My Approach to Teaching:
Creating space, physically and intellectually, for creative exploration and growth. Cultivating profound connections and integration of body, mind, and heart at any stage of performative development.
Providing students with long lasting tools to fully engage their physical abilities in the act of performance. In safety, and effectiveness.
Fostering technical abilities while inspiring students to seek artistic Integrity
My Perspectives on Training for the Industry:
Performers, like doctors, should continue exploring and embracing new knowledge throughout their entire careers. After all, we are providers of healthy emotions and opinions.
The performance arts make you a constantly evolving Work of Art. Performers should continue training body and soul to constantly refine their “Work of Art” status.
Observing and learning from experienced performers is crucial for one’s development as an artist. Then one can contribute to the evolution of art.
Theatre artists are now expected to demonstrate proficiency and love for all aspects of performance, as well as some awareness of social and political circumstances, past, and current. Fill your “tool box” as it will make your presence more compelling.
Meet Toni Bravo:
Dance Educator and Choreographer
Originally from Mexico City and a Naturalized American, she has worked around
the world as a dancer, educator, and choreographer since 1989. She trained as a dancer in Mexico, the US,
England, France, and Germany. She performed in various countries before settling in Austin, Texas.
Her work is based on various dance and dance/theatre approaches. And she also choreographs for Dance festivals, Theatre, and Musical Theatre productions. Part of her freelance work has been presented by Blanton Museum, Austin Shakespeare, VORTEX Repertory Theatre, UT Austin Department of Theater and Dance and Opera Departments, her own company, Diverse Space Dance Theatre, and other local groups in Austin.
Bravo was the first instructor to offer Movement for Actors training during her graduate work at UT Austin’s Theatre and Dance Department. She designed a whole program for BA, BFA, and MFA in acting. And several of her students participated in her pieces and productions inspired by Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater.
Her international connections include: The Palucca University of Dance Dresden, The Irish Youth Dance
Festival, SE.S.TA in the Czech Republic, SKVR in Rotterdam, and ICK and LEINEROEBANA in Amsterdam.
Bravo was full-time faculty of Ballet Austin’s Academy for 26 years. And she directed the “Leaps and
NO Bounds’” and “Dance in the Classroom” programs in AISD schools for Ballet Austin’s Education Programs.
She currently teaches a curriculum-driven program, “Learning to Dance, Dancing to Learn” at Blackshear Fine
Arts Elementary School. She has also recently finished designing a Contemporary Modern Dance Method titled
Kinesis Dance Favric.
Since 2015 she has conducted teacher’s training programs in Prague, Amsterdam, Rotterdam,
Dublin, Berlin, and Dresden. Her Youth Company annually travels to Europe to perform and train, in Amsterdam, Berlin, and Prague.
Ms. Bravo has been an exemplary force of action as a choreographer and as an arts educator in
Austin for over 25 years. http://bloomatx.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/toni-bravo-a-force-of-dance
Her work has received many awards in Austin and many other cities in Europe.
And she was recently inducted into the Austin Hall of Arts for her work with youth and dance artists of all
ages and for her research in dance education and education through dance!
“Her choreographic fusion of international traditions and movement vocabularies has
expanded our understanding of dance,” said Robert Fairies at Ms. Bravo’s Austin Arts Hall of Fame induction.
(https://www.austinchronicle.com/arts/2019-05-24/introducing-the-2019-class-of-the-austin-arts-hall-
of-fame/)
Please feel free to request a full CV or more specific information by writing to: mardebravo@gmail.com
(512) 394-1147
mardebravo@gmail.com
diversespace@gmail.com
diversespacedance.com