater ease and articulation, into the execution of all their movements, from the everyday to the highly complex. wear loose and comfortable clothingOn-going weekly ATM classes through my own private ZOOM channel
Fridays 1-2:15pm
Cost: sliding scale $0-25 per class, pay what you can
If you are interested, email me at ma@maryarmentroutdancetheater.com and I will send you the links and payment options
On-going weekly ATM class IN PERSON at Danspace in Rockridge
Thursdays 5:30-6:45pm
This class works in on-going sessions, find more info at danspace.com
Occasional ATM Workshop Series at Shawl Anderson Dance Center
Call 510 654 5921 or www.shawl-anderson.org for more info
Feldenkrais your Dancing
Nina Haft and Mary Armentrout team up to co-teach occasional on-going intensive workshops exploring how the Feldenkrais Method can deconstruct and support contemporary dance technique. Nina Haft teaches contemporary technique drawing upon aspects of Limon and Release-based techniques, Bartenieff Fundamentals, and martial arts. Mary Armentrout is a Feldenkrais practitioner. The Feldenkrais Method is a wide ranging system for understanding how the human being functions and learns how to learn, using the body as its primary laboratory. Together Nina and Mary interweave elements of Feldenkrais and dance technique in these workshops. Working within this fusion, we continually discover how very subtle changes can fundamentally alter and refine all the movements we do -- and can release inefficient patterning, tension, and pain, and increase awareness and flow. This is a wonderful opportunity for advanced dancers working in any style to bring greater felt understanding of how their bod y is constructed, as well as greater ease and articulation, into the execution of their movements.at Shawl Anderson Dance Center
Call 510 654 5921 or www.shawl-anderson.org for more info
Annual Summer Milkbar Composition+Feldenkrais Intensive 2026
please consider joining me - for the week or for a single session - during my annual week-long summer intensive workshop. dipping into your own infinite creative wellspring and grounding yourself there, amongst others doing the same thing, is such a powerful way to find your own personal way forward through perilous times, be they inward or outward - and summer is always a PERFECT time for a week-long intensive art retreat :) I have been doing this retreat now for many years, and find it invaluable for my own practice, come see if it has benefits for you!each 3 hour session we start with a Feldenkrais ATM lesson, which both calls us back into our bodies and scrambles our habitual ways of being in our bodies, being ourselves, doing our usual ways of thinking and coping and making - allowing us to start out on new paths, find new ways, renew, undo, build it differently. in this gentle place of new wonder-ment, art making is very fun, special, weird and wild - in all the best ways! and in each session we MAKE - making is so good to do, we make quickly and not quickly, we make things we're used to making and things we don't usually make, we make in silly ways and serious ways - and sometimes if you just make alot, you realize that you have gone deep. Eash day has two sessions, and the whole week has son many! I have been doing this process now for many many years and have many different strategies and prompts for engaging different parts of the human brain and being, and we will explore and refine and augment them some more this coming year I am sure! We often do also get site-specific in our explorations, since that is often a way to scramble our preconceptions some more
this intensive is for makers of any medium(s) - I am primarily a dance-maker, but also a writer and a video artist, who also has been known to make sound compositions, and who ends up making cross-media collages, so I'm not so media-specific, and the Feldenkrais-as-support-for-artistic-practice is also not media-specific!
some logistical thoughts: we will be using the environs of our studio as our giant site-specific laboratory - bring good shoes and clothing for outside work and messy work. probably best to bring your lunch as there is not much available in the neighborhood, but we have a small fridge, microwave and hot beverage options. We will work all week and have an informal showing Saturday night at the space with a potluck before. The new milkbar studio is in Richmond and is easy to get to by car, and is also accessible by BART/bike.
at the Milkbar in Richmond
which is at 241A S. 1st St., Richmond CA 94804
Monday 8/3 - Friday 8/7 2026
5 FULL DAYS: Monday to Friday, from 10:30 to 5:30
with a potluck and informal showing on Saturday, August 8th
Cost: $600
Early bird: register before July 1st: $500
drop ins possible for single days - $120 per whole day
1/2 days also possible - 10:30 to 1:30, or 2:30 to 5:30 - $60 per half day
some work study available, email for details
to register: email me at ma@maryarmentroutdancetheater.com
questions: ma@maryarmentroutdancetheater.com or 510 289 5188
{photo: Jacques Sirot}