"AreYou From Here? (Or From There?): Making Dance About Migration and Mixing"
With visiting artist Parijat Desai:
Note Time Change: Mon./Weds. 2:15-5:15 Roble 42
"Movers of all backgrounds are welcome to this dance and
choreography workshop exploring our own stories of migration and place. Each
meeting, we will study techniques of bharata natyam (Indian classical dance),
and investigate the pedestrian body: how we shift weight, walk, run, fall,
carry one another. Students are given the opportunity to use these tools and
their own movement skills to create phrases that blend form and choreographic
approach. As a frame to our movement exploration, we will hear and record each
other's histories of immigration and, more broadly, of traversing different
(local, global, and identity) terrains.
As a class we ask: What are the mechanics of crossing over
between different forms? How do we respect embodied traditions while changing
them? How do our stories parallel our choreographic process? Together and with
the help of the instructor, students distill their stories into a script that
contextualizes/weaves together/weaves in and out of the hybrid dance we create."
Workshop description from visiting artist Jerry Quickley:
"This workshop invites students to study, research, and
develop their descriptive intuition in the creation of biographical narrative
dramatic structures. We will collaborate on creating narratives for students
from different circumstances, as we create an arc of biographical narrative
that spans the distance from wholly imagined to real. We will re-imagine, re-state, and re-draft
views of ‘the other’ as we work on closing the gap between what is imagined,
what messages social groups send, expectations, and the intersections of social
currents and human interactions and hopes.
We will stage a 45 – 60 minute dramatic reading, that will include
traditional theater techniques, music, spoken word, and multi-media components
to tell the story of how we imagine ourselves in the process of imagining
others.
Several creative writing exercises and techniques will be
explored, as will the role and inclusion of technology as a currency of
communication itself. We will also
explore the use of Machinima (virtual world set pieces), and interview theater
techniques as well."
"The Impertinent Curiosity in Cervantes' Don Quixote"
Workshop description from visiting artist Octavio Solis:
"This workshop will involve students in the process to
dramatize one of the novellas contained in Cervantes’
The Ingeniuos Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha. The complex love triangle
between Anselmo, Lothario and Camila is contained in Book 1 of Don Quixte. As lead writer and director for this
workshop, Solis seeks students from all disciplines to assist in devising new
ways to tell this poignant story, employing music, dance, poetry, visual art
and theater to give the tale a contemporary resonance. Students will participate in all facets of
play development. Hybrid forms of
storytelling methods will be enthusiastically explored in the process. A
work-in-progress presentation will be held at the end of the winter quarter."
"The Song as Theater"
Workshop description from visiting artist Stew
This workshop challenges students to create and explore
their own personal nexus where music and theater could meet. This workshop will NOT be focused on traditional 'musical theater' but rather the kind of music you might actually
enjoy making yourself. We will be looking
at THE SONG as the seed out of which all that we call (or don't call) 'theater' can sprout: both linear and non-linear narrative, movement,
images, poetry, politics, polemics, cooking recipes or maybe even just plain
good advice. I'm looking for actors interested in songwriting and musicians
interested in acting and non-actor/non musicians interested in both. All must have an interest in performing. This
class will resemble a songwriting workshop with ambitions reaching into
theater. All will be expected to create, write or perform in some way."
"AreYou From Here? (Or From There?): Making Dance About Migration and Mixing"
"Through the Looking Glass"
"The Impertinent Curiosity in Cervantes' Don Quixote"
"The Song as Theater"
