tell
EXPLORING STYLE, STORY, & MEANING THROUGH GESTURE
SUMMER ENROLLMENT NOW CLOSED
RETURNS in 2024 (WINTER EDITION)
Our hands speak.
They tell stories, show sound, and move energy. They are a portal to our deepest inner spaces and distilled truths.
Ready to discover all that can come through this part of you?
Join me for TELL.
TELL is a three month {online} movement and embodiment program focused on the hands and gestures through movement, form, metaphor, and energy.
Over the course of 90 days we will explore gestures to:
🎶 Make music visible and tangible
👋🏼 Help you identify your “tells”
♥️ Express the non-verbal
🌀 Feel into the truth of “what matters” in your body
👣 Deepen how you self-author with your dance/movement
All curious, dedicated movers of any discipline welcome. Space is limited, payment options below.
TELL includes:
✨ Live classes 3x a month (for three months) via Zoom with FYF Creator Tracee Kafer
✨ 2 time options (take one or both!)
✨ Fully achived program you can review at your own pace with 6 month access
✨ Homework & open “Play Practices” to deepen/widen your discoveries
The Schedule (June - August 2023)
Mondays 7:00 - 8:30 PM EDT (NYC)
4:00 PM Pacific
June 5th, June 12th, June 26th
July 3rd, July 17th, July 24th
August 14th, August 21st, & August 28th
Fridays 1:00 - 2:30 PM EDT (NYC)
7:00 PM Central European
June 9th, June 16th, June 30th
July 7th, July 21st, July 28th
August 18th, August 25th, & Sept. 1st
The Monday & Friday sessions each week will share content - you are welcome to both if you want the extra practice time, but you won’t miss anything if you are only able to attend one or the other.
With additional Open Practice Play TBD by the group.
Live Teaching 3x a Month
Live classes happen 3x a month (w/ two timeslots), and all are fully archived in the TELL portal.
6 Month Access to Program
All classes archived if you can’t make it live, and you’ll also receive the full FYF On Demand library to support your journey.
Homework & Open “Play Practice”
Group activities and meet-ups to connect and share space virtually to practice and thoughtful pre-and-post session ideas.
My intention for TELL (for you)
Deeper body awareness and better understanding what your body is telling you
Greater range and detail for expressing yourself and telling your stories (saying something when you move)
The ability to move or release stuck energy
Permission and tools to take up more space and be “in your body” more consistently
Finding more authenticity, truth, imagination, and feeling in motion (move like only you can)
Develop your style and variability through the hands, arms, and “portrait zone”
The Layers
You may be curious about this program to enhance your sense for shaping movement, for storytelling, or for deep somatic experiences — this program holds space for all three. Allow yourself to flow through the values of physical and emotional expression. There is room for all of these things in movement practice, because they are all a part of your movement.
The Space
My “goal” is for our movement space to be both a collective of like-mindedness, but also deep individuality. It doesn’t matter what your movement orientation is, your background, or how your energy changes day-to-day. Our shared curiosity and willing to dedicate ourselves to practice makes everyones presence a gift to the space. I’m really looking forward to the unique combination of disciplines and practitioners — it will make this program unrepeatable.
The Lens
I started doing “body part” isolated focus back when I launched Finding Your Freestyle classes in New York in 2012. Gestures were already a very large component in my choreographic works and performances - I’ve always found the hands to be one of my primary tools for expression. That got deeper when I created a pole performance company, Pole Speak, with Jess Linick in 2013, where we researched with other pole artists how improvisation, storytelling, and vulnerability intersect. More discovery happened when touring workshops, eventually launching FYF freestyle intensives in 2016. I had the chance to share this content and unique prompting with many other movers all over the world - each and every opportunity held insight and inspiration for me. Since then, in tandem with the many hours in my own personal movement research, I’ve trained in energy work, getting master level attunements in Reiki and studying varying energetic medicine practices and holding space with teachers like Gary Strauss. In my Systemic-somatic training of the past three years, I’ve worked with master facilitators like Jane Peterson, PhD on Somatic Signals, spending many hours observing and unpacking gestures. The process is always unfolding.
I’m passionate about freestyle as a portal into the self (selves), and movement exploration as a way to uncover, embody, and transform them. I feel gestures specifically are an aspect to movement and expression that deserve greater focus and awareness. They don’t lie, and they contain much.
TELL is for you if…
Dance was a first love for Tracee Kafer, who began at 3 and went on to journey through well over 30 years of training and experience in classical and contemporary genres.
She’s moved though the landscapes of student, performer, nationally-ranked competitor, world-traveling teacher, NY-based choreographer, and in the last decade alone shifted passionately and purposefully to the realms of the explorer. Practicing and facilitating her own ever-evolving freestyle movement methods in the energetics of groups, she aims to continuously untether from genre, style, convention, and apparatus, in order to gather in the communal love of moving from an authentic voice.
She believes that if you can move, you can dance, and in honoring that process as a life practice, you can live in a world of presence, connection, and freedom.
A Note from Tracee:
I’ve been cultivating a fluency and sight on GESTURE over the years, both in the dance/movement spaces and the psychosomatic, allowing me a kind of deeper access and good instinct to see, communicate, and express with the hands, arms, and “portrait zone”.I intend for this program to be an intense, but short, study on the many creative applications and felt experience of our human gestures. I have many “tools” in the tool belt, so to speak, and this program will have a few layers (you can read more about that on the program page).
There’s this way that we can tell stories and feel truths through our body with no preparation - gestures are an innate language we’ve built over a lifetime, and they allow us to speak without words, express without masks, and tell without lies.
There’s also this way we can mine our gestural impulses to build deeper details and artistry into our planned creations, too.
I’m so ready to share what I’ve discovered and learned with you, and also ready to experiment and learn from your discoveries.
My hope is that this journey guides you into greater personal awareness, embodiment, and expression.
“Tracee has helped me grow and explore in so many ways, beyond just my freestyle practice. I cannot recommend her enough!!”
More Testimonials
Frequently Asked Questions
When/how can I join?
Enrollment is open now through the first week of session. We begin June 5th. You can sign up by choosing your preferred payment plan above. You’ll then be given access to the TELL Portal that houses your video library and full schedule.
Do I need a pole?
Nope! We mostly use the vehicle of movement, so that means, if you can move or want to move and you have a little space to do that, you are good! This program will be friendly for all skill levels.
What if I can’t make the live classes?
All classes will be posted in the TELL Portal within 24-48 hours after the live class occurred. You’ll have access to all classes for six months.
Where can I see my schedule?
Your full schedule will be posted and accessible in the TELL Portal - you’ll be able to reserve your spot and get class reminders for all the live sessions you plan on attending.