On Your Feet Learning

In addition to semester long classes in movement, dance or voice and acting, students get to participate in a large number of workshops with NYC based artists. These workshops present students with the opportunity to try out vastly different approaches to creating performance. The workshops span a wide variety of genres, techniques and ideas. Through the experimentation with various types of work students learn new ways of devising performance, enlarge their sense of possibilities and clarify their own expression and artistic voice. Through meeting our workshop instructors and guest artists students learn first-hand about the life of an artist in New York City and make connections for the future.

“Trinity/La MaMa is daring, immersive, stimulating. You can’t really limit the values and lessons of the program to one word. It’s a program that is necessary. Regardless of if you’re in the arts or not, the La MaMa program teaches you new ways to create and problem solve.”

-Malcom Moon ‘12

Some examples of previous workshop topics:

Tectonic Theater Project’s Moment Work

Moment Work™ is a method developed by Tectonic Theater Project to create theatrical performance. It was used to create works such as The Laramie Project and Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde. Moment Work™ explores the theatrical potential of all the elements of the stage (props, sound, architecture, lights, costume, etc.) in order to create strong theatrical and dramatic narratives. The technique creates theatrical narratives from the ground up— “writing performance” as opposed to “writing text” by starting with self-contained theatrical units (Moments) and then sequencing these units together into larger theatrical events.

Theater of the Oppressed

Created by Brazilian director Augusto Boal, Theater of the Oppressed is an arsenal of theater techniques and games that seeks to motivate people, restore true dialogue, and create space for participants to rehearse taking action. It begins with the idea that everyone has the capacity to act in the “theater” of their own lives; everybody is at once an actor and a spectator. Boal said: We are “spect-actors!”

Viewpoints

Viewpoints is a technique for devising work in theater and dance. In the 1970s choreographer Mary Overlie created the Six Viewpoints as a tool to access the source of inspiration and creativity. Director Anne Bogart built on Overlie’s work, ultimately resulting in the delineation of nine “physical” and 5 “vocal” Viewpoints. At the core Viewpoints work is a practice for improvisation which gives devisers/performers a shared vocabulary. It is considered to be a logical way to examine, analyze and create art in a profound way as well as being a practical way to create staging.