From onionoak@hotmail.com Thu Jun 13 05:45:23 2002 From: onionoak@hotmail.com (Onion Oak) Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 21:45:23 -0700 Subject: [CI-Announce] Lasqueti Winter Improv & Performance Intensive 3 w/Karl Frost & others Message-ID: Lasqueti Winter Improvisation and Performance Intensive III January 11 – March 31, 2003 11 weeks of full time research in body-based creative process, contact improvisation, and interdisciplinary performance on remote Lasqueti Island in BC, Canada… a full time laboratory exploring the integration of art and life Directed and taught by Karl Frost With Guest Instructors: Amii Legendre (Contemporary Dance Technique) Joey Blake (A capella and Vocal Improv) Jeff Mooney (Rhythm & Percussion) Keith Hennessy (Theater & Performance Art) And assistant instructor Jez Parus Daily morning training in contact improvisation, focussing on release approaches Afternoon work in interdisciplinary approaches to body-based creative process and performance including Dance Composition and Improvisation, Release Technique, Voicebody work, Physical Theater and Spoken word, Authentic Movement, Bodywork, Music and Rhythm, Solo and Ensemble work, Image making, Process, Performance, and Facilitation Focus and aims · Deepen and widen the range of personal creative process · Explore creation and performance as collaborative event · Develop relation of personal creative process to performance and audience · Expand our capacity to make personally and socially relevant art in traditional and non-traditional contexts · Develop our awareness of our body/mind/self · Find meaning in, through, and of our art-making The intensive is intended for those who already have experience with both contact improvisation and performance… an invitation to those who have already found an important place in their life for this kind of work. More details below For more information, contact Onionoak@hotmail.com Or call 250 333 8608 Also, check out www.karlfrost.com, which should be up in late June. Please forward this notice to any who you think would be interested. If you would like to either be removed from this list or receive future notices bcc, please let us know. Peace ------------------------------------------- More Details…. Intentions The Lasqueti Winter Intensive is a multi-dimensional program of training and practice for experienced movers and performers. Directed by Karl Frost, the work will be physically rooted in the study of release approaches to contact improvisation and will venture from this base into a range of performance and creative practices. The aim is to develop an organic approach, based in improvisation, which blends across disciplinary boundaries. In this context, contact improvisation serves both as metaphor and physical embodiment of working principles of articulation within a flow and interplay of intention and detachment. Lasqueti Island provides a beautiful and quiet context for focus on the work Approximately a third of the work will be in contact improvisation, focusing on release work. Physical power is cultivated through release of unnecessary tension, passive sequencing of momentum through and between bodies, and use of falling weight as a source of momentum to be channeled through 3 dimensional space. Dropping away excess effort, our dance becomes more dynamic and powerful while simultaneously softer and more articulate. Proprioception guides movement, allowing efficient use of the body and a more direct interrelationship with the sensory world. As a movement and awareness practice, contact helps us expand awareness of our mind and body in motion. Beyond simply a physical exercise, we look to bring the whole of ourselves to our contact practice and see what the dance reflects back at us. In the relationship of open awareness and availability to intention and will, we look for what it means to be present. The intensive branches from this base in contact improvisation into an organic mixture of interdisciplinary approaches to body-based creative processes and performance: dance/movement improv and composition, theater, text, performance art, bodywork, voice, authentic movement, stage, music and percussion, image making. Creative process will be investigated in relation to self-exploration, creative interaction, and performance. In performance, we investigate viewpoints of space, time, shape, emotion/feeling, narrative/flow, and kinesthetic experience. We look at the technical details of entering and exiting, timing, use of space, orientation, lighting, presence, physical/emotional states, theme and variation of structures, silence and stillness, counter point, shifts and sustain, relationship of the individual and the ensemble, interrelationship of music, sound, movement, image and text. While tracking details, we also look for an intuitive view and feel of the whole of what is happening. We look to how the event is experienced by both audience and performer. Within improvisation, we learn to utilize the interplay of the random and of will, of listening and direction, of open availability and extemporaneous composition. We investigate improvisation both as an art of its own and as a laboratory and tool for composition. We view creative process with the thinking, physical and emotional bodies. With the body as source we look for play, seriousness, aesthetics, communication, self-revelation, concurrence and contradiction. We look for a felt sense of meaning and relevance within our work and then look at how it communicates. We look at performance as a place where we process the question of how we want to live our lives. Schedule Workshop The Intensive runs about 40 hours per week. The first 8 weeks are workshop. Daily Training in contact improvisation mixes with training in a wide spectrum of body-based creative and performance practices. A series of guest instructors will introduce new material and broaden our study (see below for details). Each guest instructor teaches an open weekend workshop and then stays for some extra time to work with just the intensive group. In particular, Amii Legendre sticks around for an extra three days to help us work on technique and Keith Hennessey takes over for a week to share his work in performance art and to integrate it with his own approaches to contact improvisation. Karl weaves the material of the guest instructors into ongoing explorations in CI and interdisciplinary improvisation and performance. In addition, during the second weekend, there will be an open, 2-day/2-night contact jam, giving us an opportunity to get to know each other’s dancing in a less formal atmosphere and a chance to meet other contact improvisers from around western Canada and the US. Primarily the study will be physical, but there will also be time created for discussion of the work and of a series of readings and performance videos. A weekly open contact class will serve as a laboratory in teaching as students teach class for the community. Informal performance opportunities through the intensive and through independent open-mics on the island give us the chance to share work. Laboratory Weeks 9 and 10 open up from classes into an organic mixture of training, laboratory, performance development, and rehearsal. The emphasis turns more towards integration and personal research. Karl will continue to teach some, but the time will also open up as we allow group curiosity to guide and allow everyone to follow their individual passions. We aim to identify and pursue our own passions both in contact and in performance work. We develop and expand the work of the training period, shaping individual and ensemble sensibilities for a series of collaborative performances in the 11th week. Performance & Teaching The intensive concludes in the final week through performance and teaching. We will perform in a series of community halls around the gulf islands leading into street performing in Victoria, where we investigate sight specific work. We use each performance as an opportunity for research. Everyone shares in feedback after the performances, evolving the process together from one to the next. We also turn towards sharing the work through teaching. The intensive closes as we return to Lasqueti, where intensive participants design and teach a weekend contact improvisation workshop. During the student led workshop, Karl will be there to offer suggestion in designing the workshop and to smooth out transitions, but otherwise stands out of the way so that intensive participants can design their own workshop. Logistics: The intensive is intended for those who already have experience with both contact improvisation and performance … an invitation to those who have already found an important place in their life for this kind of work. Limited to 16 participants. Tuition is $2000Can - $2500Can sliding scale. ($1350-$1700 US). Some work exchange will be available. Applications received by September 15 get priority; final application deadline November 1. Although there will be some variation on how much housing and food costs, a rough estimate would be about $1200Can ($800 US) for the 11 weeks. For more information on the intensive, experience requirements, or to apply, call 250 333 8523 Write… onionoak@hotmail.com or Lasqueti Winter Intensive GD, Lasqueti Island, BC V0R 2J0 Canada www.karlfrost.com for more details. Lasqueti Island is an isolated, rural island in the Georgia Straight, between Vancouver Island and the lower mainland in the west coast of Canada: no car ferry, off the power grid, and a winter population of fewer than 300 on an island the size of Manhattan. Winters are mildly cold, wet, very quiet, and green. Seals, otters, blue herons, osprey, and eagles share this temperate rainforest island. Forests and rock bluffs overlook the ocean. Living is very rustic. Limited distractions provide an excellent opportunity to focus on creative work. Karl Frost has been practicing and performing contact improvisation and interdisciplinary, dance-based performance since the mid 80’s. His physical work is influenced on the one hand by modern release technique and Alexander work, and on the other by his study of martial arts. He is known internationally for his dynamic movement style and for the edge-pushing, experimental nature of his work, both in process and performance. His performance takes the body and the emotionally and physically felt experience as its reference point. His work has been showcased across N and S America, Europe, Australia, and, more recently, in Israel. He is the director of the Dancing Wilderness Project, an ongoing investigation into the interrelationships amongst wilderness experience, body-based creative process, and how we live our lives. Jez Parus (assistant) has been a musician since a young age and began dance and contact improvisation in 1996. She has worked with teachers Nancy Stark Smith, Peter Bingham, Ray Chung, Chris Aiken, and Karl Frost. She is devoted to play and bodily awareness as revolutionary acts. Jez and Karl share vision of rurally based art making and simple living in connection to the land. They collaborate in teaching and performance under the name Onionoak. -------------------------------------------------------- Open Weekends Contact Improvisation Jam – January 24-26 Two days and two nights of open time sharing contact improvisation, creative process, and dance at beautiful Lasqueti Community Hall. Morning warm-up classes, opportunity to share performance work, dj’d music on Saturday night, and lots of open time for jamming, relaxing, or just taking a hike in the woods. An invitation for those already comfortable with contact basics. Starts Friday at 4PM and ends Sunday at 3:30PM (to coincide with the ferries) $60, includes all meals. Space limited to 55 Amii Legendre -- February 1-2 Technique, Composition, Partnering Technique: athletic and full-bodied modern dance technique, working with principles of alignment, release, inversion, and flight. Composition: Taking the technical information, integrating it with personal movement styles and shaping it for performance, solo and in ensemble, mixing the set and the improvised. Partnering {w/Karl Frost}: Integrating partnering work into improvised and choreographed dance work. Lift and momentum exchange vocabulary and principles integrated into a larger dance. Focus on continuity and flow, maintaining an independent dance into and out-of contact. Looking for a liquid relationship between self and other, floor and sky, set and improvised, we work from there. Amii LeGendre is a mover, teacher, and choreographer. She is the artistic director of LeGendre Performance Group, a Seattle-based contemporary dance company, with whom she has made five full evening works, many smaller works and projects, performing and teaching all over the West Coast and Ecuador. The work is firmly rooted in dance, but tends toward hybrid performance, bringing in elements of film, video, live sound, set installation and/or light design to explore a subject or material. Influenced deeply by training in gymnastics and 10 years of practice in contact improvisation, her work and ideas are informed by movement that is low and fast, tricky and innovative, blending the idiosyncratic voices of her performers and students with physical contact-based relationships that communicate emotionally Jeff Mooney -- Feb 8-9 Percussion and Rhythm Class will be based on body, breath, sounds and rhythm as language for ensemble building and group spirit. All skill levels welcome. We will indulge in the joy of trance pulses, non-verbal conversation and basic compositions, energy flow, dynamics. From stillness to ecstatic beats, whispers and screams included. Some writing games to discover personal and collective chants. Jeffrey Alphonsus Mooney has lived in SF since 1984. He has taught music, rhythm and improvisation for 10 years in SF, LA, Boston, Vermont, Missouri, independently and through his involvement with Reclaiming, a Bay Area based community of eco-activist and feminist pagans. He is currently recording a CD. He loves to sing in the shower. Joey Blake – February 15-16 CIRCLE SONG Circle Song helps each participant explore the art of Improvised Vocal Expression. Participants work with the arts of instrumental singing, vocal improvisation, and body percussion as they relate to different styles of music. We use the entire body including the breathing to produce rhythms. In addition to melody and rhythm, the voice is used as a paintbrush to create visual textures and to create a visual, mental and emotional experience for the listener. The ultimate goal is to give participants a renewed sense of freedom to discover their own style of vocal expression and improvisation. Raised in a family of musicians and gospel singers, Joey studied classical voice and vocal jazz arranging at Phil Mattson's School for Vocalist in Spokane Washington, developing his deeply resonant and expressive bass vocals. He is one of the founding members of Voicestra the a cappella ensemble created by Bobby McFerrin, and also the group Circle Songs. He currently performs with SoVoSo, a six member a Capella ensemble that spun from Voicestra. Joey's desire to teach is motivated by his need to give back to the music that fills his life with so much joy. Keith Hennessy – February 21-22 Performance Art: Inspiration and Intelligence How to make rich, innovative, personally and socially meaningful art with your mind, your body, and the world around you. How to interweave spoken word with physical image in a relevant way. The body is a potential source, metaphor, representation and home-base. Extending this awareness to the collective body, earth body, energy body, family body, and others we'll enter a shared laboratory of performance research and renewal. Working with improvisation and composition, alone and in collaboration, we'll engage in a hybrid process that includes all the potential languages of spectacle, ritual, theater, action and performance. Our sensations, ideas and desires collaborate with the classical ideals of Truth and Beauty. Keith Hennessy is a Canadian-born, inter-disciplinary artist and organizer living in community in San Francisco, where he has won numerous awards for his work. Hennessy’s solo work has been produced throughout the US, in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, including several Queer Performance Festivals. He was a founding member and principle collaborator in CONTRABAND, an internationally acclaimed performance company and since 1998 has performed with the French cirque batard CAHIN-CAHA. Hennessy serves radical cultural agendas as a consultant, director, teacher, curator, and agitator and co-directs 848 Community Space, a thriving urban gallery and performance venue. www.848.com The Group -- March 29-30 Contact Improvisation Come to a weekend of contact exercises, scores, and skill building led by a group of experienced contacters who’ve just spent 3 months developing and honing their skills and understanding of contact improvisation. An exceptional opportunity to get a variety of voices giving perspectives on ci as well as a lot of experienced dancers with whom to work. Includes CI Jam Saturday evening. The weekend workshops are $80 to $120 sliding scale, except for the March CI workshop, which is $45 to $60. Space is limited and they do fill fast. Workshops start 11AM Saturday and end 3:30 Sunday, coinciding with ferry schedule to Lasqueti. Fees include lunch Saturday and Sunday. Call or write for info, registration, and/or help with housing… (250) 333 8608/onionoak@hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com