MICHA Scholar Lab Announced For June 2020

Michael Chekhov Association (MICHA), the not-for-profit organization dedicated to preserving the artistic vision and technique of Michael Chekhov for the actor, director and teacher, are delighted to announce this year's MICHA scholar award recipients Cass Fleming and Roanna Mitchell. Cass and Roanna's lab titled, "The Third Space: Chekhov Technique in pedagogic, applied, therapeutic, and community contexts" will work toward devising a "tool kit" in relation to their practice-based research. The Lab will take place Sunday June 21 to Friday June 26 at Connecticut College in New London, CT. There are a limited number of spaces for members of the theatre acting and teaching community who would like to join Cass and Roanna in their investigations. The fee is $350 (Including meals, MICHA membership is required at $75 plus a $75 non refundable registration fee to reserve your spot) and applications are accepted on a rolling basis. Campus housing is available at an additional cost. To register and apply for this the Lab or to learn about MICHA's other summer workshops visit our website at www.michaelchekhov.org

Cass and Roanna consider notions of a third space a useful entry point to explore how Chekhov's technique can be applied in a variety of contexts. They are inspired by the moments when "we harness the technique in teaching situations where we are not doing therapy, but have to admit that we are not NOT doing therapy, and also when our work is intentionally designed for health, social and community purposes." They will lead an investigation into the potential functions of Chekhov's techniques as transformative catalysts in relation to self, identity and others, within pedagogic, applied, therapeutic and community contexts.

The Scholar Lab will explore the potentiality of the creative and inter-personal space created between the facilitator/teacher, the participant/student and the group as ensemble as a powerful, but indirect, therapeutic and interpersonal dimension of Chekhov's practice. During the Lab, participants will exchange and explore and, ultimately, work toward devising "tool kits" in relation to their practice research. The lab will draw on postcolonial and sociolinguistic theories of identity, community, real and imagined spaces (Soja, Lefebvre, Bhabha), play practices and progressive pedagogies (Montessori, Naumburg, Freire, Hooks) to explore Chekhov's methods and principles as a means to work within, and facilitate, a dynamic 'third space'.

Roanna Mitchell is a performance-maker and movement person, co-director of the Chekhov Collective UK, and lecturer at the University of Kent where she is course leader for the MA Physical Acting. Her work explores performance and training in the intersection between acting and dance, and applications of Chekhov technique beyond the theatre. She has directed/created/movement-directed performance internationally, often working site-responsively and including collaborations with Richard Schechner (Imagining O, UK/India/US), Platform 7 (Resting Place, Ramsgate/Charing Cross Station/Folkestone Seafront) and Accidental Collective (Here's Hoping, Theatre Royal Margate / Oval House London).

Cass Fleming is a British theatre director and a teacher of acting, directing and devised theatre making, director of The Chekhov Collective, a core Associate of Michael Chekhov UK, and a lecturer in the department of Theatre and Performance at Goldsmiths, where she introduced Chekhov Technique into the undergraduate curriculum and to the students on the MA in Applied Theatre. She has a PhD on the use of play in actor training addressing the work of Suzanne Bing and Michael Chekhov and the synergies between their practices. Her productions as a director include work in devised embodied theatre, text adaptations and devised theatre with companies such as Rubicon Performance Company, Second Stride and Flaming Theatre.