2:00pm - 5:00pm: Create Your Own Shakespearean Soliloquy with Jeff Gladstone
In this class, we will study a few Shakespearean soliloquies, and explore what makes them tick and tock; use of verse, imagery, repetition, consonance, assonance, metaphor, and more. Then we will write our own lines and stories, based on our personal experiences. Finally we'll stage them, and share them with each other.
6:30pm - 9:30pm: Vogue Fundamentals with VanVogueJam
In this session, we will learn the fundamentals of Vogue and a Ballroom history lesson with Posh Gvasalia Basquiat (Ralph Escamillan, Founder of VanVogueJam). Vogue is a dance for that was created by the Ballroom Community - founded by Black, Latinx, Trans, and Queer communities of Harlem, NY.
Bring a water bottle and clothes you can move in.
10:00am - 1:00pm: Free Your Body, Free Your Voice with Victor Ayala
We begin with some principles from clowning, learning to be 'with' one another, the difference between 'contact' and 'connection', and how laughter connects us to our diaphragm. In the next section, we use Viewpoints to explore our awareness of the space, and then use our voice within the Viewpoints framework. In the last portion of the workshop, we’ll use text to test out our discoveries for the day. Throughout, we’ll discuss anatomical realities of how the voice is produced and how it connects to our emotional life, as well as exploring what 'blocks' us and what sets us free.
Bring a 1-minute monologue for workshop text and yoga mat (if desired) for working on the floor.
2:00pm - 4:00pm: Ourselves be Seen with Moya O’Connell
Allowing ourselves to be seen is one of the biggest challenges of any theatre artist. It requires an enormous amount of spiritual generosity to connect and commune with an audience in a truthful, authentic way. This workshop is designed to gently allow for artists to reconnect to impulse and find connection without presentation. Using breath exercises, improvisations, and selected text we will work towards simplicity and truth.
10:00am - 1:00pm: Le Jeu and Clown with Chloe Payne
In this workshop, students will rediscover the joy of performance through “Le Jeu” and clown.
Studying “Le Jeu”, students will learn to play, develop complicity, gain sensitivity and embrace taking risks. As clowns, students will learn how to break down the fourth wall and connect with their audience. They will learn to embrace the “flop” and find the freedom to fail.
Inspired by the pedagogy of the French clown master Philippe Gaulier, this workshop is for all types of performers: actors, clowns, comedians, improvisers… Anyone who wants to get out of their head and follow their impulses.
Participants should bring water and clothes they can move in.
2:00pm - 4:00pm: Critical Response Process: How to Give and Receive Effective Feedback with Brian Postalian and Joyce Rosario
Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process (CRP) is a feedback system based on the principle that the best possible outcome of a response session is for the maker to want to go back to work. Whether you're laboring on a painting or designing a website, drafting a lecture or composing a score, CRP helps you get fresh and useful feedback from peers, laypeople, and experts alike, while giving you the tools to do the same for others' work. Through the supportive structure of its four core steps, CRP combines the power of questions with the focus and challenge of informed dialogue. In use for over 25 years, CRP has been embraced by art makers, educators, scientists, and theater companies, dance departments, orchestras, laboratories, conservatories, museums, universities, corporations, and kindergartens. With a focus on actual works in progress – a dance, a script, a lecture, visual art work, even a cake – this training will highlight participation, conversation, and the flexibility of the Process.
Brian Postalian is a current member of the Liz Lerman Critical Response Process certification cohort. He has spent over 10 years working as a freelance artist, arts administrator, and educator. He has helped support the development of artists and work as well as having been produced in festivals and arts organizations across Canada.
10:00am - 1:00pm: The Art of Performing with Brenda Leadlay
The Art of Performing is a physical training experience for actors, dancers and other performing artists who want to play between the boundaries of form and formlessness - structure and freedom - and break free of human tendencies that get in the way of creative invention.
The work is based in ‘plastiques’ - a methodology developed by Polish theatre director Jerzy Grotowski.* Plastiques are simply physical isolations - movement explorations of each body part in every direction it can move – integrated with full-body gestures. The plastiques evoke body memory, feelings, images and sound that surprise the performer. The work encourages emotional risk-taking, dynamic expression and breath-based movement directed from internal impulses. It builds heightened awareness and confidence that gives people the freedom be who they are in a safe, supportive and fun environment.
Identifying and responding to impulse is at the heart of the exploration and an external key to help bring your emotional life into your work. The workshop also investigates physical and vocal practices to build group dynamics, spatial awareness, improvisational skills and rhythm.
Participants should bring clothes they can move in.
2:00pm - 5:00pm: Dreaming Chekov with Moya O’Connell
Using one of Chekhov's plays to guide us we will step inside the hearts and minds of these deeply human characters through Etudes. Etudes was a method developed by Konstantin Stanislavski to get closer to the emotional life and psychology of a character. Through the given circumstances you will explore, through guided improvisations, the psychological, physical and verbal universe of the character. Gentle, improvisational, deep and joyous, this workshop is designed to help actors trust their impulses and get closer to the heart of what makes these characters live.
Participants will need something to write with, as well as some familiarity with Anton Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard.
6:30pm - 9:30pm: Shakespeare Bath with Michelle Fisk
Shakespeare has left myriad clues in his text - let's dive in and find the ways to bring him and his glorious words from the page to the stage.
Please bring 6-10 lines of text from any play, something to write with, and water/snack for break.
10:00am - 11:30am: Self-Care for Theatre Professionals with Robin Willis
Theatre professionals face unique challenges in their careers: late night shows and midnight change-overs, long rehearsal days, grueling tech weeks, physically and vocally demanding performances and that unspoken evil - reviews. And this is when we are lucky enough to be working - lest we forget survival jobs, rejection, making ends meet, keeping the faith - did we mention rejection? Your mind and body are your currency and your livelihood. Caring for your mental, physical and emotional well-being is paramount in sustaining your passion and thriving on your chosen path.
In this discussion, Robin shares tools and resources for incorporating self-care practices into your daily life. Learn how to nurture healthy, uplifting and fulfilling habits so that you can wholeheartedly pursue and ENJOY the profession you love.
2:00pm - 4:00pm: Alexander Technique for Performers: Honing your Skills with Gabriella Minnes-Brandes
In this session we will explore how principles of the Alexander Technique support performers. We will learn to observe our habitual responses to stimuli and try out new ways of responding. We will then learn to make choices based on efficiency and thought. We will work with daily movements as well as text to enhance our observation skills and our ability to make choices in real time. The session may include hands-on work, individual work, pair work and group work.
Participants should bring a yoga mat, a book, and have some text to work on.
6:30pm - 9:30pm: Elevating Your Performance Work with Brechtian Gests with Will Weigler
In this hands-on workshop, participants will develop a capacity to create, refine and incorporate gests into performance work. Introduced by Bertolt Brecht, Gestus or Gest is a combination of a physical action—or GESTURE—that perfectly embodies the GIST of a relationship, a feeling, a place, or an attitude. A gest has the potential to pack a surprisingly powerful wallop when it comes to conveying complex and even paradoxical ideas on stage. Fluency with the concept of gests is useful for actors, directors, playwrights, and even designers.
Participants are asked to bring a monologue or scene you are currently working on, or a scene or show you are currently writing, workshopping, or designing. In the first half of the workshop we will focus on developing fluency with the use of gest in general. Then, after a short break, everyone will take a turn going over the material they've brought so that the entire group can collectively generate ideas for gests that could be incorporated into the performance work, writing, or design. Bringing material to work on during the 2nd half is not a requirement, you may simply choose to learn by contributing your ideas to others in the group and by observing some practical applications of gests in staging.
Participants should bring water and a snack for break.
2:00pm - 4:00pm: Movement as Textual Analysis with Anna Kuman
In this workshop, we will look at conventional ‘table work’ through action, using embodiment as primary tool towards textual analysis. Through task-based physical improvisation, observation, and reflection, the actor will develop an acute awareness of their autobiographical movement patterns and how to bring these unique qualities to embodying a character with strength and nuance. This method will enable the actor to get out of their head and free the body to trust impulse and instinct.
Please bring clothes you can move in, a notebook/paper and something to write with.
6:30pm - 8:30pm: Production 101: Taking Your Show from Conceptual to Actual with Jessica Chambers
For myriad reasons, it is becoming increasingly necessary for artists to self-produce. In this workshop, we’ll cover a basic understanding of production/project management, as well as the tools to self-produce in a successful, safe and sustainable way.