Workshops Announced for 2011 Fertile Ground Festival

Take a workshop with Nomadic and other great Portland companies!

Venue: the mOuth (inside Zoomtopia, 810 SE Belmont Street)

Dates: Jan 22 & 29 @ 1:30pm &
Jan 23 & 30 @ 9am (arrive early)

Tickets: $15 w/ Festival Pass or if registered for multiple workshops
$20 each, a la carte
www.fertilegroundpdx.org/workshop_classes.html
www.Hand2MouthTheatre.org/nww.html

Join some of Portland's brightest minds in new performance as you participate in up to four workshops during the Festival, each providing a taste of creating new performance work in a unique and exciting way. These intense three-hour workshops will get you on your feet and involved in creating performance, generating text, improvising, clowning, and much more. Workshops will cater to all skill-levels, from the curious beginner to the advanced performer/creator. This year's series includes:

This year's series includes:

Jan 22: Jonathan Walters (founder and Artistic Director of Hand2Mouth Theatre)
Jan 23: Rachel Fachner (founding member of Collective Dance NY)
Jan 29: Heather Pearl (founding member and Co-Artistic Director of Nomadic Theatre)
Jan 30: Kate Sanderson (founding member and Co-Artistic Director of Fever Theatre)

Find details about each workshop and register at www.hand2mouththeatre.org/nww.html.
Register early as enrollment is limited! Participants should arrive early for workshops.

 

The Workshops

Tools for Generating New Work, led by Jonathan Walters
Here's your chance to learn about creating original performance, broadening acting range and becoming more open and creative in general. The techniques you will learn come from a blend of physical and experimental theatre and are made more exciting through Hand2Mouth Theatre's own years of theatrical research, with a goal of imparting to participants practical tools for use in generating their own theatre work. The workshop begins with physical and vocal ensemble-building exercises and moves into creation of ‘etudes' in which the participants craft small performance sequences, which are then shaped and edited. Next, participants are led through Hand2Mouth's technique of long form physical theatre improvisation, which combines highly structured performance rules and the inclusion of the pre-rehearsed ‘etudes'.

This training also strengthens stage presence, stress relief and an awareness and spontaneity within scripted work. Class is good for actors, designers, directors and anyone interested in the arts or having a good time. Come prepared to move and use voice intensively during the workshop.

Teaching Artist:Jonathan Walters founded Hand2Mouth Theatre(Portland, Oregon) in 2000 and functions as Artistic Director. Jonathan has directed the bulk of Hand2Mouth shows, and works closely with guest writers and the ensemble to develop original devised theatre work. Hand2Mouth theatre has toured its award-winning ensemble-created work to arts festivals, cultural centers and universities across the Northwest, California, New York City, Poland, and Mexico.

Jonathan began his career working in Poznan, Poland in 1999 with acclaimed street theatres Biuro Podrozy and Teatr Usta Usta. In the last several years he has collaborated, trained or studied with several of America's most innovative American theatres including Sojourn Theatre and Elevator Repair Service. He has taught workshops and led trainings across the US, including a recent class at Northwestern University, as well as in Europe and Latin America. Jonathan was a 2005-07 recipient of a Career Development Program for Directors Fellowship administered by TCG and the NEA and has won multiple artist residencies and grant awards towards the creation of original theatre work. He has been awarded travel grants by the Association of Performing Arts Presenters to initiate international projects in Poland, Mexico & Iran.

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Ensemble-based Text Generation, led by Rachel Fachner
Build text and movement connections both collaboratively, by consensus, and spontaneously. This workshop will look at ensemble-based text generation through a variety of experiences and interpersonally related techniques. Partially based on Carol Churchill's interview technique, consensus based decision-making, and a five senses text technique developed by Fachner, the workshop will lead participants through a group process which generates, group edits, then develops text which is continuously filtered by how that text suits movement and the building of performable moments. Participants should be dressed comfortably for movement.

Teaching Artist: Rachel Fachner comes to choreography from a multi-disciplinary background, and holds a BFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Rachel's choreography has been performed at Triskelion Arts, NYU, and One Arm Red. As a playwright, her work has been performed at NYU, and with Breedingground Theatre Company. Rachel recently directed La Turista by Sam Shepard with Solid Hang at Collective Unconscious. Other venues and companies she has worked with include: The Stable, Clubbed Thumb, Dixon Place, LAByrinth Theatre Co. at the Public, Target Margin Theatre Co., Tandem Otter, Salt Theatre, and other. Rachel is a founding member of Collective Dance NY.

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Creating with the Nomadic Theatre Co! led by Heather Pearl
Games, dreams, play, observations on the bus, research, travel....are all co-creators when the Nomadic Theatre Co. develops a new work of theater. In this workshop participants will create and perform a short piece using techniques of the Nomadic Theatre Co. Learn how to go from ideas that interest, humor or excite you, to theater that an audience wants to see. Bring your own idea, prop, image and we will incorporate those as we create the piece. Wear clothes and shoes you can move in!

Teaching Artist:Heather Pearl is a co-founder of the Nomadic Theatre Co and has been co-artistic Director since 2002. During that time she was part of creating six original new works, three of which were in the style of theatrical clown ( a passion of hers!). Pearl was previously a member of Do Jump! extreme physical theater in Portland, OR, and a number of circus and clown groups and shows in California. She studied at Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre, The Pickle Family Circus, Make-A-Circus, and with Moshe Cohen.
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Devised Theater: Discovering Creative Process, led by Kate Sanderson Holly
How is a theatrical moment made? Is it assembled from a detailed blueprint that was created before rehearsal? Does it arise unexpectedly from an improvisation? Does it reveal itself gradually through a repeatable exercise? When it comes to Devising Theater, the process is never taken for granted - it is invented every time, and can be an important part of discovering your voice, or the voice of your ensemble. In this introductory workshop, we will create a framework from which participants can invent a devising process and see it in action.

Teaching Artist:Kate Sanderson Holly is a performer, director, theater deviser and playwright, and is a founding member and co-Artistic Director of Fever Theater. She holds an MFA in Theater: Contemporary Performance from Naropa University, where she trained with some of the greatest performance innovators of our time: Barbara Dilley (of Judson Church Dance Theater), Steve Wangh, Leeny Sack (of Schechner's Performance Group), Leigh Fondokowski (Tectonic Theatre), members of the Roy Hart Theater and more. She has studied Viewpoints, Suzuki and Composition extensively with members of Anne Bogart's Siti Company, and has also studied the original Six Viewpoints with Wendell Beavers. With Fever, she has created more than 10 full-length original productions, and her work has been shown at TBA's Ten Tiny Dances, the Northwest New Works Festival, and the Boulder Fringe Festival.