What is Dance Your Repertoire
DYR Workshop for Pop and Jazz Platform 2025
Conservatorio Superior de Música de Navarra (Pamplona, Spain)
That’s when Dance Your Repertoire was born:
from the desire to share this experience with other musicians, to help them reconnect with their bodies, release tension, and create from feeling rather than from doing.
In 2021, the project premiered as an elective course for Bachelor and Master students at the Prins Claus Conservatorium (Groningen, The Netherlands), where it was taught continuously until 2025.
Since then, the method has continued to evolve, reaching musicians across the Netherlands, Spain, and Denmark — from individual sessions to international workshops and collaborations.
✨ When you dance your repertoire, you embody the music that lives within you.
Dance Your Repertoire invites musicians to explore their pieces through conscious movement, reconnecting with the body as an ally for expression and communication.
It is an experience that unites music, dance, and self-awareness — a space where we embody rhythm, melody, and emotion before returning to the instrument.
By dancing what we play, we release tension, awaken creativity, and transform the way we perform.
Because when body and sound move together, interpretation becomes freedom.
Dance Your Repertoire was born just after completing my Master’s degree, as a result of one of the discoveries from my research project.
While performing classical piano repertoire infused with other musical styles, I began creating my own arrangements by adding bass and drums.
Each time I played with them, something unexpected happened — I found myself naturally moving, almost dancing, feeling the rhythm flowing through me.
It was a liberating experience.
For the first time, I wasn’t playing from control or perfectionism — I was feeling the music from within.
This discovery led me to wonder: what would happen if I allowed myself to dance my repertoire before playing it?
The changes were profound — my body relaxed, the sound opened, and my expression became freer and more authentic.
How it was born
DYR Workshops for Pop and Jazz Platform 2025
Syddansk Musikkonservatorium (Odense, Denmark)
Methodology
Awareness
We begin by reconnecting with the breath and posture, awakening body awareness before playing.
Movement exploration/dance
We translate rhythm, dynamics, and phrasing into movement — exploring our repertoire through the body.
Integration / Playing
We return to the instrument, allowing physical sensations to flow naturally into sound.
Reflection
We close with a moment of reflection, integrating sensations, emotions, and insights.
The goal is not to dance perfectly, but to listen deeply — to yourself, your body, and your music.
Benefits
Self-confidence
Because dancing pushes you to be very present, it helps to increase self-esteem by keeping you grounded and flowing along with life, letting go of the stress and worries of future performance.
Expansion body language
Becoming familiar with all body parts requires a lot of focus. Muscle memory is a side effect of muscle awareness. As you develop more awareness of your body, it will become easier to remember moves and positions in your playing.
Reduce Stress
When we dance, our brain releases endorphins, the happy hormones, that help in reducing stress and makes us feel calm, relaxed, and happy. Endorphins are our body’s natural painkillers that help reduce stress and improve our focus.
Convincing performance
After dancing the repertoire, connecting our movements with the music, its phrasing, the dynamics, among other aspects, we broaden the vision of the work and its style enriching it and making it more authentic.
©️InmadelValle Photography
Previous DYR Workshops
Elective at Prins Claus Conservatorium from 2021 until 2025 (Groningen, The Netherlands)
DYR Workshop at School of Music Musicalen in 2022, 2023 and 2024, Centro de Música (Palma de Mallorca, Spain)
DYR Workshop at IX Encuentro de Pianistas Emmanuel Ferrer (Madrid, Spain)
DYR Workshop for the Summer Academy at Aurora Festival (Groningen, The Netherlands)
Workshop for Still I Rise event during the international Woman’s week at Prins Claus Conservatorium (Groningen, The Netherlands)
Workshop for the congress Pop & Jazz Platform 2024 organized by European Association of Conservatoires (AEC), hosted at Syddensk Musikconservatorium, Odense (Denmark, 2024).
Workshop for the conference organized by EPASA, European Peforming Arts Students’ Association, in Gante (Belgium, May 2024).
Taller Ballant els Clàssics for the piano department at Conservatoire in Felanitx (Mallorca).
Workshop for Pop & Jazz Platform 2025 organized by AEC, in Pamplona (Spain, February 2025).
Workshop for FestMusic Mallorca 2025.
Join the experience
Would you like to bring Dance Your Repertoire to your conservatory, festival, or music group?
Or explore it individually as part of your InHarmony journey?