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20-Year Anniversary for John Munger

When Sage-Award winning dance artist John Munger steps into his Saturday morning Adult Beginning Modern Technique class at Zenon Dance School on January 9, it will be a 20-year anniversary. Munger has been teaching this class since January, 1990. It is likely that this is the Twin Cities’ longest-running modern dance class taught by the same teacher at the same school in the same time slot and at the same level.

Over 2,000 students have attended this class over time. Some take the class recreationally and have attended for five years or more. Others have begun at this level, have moved onward and upward, and are now dancing in local companies. Schools, teachers and students from across Minnesota have come to Zenon to broaden their perspectives by attending this class. Companies on tour from out of town have attended this class as a warm-up between performances.

There are usually between a dozen and 20 students on any single occasion. Ages range from teens to 60’s. Experience levels range from absolute beginners taking the first class ever in their lives to seasoned students recapturing basics, students of other forms such as ballet or ballroom trying a new style, experienced dancers recovering from injury by taking a gentler class, and teachers picking up pedagogic ideas.

“I offer hard-nosed, theoretically sound classical modern technique,” says Munger. “It’s plain vanilla rather than some identifiable and perhaps idiosyncratic style such as Graham or Release or Limon or Cunningham. We learn how to locomote, how to pull up into alignment, how to work with our feet, how to reverse combinations, how to develop a sense of ensemble, how to grasp and master varying rhythms, and other basic things that can be applied to almost any style. And we laugh a lot. We have a good time, we burn some calories, and after class we go out for coffee.”

Press Release

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Camille LeFevre
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