AMANDA PITTORESKA
dance | movement | physio instructor
Amanda Pittoreska from Switzerland dances and trains Fusion Bellydance passionately for over 14 years – accompanied by other dance styles and forms of movement, such as Yoga, Pilates and fitness. Her development as a dancer has taken her across Europe and the US to study with the most prestigious representatives of the scene.
Meanwhile, Amanda works internationally as an instructor and performer. She has performed at events like the Tribal Fest in California, the Massive Spectacular in Las Vegas or the Theatrical Bellydance Conference NY as well as various events all over Europe. She taught workshops in Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Italy and the US. In 2014, she opened the Studio Pittoreska in St. Gallen, Switzerland where she teaches regularly, hosts guest instructors and organizes events.
In addition to her continuous dance practice, she pursues further health-promoting concepts, in particular Pilates, Spiraldynamik® (a recognized movement & therapy concept), fitness and nutrition.
Through ongoing education and training, she strives to ensure quality and professionalism in the area of movement, especially in belly dance, as well as promote good health and well-being through profound instruction and coaching.
Amanda is certified as:
- 8 Elements™ Datura Style Teacher
- POLESTAR Pilates Trainer Mat
- Dipl. Spiraldynamik® Fachkraft Intermediate
- Group Fitness Instructor
- Fitness- & Ernährungstrainerin
Amanda is an active member of the Berufsverband für Gesundheit und Bewegung Schweiz (BGB Schweiz), she is also certified as a course instructor and Studio Pittoreska as a course provider by the quality label Fitness-Guide. Her courses are therefore recognized by the health insurances.
STUDIO PITTORESKA
Studio Pittoreska gives dance & movement a special place in the heart of St. Gallen in Eastern Switzerland – with its unique flair it is more than a simple training room. Studio Pittoreska offers a versatile, innovative and inspiring space for dance & movement, health promotion and creativity, community and exchange.
Dedicated to Fusion Bellydance in particular, the promotion and recognition of this young, multi-faceted dance style as a performing art form and profound training is sought. Emphasis is put on professionalism and competent, solid and well-founded instruction, as well as on creativity, individuality and a respectful sense of community.
Accordingly, the Studio Pittoreska also sees itself as a meeting place for exchange, inspiration and creative work in the fields of dance & movement.
Amanda Pittoreska opened the studio in April 2014 out of the desire to realize these visions, to offer this style as well as a platform for this community, to generally guarantee the quality and professionalism in the movement area and to promote exchange and inspiration.
The studio has an entrance area, resp. the tearoom with changing room and a small boutique, the separate, bright, approximately 40m² dance space with a mirrored wall and music system, a small garden and a toilet. It is equipped with yoga and Pilates mats, hip scarfs, Pilates balls and rolls and Thera-Bands.
Upon request, Studio Pittoreska is available for rent – simply get in touch and describe your plans and ideas.
FUSION BELLYDANCE
In short, Fusion Bellydance or Tribal Fusion Bellydance is a modern form of Bellydance that arose from fusing of American Tribal Style® Bellydance
(ATS®), American Cabaret Bellydance or Oriental Dance and contemporary dance styles. Characteristically, movements of Oriental Dance and elements of various contemporary, classic and folkloric styles merged into a modern, energetic dance. This mix of influences can also be seen in the versatile choices of music and costuming.
It has its roots in the American Tribal Style® (ATS®) by Carolena Nericcio-Bohlman. This group-improvisational dance developed in the 1980s from a mixture of different movement influences from North India, the Middle East, Spain and North Africa. Its development followed the return to a perceived authenticity of Bellydance happening in the San Francisco Bay Area, California since the 1960s in contrast to Cabaret Bellydance as a show dance – both in the movement and costuming of the dance as well as in its presentation and the sense of community. Carolena's precedessors and teachers Jamila Salimpour and the ensemble Bal-Anat as well as Masha Archer have been particularly influential.
From the early 1990s – with Carolena's student Jill Parker as a pioneer – this dance continued to developed in various directions, drawing inspirations from all sorts of sources, shifting the focus back to the solo dancer and to refining technique and stage presence accordingly – the Tribal Fusion movement took its beginning. From 2001, the dance ensemble The Bellydance Superstars with Tribal dancers like Rachel Brice, Mardi Love and Zoe Jakes (later as the legendary The Indigo), Kami Liddle, Sharon Kihara, Moria Chapelle or Samantha Emanuel triggered the worldwide Tribal Fusion Bellydance boom, which continues ever since.
DATURA STYLE™
Datura Style™ Belly Dance is the dance format by Rachel Brice, known worldwide as one of the pioneers of Tribal Fusion Bellydance. Datura Style™ is the result of the influences that have shaped Rachel Brice in her life and works as a dancer in particular.
The term includes a specific approach to training Rachel's characteristic dance technique and a dance vocabulary that integrates with the vocabulary of the group-improvisational dance ATS® (American Tribal Style®). Both technique and vocabulary are suitable for improvisation as well as choreography.
The approach to technique training of Datura Style™ is inspired by a variety of movement methods, for example the Dunham Technique, Stott Pilates, Horton Technique and Viniyoga.
The aesthetics of Datura Style™ vocabulary and its artistic presentation is shaped by Rachel Brice’s own teachers and role models. She names Jamila and Suhaila Salimpour, Masha Archer, Carolena Nericcio, Jill Parker, John Compton and Mardi Love as her main inspirations.
The vocabulary of Datura Style™ integrates elements of the established American Tribal Style® (ATS®) by Carolena Nericcio and includes movements, steps and combinations from Rachel's repertoire. One speciality of Datura Style™ is the combination of vocabulary-based improvisation according to the principles of ATS® with free improvisation concepts which gives the dance an exciting interplay.
With Datura Style™, Rachel Brice provides a structured all-around training that can help any dancer to find and develop their own style based on a strong technical foundation.
SPIRALDYNAMIK®
Spiraldynamik® is a movement and therapy concept based on evolutionary and anatomical-functional principles, from which the coordinated use of the body can be derived. Simply put: Spiraldynamik® offers a learnable «user’s guide» to the human body from head to toe.
The goal of Spiraldynamik® is to move in an anatomically healthy way in everyday life in order to avoid incorrect loading, pain and wear.
The basic repertoire of human movement patterns, such as running, walking, throwing or grasping, consists of genetically inherited three-dimensional movement sequences. When carrying out these activities, individual parts of the human body intelligently screw and unscrew. Derived from the natural design of the spiral principle, it is then possible to formulate the ultimate «user’s guide» to the human body from head to toe. Healthy movement thus becomes understandable and learnable.
In Spiraldynamik® the source of pain and incorrect loading is precisely analysed and novel movement patterns are taught, as well as integrated in daily life.
Spiraldynamik® is suitable for almost all complaints of the musculoskeletal system – pain, tension, premature wear. With the help of Spiraldynamik® therapy, movement classes or individual coachings, movement patterns and posture can be optimized significantly and sustainably.