THEATER AND DANCE 403
TRADITION AND INNOVATION IN THE PERFORMING ARTS (1 course credit)
This course will concentrate on both contemporary and historical experimental artists and arts movements and will analyze their impact on both American and world arts traditions. The class will meet weekly for one two-hour seminar plus selected trips to performances, rehearsals or related events, installations, and museum exhibits.

THEATER AND DANCE 407
PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS (1 course credit)
In this course students will investigate ways to evaluate and discuss performance. They will attend three performances each week and a two-hour weekly seminar. The seminar will focus on exploring ways to articulate and write about the performances they see. In addition, students will do readings, view videotapes, read reviews, and discuss the historical and cultural context of the performance work they attend.

THEATER AND DANCE 405
THE NONPROFIT ARTS ORGANIZATION (1 course credit)
In this weekly seminar led by the Administrative Director of the Program, students will hear from professionals in the field of arts administration both live and on paper, and discuss how nonprofit arts organizations are structured and function. Students will share their own experiences resulting from their work with a sponsoring organization: a field placement selected by the student and the Administrative Director for a minimum of 15 hours each week.

Chris Andersson, the Administrative Director of Trinity/La MaMa, is a native New Yorker and graduate of Trinity College with a degree in Theater and Dance. A regular on the downtown theater scene, he has appeared in cabaret, comedy, and original theater pieces at The Duplex Cabaret, Comic Strip Live, and Todo Con Nada Theatre to name just a few. He can be heard singing the lead role on the MAC award-nominated cast album of Journey to the Center of the Earth on Original Cast Records. He is the Managing Director of aboutstage, a theater company dedicated to exploring the work of queer communities worldwide.

THEATER AND DANCE 401
PERFORMANCE WORKSHOPS (2 course credit)
Participatory workshops taught by recognized, working artists expose students to a variety of approaches that students can use to expand their expressive vocabulary and develop physical, vocal, and imaginative skills.

Students investigate the expressiveness of their body language through post-modern/modern dance and contact improvisation, and they learn to develop the natural energies of the voice, its physicality, and its relation to breath. There are special sessions introducing mime, Butoh, solo performance, and techniques from the Living Theater.

ART IN LIFE George Emilio Sanchez
This workshop will focus on developing the performing voice of each participant. Students will experiment with various approaches to writing, acting, and movement with the goal of creating original performance sketches. Students will be able to utilize their own writings, found texts, and assigned material along with other media, if so needed. One of the objectives is to feel at home where the various sources and approaches intersect.

George Emilio Sanchez is a writer, performer, and director who has performed throughout the United States and Latin America. His solo performances have been presented in NYC at the Public Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, P.S. 122, and HERE. He has collaborated with Patricia Hoffbauer since 1996. He is a Fulbright Scholar and has received two fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts. He earned his MFA at Bard College.

APPROACHING NEW THEATER FORMS Elena Jandova
What does the body in space "say"? How does the performer communicate with the audience through poetic, alternative means? Techniques drawn from the work of Eduardo Manet in Paris, The Living Theater in New York City, and others illustrate some of the practices in the field.

Originally from Bulgaria where she was a noted actress with the State Theatre as well as on television and in films, Elena Jandova is now based in New York City. She is presently a member of The Living Theater and has toured throughout Europe. Her directing credits include productions in New York, Knoxville, and Germany. She has taught in MFA programs at the University of Tennessee and the State University of South Carolina, in addition to presenting lectures and workshops in New York, Stockholm, and throughout Bulgaria. Jandova has a master’s degree from the National Academy of Theater Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria.

CENTERED MOVEMENT/ GROUNDED PARTNERING Lisa Race
This class emphasizes the use of contact improvisation, a technique for generating movement based on sharing weight. This class familiarizes students with each other’s ways of moving by using diverse physical experiences to invent a common creative medium. The class encourages students to reorient themselves to the straight up-and-down world, thus allowing ordinary encounters among persons to yield extraordinary kinetic predicaments and movement solutions.

Lisa Race is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher who has toured and taught internationally and throughout the United States as a member of David Dorfman Dance. Her choreography has been presented in New York at Danspace Project, Dance Theater Workshop, and Movement Research, among other venues, as well as at destinations on tour. She has taught at the American Dance Festival and Bates Dance Festival, and she has taught classes in New York. She was honored with a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) in 1995 and has been an artist-in-residence at Movement Research.

 

BUILDING PHYSICALITY Patricia Hoffbauer
The class encourages students to explore the interdisciplinary intersections among dance, movement, and theater. Students learn choreographed movement phrases and are asked to generate their own movement material through improvisations and problem-solving exercises.

Patricia Hoffbauer is a choreographer, director, and writer whose work has been presented throughout South and North America. Originally from Brazil, she has been developing her own work and collaborating with different artists in New York City for the last decade. She is interested in dramatically exploring a language that juxtaposes literal life situations with the body as a primary source of expression.

 

CREATIVE PROCESS Maureen Fleming
Maureen Fleming’s distinctive approach to Butoh employs three transformative techniques: "internal exercises" stimulate and strengthen the muscles closest to the bone; "movement and metaphor"challenges students to think and move "past their physical form"; and "manipulations" incorporate stretching and Shiatsu techniques that increase joint flexibility and unlock blockages of energy, allowing for a more complete realization of an artist’s vision.

Maureen Fleming, an American choreographer born in Japan, has gained international recognition for her singular form of multi-media performance. Fleming brings the discipline of a classicist and the imagination of an iconoclast to her unique interpretation of Butoh. Fleming has been awarded two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and three fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She also has received five fellowships from Arts International, and support from the Rockefeller Foundation, National Dance Project, Asian Cultural Council, and Meet the Composer, among others. She has been an artist-in-residence at La MaMa E.T.C. since 1984. The New York Times once said of her: "Fleming seemed to transcend the material world and enter a realm of pure spirit … wondrous choreographic metamorphoses."

VOICE AS THEATER Jonathan Hart Makwaia
The workshop explores the wide variety of sounds in each person’s voice, enabling students to develop a sense of vocal identity and broaden their vision of the voice in theater. The class includes sung, spoken, and "other" voices.

Jonathan Hart Makwaia is a vocalist, actor, and composer. He was musical director of the Roy Hart Theatre of France for 12 years. His productions include the OBIE-award winning "Pagliacci" at La MaMa. The New York Times describes his solo work as "unusually versatile … a spectacular display of vocal timbres and techniques." He also teaches at NYU’s Experimental Theater Wing.

INTRODUCTION TO MIME Jonah K. Emsig
This class focuses on the art of mime as developed by Etienne Decroux. Mime is a complex movement discipline, employing gestures and actions without words to convey emotion and create illusion. The class explores counterweight and manipulation, harmony, fixation, and counter-pressure.

Jonah K. Emsig, a native of Toronto, has performed in film, theater, and television as a mime and an actor. As a member of Moni Yakim’s New York Pantomime Theater, he performed at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and in an international film with Marcel Marceau. Since 1985, Emsig has been a faculty member of Circle in the Square Theater School, where he teaches physical acting. He has toured Europe extensively, performing and teaching with his own company. Emsig is a senior member of the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit that performs "Clown Rounds" at the bedsides of hospitalized children in New York, Boston, New Haven, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

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