BFA, The University of the Arts. A dance artist currently based in Brooklyn, NY, and with roots in Massachusetts, Leasca has traveled and danced abroad in Israel, France, Belgium, and Germany. She has worked professionally with Netta Yerushalmy, Helen Simoneau Danse, Jessie Young, Ambika Raina, Janessa Clark, MG+Artists, and others. She has been awarded choreographic residencies at Gibney Dance through Work Up 5.0, New Dance Alliance through LiftOff, and was a 2019 Space Grant Recipient as well as an Upstart artist at Brooklyn Arts Exchange. Leasca has shown her work at Movement Research through Judson Church, FAILSPACE at The Woods, Center for Performance Research, Dixon Place, and WIP IV at STUDIO4, among others. She has also assisted Netta Yerushalmy at Princeton University. Leasca's writing can be found in Dancegeist Magazine. SLC, 2022–
Undergraduate Courses 2024-2025
Dance
Movement Studio Practice (Level I)
Open, Component—Fall and Spring
DNCE 5502
These classes will emphasize the steady development of movement skills, energy use, strength, and articulation relevant to each teacher's technical and aesthetic orientations. Instructors will change at either the end of each semester or midway through the semester, allowing students to experience present-day dance practice across diverse styles and cultural lineages. At all levels, attention will be given to sharpening each student’s awareness of time and energy and training rhythmically, precisely, and according to sound anatomical principles. Degrees of complexity in movement patterns will vary within the leveled class structure. All students will investigate sensory experience and the various demands of performance.
Faculty
Movement Studio Practice (Levels 2 and 3 Combined)
Component—Fall and Spring
These classes will emphasize the steady development of movement skills, energy use, strength, and articulation relevant to each teacher's technical and aesthetic orientations. Instructors will change at either the end of each semester or midway through the semester, allowing students to experience present-day dance practice across diverse styles and cultural lineages. At all levels, attention will be given to sharpening each student’s awareness of time and energy and training rhythmically, precisely, and according to sound anatomical principles. Degrees of complexity in movement patterns will vary within the leveled class structure. All students will investigate sensory experience and the various demands of performance.
Faculty
Graduate Courses 2024-2025
MFA Dance
Movement Studio Practice I
Component—Fall and Spring
5502
These classes will emphasize the steady development of movement skills, energy use, strength, and articulation relevant to each teacher's technical and aesthetic orientations. Instructors will change at either the end of each semester or midway through the semester, allowing students to experience present-day dance practice across diverse styles and cultural lineages. At all levels, attention will be given to sharpening each student’s awareness of time and energy and training rhythmically, precisely, and according to sound anatomical principles. Degrees of complexity in movement patterns will vary within the leveled class structure. All students will investigate sensory experience and the various demands of performance.
Faculty
Movement Studio Practice II and III
Component—Fall and Spring
These classes will emphasize the steady development of movement skills, energy use, strength, and articulation relevant to each teacher's technical and aesthetic orientations. Instructors will change at either the end of each semester or midway through the semester, allowing students to experience present-day dance practice across diverse styles and cultural lineages. At all levels, attention will be given to sharpening each student’s awareness of time and energy and training rhythmically, precisely, and according to sound anatomical principles. Degrees of complexity in movement patterns will vary within the leveled class structure. All students will investigate sensory experience and the various demands of performance.
Faculty
Previous Courses
Dance
Dance Movement Fundamentals
Component—Year
Movement and dancing are definitive signs of life! In every environment and at every level of existence, from single-cell organisms to entire populations, dancing is innate to living beings. The objective here is to awaken/reawaken students’ connection to movement as an elemental mode of human experience and learning. Students are introduced to some basic principles of dancing, as well as to strategies for preparing for dancing. Building fundamental skills for a wide range of movement studies, the focus is centered on learning movement and refining individual, partnered, and group performance in a variety of patterns and styles. Basic anatomical information is used to facilitate an understanding of dynamic alignment and movement potentials. Challenges in coordination, rhythm, range, and dynamic quality are systematically engaged, allowing students to gain strength, flexibility, endurance, balance, musicality, and awareness in the dance setting. While the primary emphasis is placed on learning structured material, improvisation and composition are incorporated to support students’ growing engagement with dance as an art form. No prior experience in dance is required.
Faculty
Movement Studio Practice
Component—Year
These classes will emphasize the steady development of movement skills, energy use, strength, and articulation relevant to each teacher's technical and aesthetic orientations. Instructors will change at either the end of each semester or midway through the semester, allowing students to experience present-day dance practice across diverse styles and cultural lineages. At all levels, attention will be given to sharpening each student’s awareness of time and energy and training rhythmically, precisely, and according to sound anatomical principles. Degrees of complexity in movement patterns will vary within the leveled class structure. All students will investigate sensory experience and the various demands of performance.