The Cocoon Lab Online
Dance & Choreography Series with Sophie Barbarics
OPEN WORLDWIDE
Location: Zoom online
Dates: 15 January - 28 February
Time: Thursdays 9.30-10.45 am PST
Course language: English
Max group number: 7
Lead Artist: Sophie Barbarics
The Cocoon Lab Online: Dance & Choreography Series
The Cocoon Lab is an intimate 6‑week online movement and choreographic research laboratory for committed dancers and emerging dance artists. With 7 paid spots and 1 full scholarship available, this cohort offers structured mentorship for early-career, warm-hearted dreamers who want their movement practice to feel real, grounded, and in motion— across distances.
Program Overview
The Cocoon Lab functions as a small-group studio seminar rather than a conventional technique class. Participants engage in weekly live Zoom sessions that integrate somatic preparation, task-based improvisation, phrase generation, and guided reflection, with an emphasis on cultivating an individual artistic voice. The lab foregrounds process, inquiry, and critical thinking in and through the moving body.
Structure and methods
Across six consecutive Thursdays (9:30–10:45 am /Pacific Time), participants will:
- Engage in somatic-based warm-ups to refine awareness of alignment, weight, texture, and dynamic modulation.
- Work with imagery, tasks, and compositional scores to generate and transform original movement material.
- Participate in structured improvisation and short studies to practice decision-making, spatial awareness, and clarity of intention.
- Take part in guided group dialogue, written reflection, and feedback exchanges to support critical and reflective practice.
Sophie Barbarics provides individualized mentoring and verbal feedback, situating each participant’s work within contemporary movement and choreographic frameworks.
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Learning outcomes
By the end of the 6‑week lab, participants will be able to:
- Demonstrate increased nuance and specificity in their use of space, dynamics, and timing in both set material and improvisation.
- Apply a clear set of tools (e.g., repetition, accumulation, fragmentation, inversion) to develop and structure original movement phrases into a short solo study or score.
- Identify and articulate at least one central artistic question, theme, or research thread informing their current movement practice.
- Engage in formative critique processes by requesting targeted feedback, integrating selected notes into their work, and offering constructive responses to peers.
- Establish a sustainable reflective practice (brief journaling, voice notes, or debrief protocols) to support ongoing independent research beyond the lab.
Grow your dance, find your people
- Early-career dancers, movers, choreographers, and interdisciplinary dreamers who are ready to take their practice seriously but do not necessarily feel “established” yet.
- Artists from a wide range of ethnicities and geographies who want to feel the reality of connecting “far away people” in one room, without having to leave their home ground.
- Sensitive, imaginative humans who want both structure and freedom: people who crave accountability, reflection, and a cohort that actually sees their work
The Cocoon Lab is for early-career movers and artists who are tired of dancing alone and want to turn scattered ideas into a living project, shared with a small circle of witnesses from many places and backgrounds.
Across the lab you move from “I should be making more” to “I know what I’m making, why, and who with,” while staying rooted in your own cultural and personal story.
- Clarified practice: a written and felt articulation of your current questions, constraints, and next steps, plus a simple weekly practice structure you can keep following.
- New work in progress: at least one short study, score, or scene created during the lab, with live witnessing and feedback, so your ideas stop living only in your head.
- Professional network: 6–10 peers from different places and backgrounds who know your work, care about your questions, and can be future collaborators and allies.
- Documentation: one short video sketch and a brief written or visual statement you can re-use for grants, residencies, festivals, and sharing online.
Tuition & Scholarship
This is not a fee for Zoom hours; it is an investment in a season of focused growth that shapes your practice, your next piece, and your circle.
EARLY BIRD: 240 CAD (until December 28)
REGULAR: 295 CAD for the full 6-week online series.
Payment is required in full to confirm your spot, unless a split‑payment plan has been arranged with us in advance.
Payment is made via e‑transfer to info.yolone@gmail.com with the note: “Cocoon Lab ON + your name”.
Here you build practice, material, documentation, and relationships that continue beyond the lab.
1 full scholarship spot reserved for an artist holding both strong financial barrier and strong creative urgency, with priority for underrepresented voices.
Apply by sending your motivational letter to dance.yolone@gmail.com.
Lead artist
Sophie Barbarics is a contemporary dance artist, master dance teacher, and choreographer with over twenty years of professional experience in Europe and Canada.
Trained at the Hungarian Dance University, where she completed both her BA in Dance (with distinction) and a Master’s in Modern Dance Teaching, she has taught and created work across Hungary, Asia, and now on the unceded territories around Nelson, BC.
Her artistic practice lives where human stories, contemporary technique, and improvisation meet. Sophie is known for transforming everyday gestures and personal narratives into textured, emotionally resonant choreography that invites dancers to move beyond fixed patterns and into their own authorship.
As an educator, she has taught in universities, studios, festivals, and community spaces, developing curriculum, directing original productions, and mentoring dancers at pre-professional and professional levels.
In 2024, Sophie co-founded YolOne Art Group and The Booster in Nelson, a hybrid space where dance and photography intersect to create accessible, high-level artistic experiences. Her recent projects—including contemporary dance classes, choreographic labs, and multimedia works such as “Daffodils” and “Water Reflections”—focus on vulnerability, individuality, and the power of embodied connection.
Through offerings like The Big Let Go and The Cocoon Lab, Sophie continues to build intimate, rigorous containers where dancers can take creative risks, refine their craft, and discover new ways of being seen in their work.
How to Register
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