BAASE
The Bay Area Axis Syllabus Exchange is back for 2026!
The Bay Area has a long history of nurturing teachers of the Axis Syllabus. BAASE is a chance for Bay Area and US West Coast Axis Syllabus Teachers and Teacher Candidates to share their research. The Axis Syllabus is an evolving body of practical approaches, theoretical research, and pedagogical methods related to human movement. It is continually developed by an active international community and was originally initiated and written by the renowned American dancer, choreographer, and author Frey Faust. AS draws on knowledge bases of biomechanics, anatomy, physics, Western medical sciences, physiology, anthropology, and empirical research. The Axis Syllabus explores anatomy in a dynamic, “alive” context, using dance and motion as investigative tools.
Registration, Discount, and Scholarship Information:
Register at bookwhen.com/baase
- Early Bird Registration through April 7th ($395)
- Standard Registration through June 1st ($475)
- Late Bird Registration ($525) & Drop-In Registration through June 22nd ($40/class & $115/day)
Certified AS teachers not teaching at the event may attend for 50% off Standard All-Access Ticket and AS Teacher Candidates are offered 30% off Standard All-Access Ticket, respectively (Please use contact@team.nuriabowart.com to apply and to request discount code access)
- We have three BIPOC scholarships (100% off, 3/3 already taken). (Please write to contact@team.nuriabowart.com to apply)
- We have two work-trade positions (100% off, 2/2 already taken). (Please write to contact@team.nuriabowart.com to apply)
2026 BAASE Teacher Bios
Sam Stone is a dance performance artist, teacher, community organizer, and creator. She is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Appalachian State University, a certified Axis Syllabus teacher of anatomy and biomechanics, and a dance education specialist.Sam has founded several outreach programs, including Dance Class for Humans, a Salt Lake City-based Contemporary class series offering affordable training for local freelancers, Peer Practices, a nationally recognized peer-exchange dance class model, and Free Up the Space, a guided improvisational space for artists of varying mediums to exchange freely. Sam is responsible for choreographing over 50 original dance theatre works. Sam founded and danced in the vîv dance company, and for Bianca Cabrera’s Blind Tiger Society, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Joanna Kotze, Ashley Trottier, and Rosemary Hannon. She has performed and/or shown work at theatres including CounterPulse, Mission Theatre, Temescal Art Center, SAFEarts, Spyhop, and Hayes Christensen Theatre. As a guiding principle, Sam follows art’s potential to rebel and rouse.
Emily Jones Emily Jones is a dancer, choreographer, movement educator, and bodyworker based in Portland, Oregon. Her interdisciplinary practice centers intuition, embodied learning, and movement-based research, with particular attention to community care, relational ethics, and communication within spaces of learning and collaboration. She has performed with numerous artists in Portland and the Bay Area and is engaged in a long-term artistic collaboration with Hannah Krafcik. Their interdisciplinary work has been presented nationally. Emily facilitates contact improvisation jams, organizes events, teaches and performs with the Queer Contact Improvisation Cohort based in Portland. She is a certified Axis Syllabus teacher and offers classes and workshops informed by this lens both locally and beyond.
Nuria Bowart is a contemporary dancer, teacher and certifier of the Axis Syllabus, multifaceted performer, a mother and a Capoeira Mestra. She is the founder of a school for contemporary arts practices called the Field Center, as well as an afro brazilian arts center called the Berkeley Capoeira Collective (BCC). She has dedicated over two decades to teaching movement, performing, and working one on one with clients. Her movement work is embedded in her knowledge of anatomy and basic physical principles that help to create ease and efficiency. Her consistent commitment to practice and research, serves as a source of inspiration and discovery. Nuria is inspired to move through the energy of the places and people she is with. www.nuriabowart.com
Carolina MarĂn is a Chilean dancer and transdisciplinary artist based in Brookyln. An Axis Syllabus teacher and Contact Improvisation practitioner, her work explores the convergence of dance, science, and the natural environment. Through movement research and education, she integrates textiles, wearables, architecture, sound, and nature to create collective experiences that expand the boundaries of the moving body.
Phoenicia Pettyjohn she/her- a longtime SF resident, movement artist, educator and certified Axis Syllabus teacher. She is faculty at the San Francisco Ballet School and teaching artist in the SF Ballet Dance in Schools and Communities Program. She is the rehearsal director/dramaturg for Catherine Galasso’s 10,000 Steps: A Dance About Its Own Making for ODC/Dance. Performance collaborators include Christy Funsch Dance, Catherine Galasso, Aura Fischbech, Jennifer Perfilio Movement Works and Risa Jaroslow. She has also worked with Miriam Wolordowski Sense Object, Rosemary Hannon, Susan Rethorst, Kira Kirsch and Honey McMoney among others and appeared in the works of Maguy Marin, David Dorfman, Neta Pulvermacher and Sara Shelton Mann. She is a longtime collaborator with Christy Funsch Dance, recently appearing in her 12 hour piece “Epoch”at ODC Theater and “Kid Subjunctive” at CounterPulse SF and New York City. A Certified teacher of the Axis Syllabus since 2015, she is a full-time body nerd, enthusiast and researcher. We still don’t know what the body can do.
Karola Lüttringhaus aka Alban Elved, is a Berlin-born interdisciplinary performing artist, designer, researcher, and educator. They hold a PhD in Performance Studies from the University of California Davis, an MA in Scenic Design from the Technische Universität Berlin, and a BFA in Choreography and Modern Dance from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Karola is the artistic and executive director of Alban Elved Dance Company and the SARUS Festival for Site-Specific & Experimental Art. Merging American influences and their European roots, Karola's dance theatre work is marked by a distinct visceral and kinetic voice that traces the changeable electricity of thought and sensation that underlies human interaction and interpersonal relationships. Karola is motivated by the emotional connections that we make through the practice of art-making and believes that movement arts, as naturally investigative and immersive embodied-cognitive practices, are tremendously important to society, because they support moving toward free will, embodied liberation, and the decolonization of the psycho-physiological and the socio-political body. Karola is a certified Axis Syllabus© teacher because of the virtuosity, kindness, and expressiveness that results from working with it. https://www.karolaluettringhaus.com and https://sarusfestival.weebly.com/
