SITI: NYC Master Classes

In an effort to augment our educational offerings, we are pleased to introduce the new Master Class Series! This ongoing program will feature prominent outside Guest Artists and individual SITI Company members on a variety of different topics. Here at SITI we pride ourselves on robust cultural and artistic exchange, and the master classes promise to be a perfect complement to the SITI training methods and a unique opportunity to artists in all disciplines. Watch this space for updates! Read about our past Master Classes

UPCOMING MASTER CLASSES:
All master classes take place at SITI's NYC studio, unless otherwise noted.

Kelly has been a member of SITI since its inception. With the company she has performed in many productions including Radio Macbeth, La Dispute, Hayfever, bobrauschenbergamerica, The Medium, Small Lives/Big Dreams, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Culture of Desire and Cabin Pressure, and at such theatres as: NYTW, P.S. 122, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Walker Arts Center, Wexner Arts Center, The Irish Life Theater Festival, Bobigny and the Edinburgh Festival. Regionally, Kelly has been seen as Rainbow in Maria Irene Fornes' And What of the Night at The Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Hamlet at StageWest and Christine in Miss Julie at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Internationally, she has toured with Tadashi Suzuki in the Suzuki Company of Toga's Dionysus and director Robert Wilson in Persephone. She performed the role of Jolly (as standby for Patti LuPone) in David Mamet's The Old Neighborhood on Broadway. Kelly was seen as Hermia in Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man Cell Phone at Playwrights Horizons. She also performed in An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein and The Water Engine at the Atlantic, Off Broadway. Kelly teaches the Suzuki method of actor training and the Viewpoints training with SITI and at the Atlantic Theater Acting School, NYU and at workshops and universities throughout the US. (hide)

Description: An artist's career can go in many directions. How can you learn about and engage all of the possibilities of your artist path? This interactive workshop will open you up to possibilities and help you explore the unexpected. Engage in a series of exercises that allow you to open up to your true desires and explore new ways to exist as an artist in the community. How do you make money and have a satisfying lifestyle while you are fully expressing your creative spirit? Where does real satisfaction come from for you?

The workshop is interactive and full participation is expected. We will use physical exercises as well as deep conversation. Please come ready to be open to new ways of thinking.

Who Should Register: Professional and aspiring professional directors, actors, designers, playwrights, visual artists, producers, managers and others.

Master Class: “Suzuki & Viewpoints” with Kelly Maurer of SITI Company
Dates: Saturday & Sunday, September 10 & 11 (2011)
Instructor: Kelly Maurer (bio)

Description: It is through the dialogue between Suzuki and Viewpoints, two very distinct yet complimentary approaches to the art of acting, that the philosophy and technique of SITI Company is continually explored, revitalized, and articulated.

Who should Register: Artists who have never trained with SITI before, and Alumni who have been away from trhe training for a while.

Master Class: "Performing Monsters Motion Theater” with Jay Scheib. A two-day composition Master Class
Dates: Saturday & Sunday, June 11 & 12 (2011)
Instructors: Jay Scheib (bio) & Natalie Thomas (bio)

Natalie Thomas has an extensive background in both acting and dancing, which are integrated into her approach to teaching. Natalie developed Improvisational Movement, a method based on William Forsythe Dance Technologies, during her work on The Wooster Group’s Poor Theater. Natalie’s theater credits include Lucid at the Cherry Lane Theatre, Bellona, Destroyers of Cities at The Kitchen, Untitled Mars (This Title My Change) at PS122 and The Wooster Group’s House/Lights at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Her film and TV credits include Month To Month, MWM, Monster, Exhume, 1901, Payback, Heute Nacht, Sunday, The Guiding Light, and Law and Order. Natalie was the movement coach for The Wooster Group on productions Poor Theater and Hamlet. Natalie has taught Improvisation at The Ailey School and Peridance and guested at Marymount Manhattan College, Stella Adler Studio, Black Nexxus and MIT. She currently teaches at Playwrights Horizons at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Natalie is a former company member of William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt, and Nederlands Dans Theater II. hide

Jay Scheib's recent productions include Bellona, Destroyer of Cities which premiered at The Kitchen followed by presentations at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston and in Paris as part of the Maison des Arts, Creteil, (MAC) Exit Festival. Other recent works include Evan Ziporyn’s A House in Bali which was presented in Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival 2010; works in Germany include new stagings of Beethoven's Fidelio at the Saarländisches Staatstheater in Saarbrücken and Brecht's Puntila und sein Knecht Matti in Brecht's hometown Theater Augsburg. Other productions include This Place is a Desert (ICA/Boston, Prelude Festival, Under the Radar Festival/Public Theater), and Addicted to Bad Ideas, Peter Lorre’s 20th Century which played numerous festivals internationally including the Spoleto Festival, Urban Festival Helsinki, Luminato Festival Toronto, Peak Performances Montclair, and the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival. Other works include the world premiere of Irene Popovic’s opera Mozart Luster Lustik at the Sava Center, Belgrade, Serbia, Lothar Trolle's Ein Vormittag in der Freitheit at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin and a new staging of the Novoflot science fiction opera saga Kommander Kobayashi in Saarbruecken, Germany. and Untitled Mars, (This Title May Change) at Performance Space 122 in New York and at the State Theater in Budapest, Hungary.

A 2011 Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the Edgerton Award, Jay Scheib is a regular guest Professor of acting and directing at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, a frequent guest at the Norwegian Theater Academy, and Associate Professor of Music and Theater Arts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. hide

Description: Motion Theater, developed by Scheib and his collaborators, combines Viewpoints with Forsythe's Improvisation Technologies and a pinch of Brecht's Epic Theater resulting in an improvisation-based approach to physical action, motion, and movement events in performance. This two-day intensive introduces nine modalities of Motion Theater as a basis for improvisation. Sessions focus on incongruity, shearing, folding, duration, architecture and other movement concepts to be used as compositional tools. The best monsters defy logic, commit the unthinkable as though it were normal and generally favor the incongruous— the second half of the training is dedicated to Performing Monsters. Participants will develop compositional studies and short performance works made in groups or alone. Mr. Scheib (http://www.jayscheib.com) will be joined by long-time collaborator and member of his ensemble, Natalie Thomas (http://www.ntprofile.com).

Who should Register: Actors, Directors, Choreographers, Theatre Ensemble Groups, Performance Artists, Installation Artists.

Dates: Saturday & Sunday, May 21 & 22 (2011)
Instructor: Kevin Kuhlke of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts

Description: Utilizing the theoretical writings of Erving Goffman, Bertolt Brecht and Francis Hodges, the workshop will focus on teaching concrete fundamental staging "tools" while exposing participants to ways to energize the creative relationship between Dramatic Action, Sub-textual Behavior, Theatrical Frame and Visual Storytelling.

Who should Register: Actors, Directors, Dancers, Choreographers, and Theatre Ensemble Groups.

Master Class: "The Inner Work of the Viewpoints: A Source for Authentic Action" with Wendell Beavers
Dates: Saturday & Sunday, May 14 & 15 (2011)
Instructor: Wendell Beavers (bio) of Naropa University (bio)

Wendell Beavers, a dancer and educator, has Chaired Naropa University’s MFA Theater: Contemporary Performance Program since its founding in 2004. He was a founding faculty member and Director (1984-1990) of The Experimental Theater Wing (ETW) at NYU, teaching there from 1979-2003, where he worked on the development and application of the Viewpoints with originator Mary Overlie. He was a co-founder and early director of Movement Research in New York, dancing there in a variety of groups and venues. His work has been seen at DTW, Judson Church, Danspace Project, Dixon Place/Vineyard Theater, P.S. 122, ADF Six-Week School and on countless streets and dusty squares. He is the creator of Developmental Technique™ a movement training based on the developmental movement and experiential anatomy work of Bonnie Cohen and The School for Body Mind Centering® and a variety of sources. (hide)

The Naropa MFA Theater: Contemporary Performance Program, in Boulder, Colorado, founded and Chaired by Wendell Beavers, is developing a new paradigm integrating contemplative practice and interdisciplinary conservatory level performance training. Its first class of 18 entered in the fall of 2004. The two-year program has immediately taken its place as a visionary training, attracting an ensemble of professional artists and a faculty that has included some of the best-known innovators in contemporary performance. The program is devoted to rigorous research and innovative conservatory style training supported by Naropa’s unique commitment to contemplative education. It is deeply committed to presenting both reinvented classics and provocative original work, and to furthering the reintegration of theater, dance and music within Naropa University’s contemplative context. Faculty and Associated Companies have included, Stephen Wangh, author of An Acrobat of the Heart; A Physical Approach to Acting, Naropa Senior Faculty Barbara Dilley, Meredith Monk/The House, Moises Kaufman and The Tectonic Theater Project; and Anne Bogart’s SITI Company, Butoh Master Katsura Kan. www.naropa.edu/academics/graduate/maperformarts/indexcfm (hide)

Description: Mr. Beavers will lead participants through an intensive focused on the process aspect of viewpoint technique and practice—the inner work of the performer. The essential activity in working with the viewpoints is a dynamic pairing of deepened, articulated somatic presence of the body, and heightened perception of the environment. This is the basis for not only appropriate (authentic) response, but also offers the possibility of a piercing, truthful, virtuosic response. The workshop will include Developmental Technique™ as warm up and physical vocabulary and exercises for cultivating and sharpening mindfulness and awareness as the basis for individual and ensemble creation. This work forms the physical foundation for training in Naropa University’s MFA Theater; Contemporary Performance Program.

Who should Register: Actors, Physical Actors, Dancers and other Performers; Ensemble Groups; Teachers interested in dance/theater integration; Directors and Chorepgraphers interested in theory and pedagogy.

John Collins founded Elevator Repair Service (ERS) in 1991. Since then, he has directed or co-directed all of the company's shows. From 1993 to 2006 he worked for The Wooster Group as a sound designer (two Drama Desk nominations and two Bessie Awards). As a lighting designer, he won a Bessie Award for his design of ERS' Room Tone. John is the recipient of a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama and Performance Art and also in 2010 received the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director for Gatz at American Repertory Theatre. John was born in North Carolina and raised in Vidalia, Georgia. He holds a degree in English and Theater Studies from Yale. (hide)

Mike Iveson’s credits include: Off-Broadway: Gatz (ERS/The Public Theater, A.R.T., Sydney Opera House and world tour); The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928) (ERS/New York Theatre Workshop and world tour); Crime or Emergency (Soho Rep & P.S.122); Dot (Clubbed Thumb/Ohio Theatre). Regional/national tours: The Select (The Sun Also Rises) (ERS/Edinburgh International Festival,Philadelphia Live Arts); plus tours with Sarah Michelson, Sibyl Kempson, New York City Players, Dancenoise and many others. B.A. in theatre from Oberlin College. (hide)

Katherine Profeta is a founding member and choreographer of ERS. She is also a dramaturg with a DFA from Yale, and an Assistant Professor at Queens College's Department of Drama, Theater and Dance. ERS: all productions in some capacity large or small except Gatz. Other work includes 131 (director/choreographer, PS 122), King John (dramaturg, Theatre for a New Audience), The Geography Trilogy and How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere?
(dramaturg, Brooklyn Academy of Music). (hide)

Ben Williams, a native of Culleoka, Tenn., has worked for ERS as an actor, sound designer, technical director, and production manager since 2004. Credits with ERS: The Select (The Sun Also Rises), The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928), No Great Society and Gatz. Recent projects include: Walse-Fantasie, a solo dance for Mikhail Baryshnikov (voice-over); Vision Disturbance with NYCPlayers (sound); and the Summer Institute at the Performing Garage (Sound, TD). (hide)

Victoria Vazquez has been a member of ERS since 1996. With ERS she has performed in Cab Legs, Total Fictional Lie, The Sound and the Fury (April 7th, 1928) and Gatz. Vazquez has also performed in Das Maedchen, People Without History and Caveman (with Richard Maxwell and the New York City Players), and Pullman, WA (Young Jean Lee) among many others. She has presented two original theater works in New York: Wrestling Ladies (Creative Capital Foundation Grant) and The Florida Project, both at PS 122. She is a teaching artist for Creative Capital's Professional Development Program, The Kitchen's program at Liberty High School, New York Theatre Workshop and The Wooster Group's Summer Institute. (hide)

Elevator Repair Service creates original theater productions composed of a wide range of subjects and sources. Through an ongoing collaboration among actors, designers and director, the company creatively translates images and narratives from other media into live performances for intimate physical spaces. Combining conventional and radically unconventional performance styles, choreography and experimental design, ERS’ work celebrates the unpredictable and revelatory experience of live performance.

The ensemble was founded by director John Collins and a group of actors in 1991. Since that time, ERS has created a body of 14 works that has earned us a reputation as one of New York’s most innovative experimental theater companies of the past 20 years. The company creates a new piece approximately every 18 months, through extended periods of collaboration. Each ERS work is presented in several work-in-progress showings for small audiences and culminates in an extended run in New York. Since 1997, the ensemble has frequently toured the US and Europe. Noted ERS works include No Great Society, Room Tone, Cab Legs, Gatz and The Sound and the Fury. (hide)

Description: The Master Class will begin with a lecture/video demonstration about the company’s work led by Artistic Director John Collins. ERS Choreographer Katherine Profeta will then speak about the company’s use of dance, source material (mostly found video) and different working methods used to create choreography. After showing a dance’s “sources” the performers will demonstrate a finished dance from one of the company’s
works: The Sound and The Fury, (April 7, 1928).

Using new, untapped source material, the participants will work alongside company members to create phrases of choreography with assistance from the Choreographer and Director.

The second day of the workshop will focus on shaping the choreography and applying music and sound design to it, ending in a final presentation of the material, with possible revisions and a wrap-up discussion

Who should Register: Actors, Directors, Dancers, Choreographers, and Theatre Ensemble Groups.

Stacy Klein is Founder and Artistic Director of Double Edge Theatre. Under her leadership, Double Edge has grown for almost 30 years into one of the foremost laboratory theatres in the U.S. The first work created by Klein with Double Edge was a series of plays collectively called the Women's Cycle (1982-1986), followed by the Song Trilogy (1987-1999). The Garden of Intimacy and Desire performance cycle was created from 2001-2009 and remains in the company’s repertory. It includes The Disappearance, which premiered at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles (2008), Republic of Dreams (2007), drawn from the life and work of Polish-Jewish artist Bruno Schulz, and the UnPOSSESSED, based on Don Quixote, which premiered in New York in 2004. In 2002, Klein created the Summer Spectacle series at Double Edge, annual indoor/outdoor traveling performances that take place throughout the grounds of the Farm. The most recent of these, The Firebird, marks the beginning of a new stage in Double Edge’s work, The Chagall Cycle, a five-performance cycle involving artists from five countries, planned for 2010-15. Klein’s training methodology has been profiled in American Theater, The New York Times, Theater Heute TheatreForum, and TDR, among many others, and she has written for Theater Topics and The Open Page. She was mentored by Rena Mirecka, lead actress of Jerzy Grotowski's Teatr Laboratorium, and by directors Jacques Chwat and Maxine Klein. She received the 2006 OTTO award for Political Theater, the MCC Artist Award, an InRoads grant, and was a Mento in the New Generations Mentorship Program. PhD, Tufts University (Theatre History and Criticism); MA (Political Theatre Education), Goddard College; BFA (Directing), Boston University. (hide)

Carlos Uriona (Master Actor/ Producing Director) has worked with Double Edge Theatre since 1996. He is presently working on The Firebird, which officially marks the beginning of the five-performance, five-country Chagall Cycle, planned for 2010-15. He is a co-creator of the theatre's most recent cycle of work, the Garden of Intimacy and Desire, and has created leading roles in all four performances of that cycle, including Maarten Soetendrop in the Disappearance and Don Quixote in the UnPOSSESSED. In 2002, Uriona co-founded Double Edge's annual summer series of Indoor/Outdoor Traveling Spectacle performances. Closely connected to this work is Uriona's role as the leader of Double Edge's grassroots campaigns and audience development initiatives. Uriona received an Arts International Inroads Grant, a Lila Wallace APAP award, and was a co-recipient of the Doris Duke/Andrew Mellon/TCG New Generations Mentorship Award. Before coming to Double Edge, he founded the award-winning puppet theatre Diablomundo, named one of the "Top Ten Most Important Argentine Theatres of the 20th Century¨ by the Association of Argentinean Critics. (hide)

Matthew Glassman (Lead Actor, Co-Director) has worked with Double Edge since 2000. He is currently working on The Firebird, which hails the beginning of Double Edge's upcoming five-country, five-performance Chagall Cycle. He has co-created the last three performances in Double Edge's Garden of Intimacy and Desire cycle in leading acting roles. Glassman leads the theatre’s year-round training programs, and also co-directed the training residencies/performances at Brandeis University and Yale University's School of Drama. His work as a playwright, Joby's Music, was showcased at Hartford's New Plays Festival. (hide)

Description:
Klein, Uriona and Glassman will guide participants to devise work from the point of departure of vigorous physical training with the body and objects, the development of metaphor through physical improvisation, and the creation of a ten-minute group etude. The paintings of Marc Chagall will be a source of exploration and a unifying theme. Participants should bring an object to work with (for example, a puppet, an image (painting), a small piece of text or poem, possibly fabric, etc.), and ideally have a story, archetype, or idea for the work. The work is vigorous, while also geared to each participant.

Who should Register: Actors, Directors, Designers, Visual Artists, Writers, Musicians, Theatre Ensemble Groups and anyone interested in exploring body-imagination connection. Open to all experience levels.

Founded in 1995 as an interdisciplinary ensemble, Pig Iron Theatre Company is dedicated to the creation of new and exuberant performance works that defy easy categorization.

In the past 14 years the company has created 24 original works and has toured to festivals and theatres in England, Scotland, Poland, Lithuania, Brazil, Ireland, Italy, Romania and Germany. The body of Pig Iron's work is eclectic and daring. Individual works have been inspired by history and biography (Poet In New York, 1997 and Anodyne, 2001), rock music (Mission to Mercury, 2000 and James Joyce is Dead and so is Paris: The Lucia Joyce Cabaret, 2003), American kitsch culture (Cafeteria, 1997), serendipity (Dig or Fly, 1996 and The Snow Queen, 1999), and fallen heroes (The Odyssey, 1995 and The Tragedy of Joan of Arc, 1998). In 2001, Pig Iron collaborated with legendary theatre director Joseph Chaikin (1935-2003) to create an exploration of sleep, dreams and consciousness (Shut Eye). In 2005, Pig Iron won an OBIE Award for Hell Meets Henry Halfway, an adaptation of Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz's novel Possessed; in 2008, Pig Iron won a second OBIE for James Sugg's performance in Chekhov Lizardbrain. In 2006, Pig Iron was named Theatre Company of the Year in the Philadelphia Weekly. (hide)

Description: The Ensemble Play Making Master Class will focus on Pig Iron’s tried-and-true playmaking methods. Participants will be given performance assignments, themes, stories, characters, and a piece of music, which must be solved as an ensemble. The playwriting and directing duties will be shared among the ensemble, and decisions are made collaboratively. This workshop emphasizes the generating of original material, the physicalization of characters and theatrical ideas, the structuring of group improvisations into finished pieces and the role music and rhythm play in theatrical creation. Participants will work on taking material developed through improvisation and turning this into finished pieces: precise, full, exuberant and moving.

Who should Register: Actors, Performers, Directors, Ensembles, and other artists interested in collaborative work.

Master Class: "Life with UNIVERSES: creating work through ensembles"
Dates: Saturday & Sunday, November 20 & 21 (2010)
Instructors: Steven Sapp (bio) and Mildred Ruiz-Sapp (bio) of UNIVERSES (bio)

Steven Sapp is a Founding member of the UNIVERSES. His credits include: Playwright/Actor for Ameriville (Director Chay Yew) at The Denver Project (Curious Theater-Director Dee Covington); One Shot in Lotus Position (The War Anthology-Curious Theater-Director Bonnie Metzger); Blue Suite (Director-Chay Yew ); Rhythmicity (Humana Festival); and Slanguage (NY Theater Workshop-Director Jo Bonney); Director for The Ride (Playwright/Actor/Director); The Architecture of Loss(Assistant Director to Chay Yew); Will Powers’ The Seven (Director-The Univ. of Iowa); Alfred Jarry's UBU:Enchained (Director-Teatre Polski, Poland). Awards/Affiliations include: 2008 Jazz@Lincoln Center Rhythm Road Tour; 2008 TCG Peter Zeisler Award; 2002 TCG National Directors Award; 2002-2004 and 1999-2001 TCG National Theater Artist Residency Program Award; 1998 and 2002 BRIO Awards (Bronx Recognizes its own-Performance); Van Lier Fellowship w/ New Dramatists; Co-Founder of The Point; New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect; BARD College, BA ’89. Publications include: Universes: The Big Bang (2009 release- TCG Books); Slanguage in The Fire This Time (TCG). (hide)

Mildred Ruiz-Sapp Founding member UNIVERSES. Playwright/Actor/Vocalist-AMERIVILLE (Director Chay Yew); The Denver Project (Curious Theater-Director Dee Covington); One Shot in Lotus Position (The War Anthology-Curious Theater-Director Bonnie Metzger); BLUE SUITE (Director-Chay Yew ); RHYTHMICITY (Humana Festival); SLANGUAGE (NY Theater Workshop-Director Jo Bonney); THE RIDE (playwright/actor); Alfred Jarry's UBU:Enchained (Director Steven Sapp-Teatre Polski, Poland). Awards/Affiliations: 2008 Jazz@Lincoln Center Rhythm Road Tour; 2008 TCG Peter Zeisler Award; 2006 Career Advancement Fellowship from the Ford foundation through Pregones Theater; 2002-2004 and 1999-2001 TCG National Theater Artist Residency Program Award; BRIO Awards (Bronx Recognizes its own-Singing); Co-Founder of The Point; Board Member (National Performance Network - NPN); Board Member (Network of Ensemble Theaters-NET); New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect; BARD College, BA ’92. Publications: UNIVERSES-THE BIG BANG (2009 release- TCG Books); SLANGUAGE in The Fire This Time (TCG). (hide)

UNIVERSES is a National / International ensemble Company of multi-disciplined writers and performers who fuse Poetry, Theater, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Politics, Down Home Blues and Spanish Boleros to create moving, challenging and entertaining theatrical works.

The group breaks the bounds of traditional theater to create their own brand, inviting old and new generations of theater crafters as well as the theater-goers and new comers to reshape the face of American Theater. (hide)

Description:
Through their series of “Life…” workshops, Universes will guide and engage participants in writing, spoken word and performance exercises to generate materials based on personal experience, and provide tools for incorporating these personal pieces into ensemble performance works.

Who should Register: Actors, Performers, Poets, Ensembles, and other artists interested in collaborativedevised work.

Master Class: "Present Body"
Dates: Saturday & Sunday, October 9 & 10 (2010)
Instructor: Pavel Zuštiak (bio) of Palissimo Company

Pavel Zuštiak, born in the former Czechoslovakia, is a choreographer, performer and sound designer based in New York City. He is the founder and artistic director of Palissimo Company. Known for sophisticated, multidisciplinary works with piercing emotional content and abundant surrealist imagery that explore “the darker shades of human behavior” (The New Yorker), he has created a repertory of original works and collaborating commissions. His signature style merges the non-narrative qualities of dance with the image-based forms of theatre and film to create innovative, content-based, non-linear work that reach viewers as totalizing multi-sensory experiences. A 2010 Guggenheim Fellow and 2010 Alpert Award nominee, his choreographic work has been also recognized by the 2009 Princess Grace Foundation-USA Residency Award co- presented by the Baryshnikov Arts Center, by selection as a 2008–09 Artist- in-Residence at Movement Research, and with the 2007 Princess Grace Award for Choreography. More information available at www.palissimo.com

Description:
This master class incorporates a deep exploration of body systems, and then uses that exploration to introducecomposition, integrating Rudolph Laban’s theories and terminology. References will be made to simple movement realities such as flow, pause and exit. Through simple exercises and tasks we will learn how to be present on stage and simultaneously aware of the overall stage picture that we create together as a group. How to be free from the past and future? How to handle what was set in rehearsal, and yet stay open to what is happening in the given moment? How to be aware of what I am doing as an individual and my place within the group at the same time? (more)

The objectives of the class are to develop a conscious presence while improvising in performance; to amplify time in the performance space; to introduce aspects of composition and improvisation; to support performers in developing and enhancing skills connecting technique to composition; and to introduce individual artists to the concerns that occur while under the conditions of ensemble improvisation.]Who should Register: Dancers, Actors, Theater Artists and Performers of all disciplines and experience levels

Master Class: "Introduction to Graham Technique"
Date: Sunday, September 26 (2010)
Instructor: Miki Orihara (bio) of the Martha Graham Dance Company

Miki Orihara, a principal dancer of the Martha Graham Dance Company, began her training in Japan at an early age in traditional Fujima Japanese Dance. After graduating from Bunka Gakuin high school in Tokyo, she came to New York to study at the Joffrey Ballet School. Then received scholarships to study at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance.

In 1983 she became one of the original members of the Martha Graham Ensemble and thereafter shortly joined the Martha Graham Dance Company. She has performed with various other prominent companies and choreographers as well. These include Martha Clarke, Stephen Pier, Elisa Monte and Dancers, Jean Erdman, Marioko Sanjo, Jun Kono Dance Troupe (Japan), Buglisi/Foreman Dance, Twyla Tharp, and Robert Wilson. In 2001, she was invited to dance at the New National Theater in Japan. In 2006, she was a guest artist with Pascal Rioult Dance Theater for their France Tour. On Broadway, Ms Orihara appeared in the role of “Eliza” and “Topsy” in “ The King & I” directed by Christopher Renshaw, Choreographed by Jerome Robbins and Lar Lubovitch.

As a choreographer, she premiered her solo work/performance “Searching Dimensions” (1995) in New York. Her recent works are “Passage”, “Serious Garden” and “End of Summer” . These works were well received at their openings in Japan. In 2001, Ms Orihara presented an 8 women piece “VOICE” in Nagoya, Japan followed in 2008 by “Stage”.

Ms. Orihara assists master teacher and choreographer Yuriko in her Graham technique classes, reconstructions and choreography. She has also been a guest teacher at UCLA World Arts and Culture Department, Atlanta Ballet, State University of Florida, Arts International in Moscow with Takako Asakawa, the Ailey School, the New National Theater Ballet School in Tokyo, and numerous other workshops and schools throughout the world. She is currently on faculty at the Martha Graham School.

Description:
In this one-day master class, Ms. Orihara will introduce a basic level of Martha Graham technique, in which participants will experiment to find alignment of the body, use of muscles, energy directions and awareness ofbody and space. The class will also learn small sections of Graham's repertory and explore the possibility of expression using body language.

Who should Register: Actors and Performers interested in movement and the body, Performance Artists, Dancers and aspiring Dancers!

Master Class: "Conscious Movement/Open Movement"
Dates: Saturday, May 22, 12:00pm – 3:00pm & Sunday May 23 (2010)
Instructor: Barney O’Hanlon (bio)

Barney O’Hanlon
SITI Company member since 1994 and collaborator with Anne Bogart since 1986. International: Dublin Theatre Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Prague Quadrennial, MC93 Bobigny, France, Bonn Biennial, Festival Iberoamericano, Bogota, Kaleideskop Theatre, Copenhagen, Denmark, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford on Avon. New York: BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, PS 122, Dance Theatre Workshop, New York City Opera, Glimmerglass Opera. Regional: American Repertory Theater, Trinity Rep., Alley Theater, Actor’s Theater of Louisville, Steppenwolf, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, San Jose Rep, Portland Stage, UCLA Performing Arts, Walker and Wexner Arts Centers, the Krannert Art Center, Austin's Rude Mechs (with Deborah Hay) and numerous Humana Festivals. Other: Los Angeles Opera, Opera Omaha, Prince Music Theater.
(hide)

This two-day workshop is an opportunity to find out what your movement is, your dance as it were. Through various practices, floor work, work that moves across the floor, choreographic notions and basic ideas about movement, it’s origins and potentials, we will explore how to bring our brains to our bodies, to cultivate the intelligent movement that is deep in all of us. The articulate body! A body that you can read clearly, that the others sharing the space can read, and that ultimately an audience can read.
We will work our way to good old-fashioned open-ended movement improvisations for the whole group. No experience is necessary. You just need to have a body and an open mind and willingness to experiment and experience. Come dressed to move! (less)

Who should Register: Artists of any discipline who are interested in Movement as a language and Moving as a subject.

Master Class: "Greek Drama Now" - a composition workshop
Dates: Friday - Sunday, May 7 - 9 (2010)
Instructor: Anne Bogart (bio)

Anne Bogart is the Artistic Director of the SITI Company, which she founded with Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki in 1992. She is a Professor at Columbia University where she runs the Graduate Directing Program. Works with SITI include Antigone, Under Construction, Freshwater, Who Do You Think You Are, Radio Macbeth; Hotel Cassiopeia; Death and the Ploughman; La Dispute; Score; bobrauschenbergamerica; Room; War of the Worlds; Cabin Pressure; The Radio Play; Alice’s Adventures; Culture of Desire; Bob; Going, Going, Gone; Small Lives/Big Dreams; The Medium; Noel Coward’s Hay Fever and Private Lives; August Strindberg’s Miss Julie; and Charles Mee’s Orestes. She is the author of three books: A Director Prepares, The Viewpoints Book and And Then, You Act.(hide)

Description: Open to actors, directors, choreographers, designers and playwrights (we will attempt to balance the group) who are interested in looking at the major Greek tragedies (Antigone, Trojan Women, Agamemnon, Electra, Orestes, Oedipus) to create short compositions that feel both contemporary and timeless. Participants are encouraged to bring a point of view and ideas about material to work on. Also please prepare a speech from one of the plays, a speech you feel should be heard in the world today because it is particularly relevant.Keep the entire weekend free and available to rehearse, specifically Saturday morning, Saturdayevening and Sunday morning.

Who should Apply: actors, directors, choreographers, designers and playwrights

Master Class: "Impulse is Born from Intention" – A workshop by the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards
Dates: Saturday, April 3rd & Sunday April 4th (2010)
Instructors: Thomas Richards, Artistic Director & Mario Biagini, Associate Director of the Workcenter (bio)

Thomas Richards
(B.A. Yale University, M.A. the University of Bologna, Ph.D. University of Paris VIII) is Artistic Director of Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards. He began his apprenticeship with Grotowski in 1985, and their work together developed until Grotowski's death in 1999. Thomas Richards arrived in Italy in 1986 with Jerzy Grotowski from the University of California, Irvine, where he had participated in Grotowski's “Focused Research Program in Objective Drama”. In Italy, Richards worked with Grotowski as his apprentice, was a driving force in the research known as Art as vehicle, and was designated by Grotowski as his “essential collaborator” and the person to whom he transmitted the “inner aspect” of his work. Today, Richards leads the newest group formed at the Workcenter, the "Focused Research Team in Art as Vehicle", created in 2008.

Richards was main creator and doer of the performative opus entitled Downstairs Action (filmed by Mercedes Gregory in 1989); he was the creator, director and main doer of Action, and also the director, guide in action and doer in The Letter three opuses at the Workcenter in the domain of Art as vehicle. Richards was also director, guide in action and doer in The Twin: an Action in creation, an elaborated structure of actions that led into the creation of The Letter. He was co-director of One breath left and Dies Iræ: The Preposterous Theatrum Interioris Show, two performative opuses created at the Workcenter inside its Project The Bridge: Developing Theatre Arts.

Mario Biagini
is Associate Director of Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards. Mr. Biagini, born in Florence, Italy in 1964, after several professional experiences as actor in France and in Italy - started work in 1986 as a member of the practical research team of the Workcenter. He soon became a key member of the Workcenter research known as Art as vehicle working in the team led by Thomas Richards. Mr. Biagini was doer in Downstairs Action (filmed in 1989 by Mercedes Gregory), and was a principal doer in Action, performative opuses at the Workcenter in the domain of Art as vehicle. He was also a principal doer in The Twin: an Action in creation, an elaborated structure of actions that led into the creation of The Letter. Mario Biagini is also a leader in Project The Bridge: Developing Theatre Arts – a branch of the Workcenter research, as main director and actor of One breath left, and as main director and main actor of Dies Iræ: My Preposterous Theatrum Interioris Show, two performative opuses created within Project The Bridge.
In 1997 and 1998, without interrupting his Workcenter research, Mario Biagini assisted Jerzy Grotowski in the preparation of his lessons and conferences for the Collège de France. And since 1990, parallel to Workcenter research, Mr. Biagini has conducted a personal and autonomous research - based on original texts and sources - on the theatrical and ritual traditions of India, with special concentration on the Hindu and Buddhist tantric lineages of Northern India. In 2007, a new team of the Workcenter, Open Program, was founded under Mario Biagini’s leadership. Open Program’s research is multi-faceted and involves the creation and exploration of structured sequences of actions, as well as experimentation with modern poetry. Another line of its research focuses on traditional songs from the Southern United States and on their position as a bridge between African heritage and contemporary Western music (blues, jazz, rock, pop). (less)

Master Class Description: This Workshop for actors and directors will focus on acting and singing skills, and the discovery of intention as the source of impulse. In theater we can understand behavior as a complex and dynamic relationship between impulses, physical actions, tempo-rhythm, contacts, intentions, vibration of the voice, spoken words, asociations, and details. These elements take place within a structure, in which the relationship between them is articulated. From outside one can read this organic manifestation of mind and body processes as something that carries a meaning, and to some extent this can be seen as the core oftheatrical practices. But, what is it? How to approach it? How to let this stream of behavior develop, grow, expand? (more)

The objective of the workshop is to utilize the tools of the craft to approch that which is alive - the seed of a possible organic manifestation of mind and body processes - taking each individual‘s creative potential as a starting point. How and what is the relation between the mind, the body, and something that is neither mind nor body, something that we can call the heart of the actor?
Led by Mr. Richards and Mr. Biagini, the participants will work on songs of tradition, which have formed the core of the Workcenter’s 24-year research. Assisting Mr. Richards and Mr. Biagini will be members of the Workcenter’s Open Program. (less)