ONGOING TRAINING for the DYNAMIC PHYSICAL PERFORMER
Twice Weekly. Ongoing. Sweaty. Playful.
Physical Education (P.E.)- Occurring and Enrolling Now!
photo by Eric Melzer, design by Joanna and William Harmon
This activity funded, in part, by the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.
Here's the WWWWW:
When
Saturdays 10am-Noon
& Mondays 6pm-9pm
Where
Hennepin Center for the Arts' Studio 7A.
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--------Driving Directions and Parking Suggestions
(We meet here through August, after which time, we'll keep you posted!)
Membership Rates
We want an ensemble to grow, so we encourage monthly and annual memberships. (It's like a gym membership.)
Monthly membership- $25
2 sessions a week, 8 session a month. That's about $3/session!
“Drop in” Membership- $10
Come to one session of P.E. for $10. If after you “drop in” you decide to join as a member, that $10 applies towards a monthly or annual membership.
Annual membership- $225.00
11 months for the price of 9. That's a $50 savings over the monthly rate!
Work-study Program
This program is available to dedicated members who would like to participate in classes but cannot afford the monthly membership. Please contact Joanna Harmon for more information.
Why?
Live Action Set believes that with rigorous practice and purposeful play, the performing artist grows. P.E. invites participants to share knowledge, hone skills, and expose themselves to new artistic techniques. P.E. sessions are led by teaching artists in the performing arts, but primarily from theater and dance.
P.E. is open to people of all levels of experience who seek to improve their skills as performers, but is targeted at professionals in the performing arts. Participants are creative personalities who are ambitiously curious and committed to collaborative creation.
Content of P.E. sessions is determined by the teaching artists and can include a wide variety of styles and methods. Themes proposed by participants and drawn from Live Action Set works-in-progress may also inform content. A portion of P.E. sessions is devoted to creating material to be shown at informal presentations each month.
All material created is "open source," no one has sole ownership of an artistic idea or creation proposed in the training sessions. Everything is available for others to expand, manipulate, or use in another medium or venue, for the true sharing of knowledge places no limitations on creativity.
Fearless Leaders
First up, and for the month of July...
VANESSA VOSKUIL teaches sessions. She is a choreographer, director, performer and creator of interdisciplinary performances, dances, films, and music theater. Since graduating from the University of Minnesota with degrees in dance and theater, she has created more than twenty original works presented by theaters and universities throughout the Twin-Cities area. Voskuil is a recipient of a 2009 McKnight Fellowship for Choreography and recieved two Sage Awards for Outstanding Design for her productions, "THE WHITE SOLOS" (2006) and "en masse" (2009). Her work has been supported by the Moore Family Fund for the Arts of the Minneapolis Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board and commissioned by the Southern Theater, Walker Art Center, Carlton College and Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theater. In 2003, Vanessa co-founded ensemble group Live Action Set and served as co-artistic director until 2009. vanessavoskuil.org.
She asks: How does presence become intention and energy become action? Presence, meaning a state of being, an energetic pulse that transmits and reverberates beyond the performers body. Action, which is the form where the performer’s energy is revealed and is the structure that makes it possible for the performer's inner presence to reach the observer. We will begin by focusing on our corporeal body and investigating our relationship to our breath, to our body center and to the ground. We will investigate different qualities of vibration, strengthen our capacity for feeling, and expand our awareness towards a 3 dimensional and fully embodied performer. The approach will not be just a series of exercises but a deep investigation of our body language. Complimented by bioenergetic exercises, vocal/physical work, meditation, active imagination, improvised scores, and performer interaction.
photos by: John Koch, Paul Virtucio, Cameron Wittig (from left to right)
Aug 2 – Aug 23 (7 sessions)
JIM LICHTSHDEIDL (LICK-shy-dull) is an actor, director, choreographer and instructor based in the Twin Cities. He has led improvisation and movement workshops for Brave New Workshop, The Guthrie Theater, and the University of Minnesota. His acting credits include those from The Guthrie Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, The Alley Theater, and Theatre de la Jeune Lune. This fall, he will perform at the Tricycle Theater in London, and in January will perform an original creation at The Southern Theater’s Brouhaha Comedy Festival. His musical pantomime KNOCK! won several awards including the Ivey Award in 2006.
His sessions focus on music. The soundtrack of life informs the movement of life. What is the rhythm that flows through a character? Does the beat of his private interior align with the jazz of his public exterior? We’ll explore the ways music informs a character’s physicality, and also how it serves as a point of inspiration for the creation of a new character. Participants bring in a song recording or musical instrument with which they will create individual character silhouettes.
photos by: Paula Keller, Wyatt Jensen, Michael Daniel (from left to right)
Aug 28 – Oct 2 (11 sessions)
RYAN UNDERBAKKE has spent the last seven years as an international artist, creator, performer, director, and instructor working professionally in Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis and London. He studied at the University of Minnesota, Stella Adler Conservatory and the London International School of Performing Arts. His training includes Characterization Method, Stella Adler Realism, Lecoq-based Pedagogy, Rasa boxes of India and many more. Ryan currently serves as a faculty member for both acting and film sessions at the acclaimed New York Film Academy in New York City. His co-collaborated piece with Emily King was featured in 2009's Choreographers Evening at the Walker Art Center. For Live Action Set, he co-conceived and directed The Happy Show, an excerpt from which will be featured this fall at the Ivey Awards.
His sessions explore the physical language of the body as the tongue of a universal theater. This language has rhythms, tempos, and gestures. A quick flick of a finger or lingering glance have the power to speak novels. For a character who has lost his keys, a search that begins too quickly makes it seem as if this is an everyday occurrence, and if the search begins too slowly, it gives the impression that the loss of his keys drives him into mourning. An acute awareness of his own body empowers the performer as an imagistic storyteller.
Oct 4 – Oct 23 (6 sessions)
VLADAMIR ROVINSKY and LISA CHANNER
Vladimir Rovinsky attended the St. Petersburg Academy of Theatre Arts, Russia, graduating with an MFA in Directing in 1999. In addition, he trained with Alexei Levinsky in the system of Biomechanics, which was created by Vsevelod Meyerhold as a non-realistic physical training system for actors. Vladimir has taught acting, directing and movement in many settings both in the U.S. and Russia. He was assistant professor of Theatre at the University of Montevallo, AL from 2003-2007 where he taught performance and directing classes in the BA/BFA program. Vladimir is currently an assistant professor of theatre at St. Cloud State College in St. Cloud Minnesota. He is from St. Petersburg Russia.
Lisa Channer Her directing and performance work has been seen internationally including the Joseph Papp Public Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Illusion Theatre, Playwrights Center, Open Eye Figure Theatre and Red Eye Theatre. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, Artslink International, the Fund for Women Artists, the Edith Markson Travel Fund, and the Fox Foundation. She has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar Award for a new project in Russia in spring 2011. Lisa is currently having her research supported by the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Advanced Study for her work on a new play based on the epic of Gilgamesh (premiering Sept 2010). She was the associate producer of The Meyerhold Project, a bilingual, multinational project about Russian director Vsevelod Meyerhold. She has an M.F.A. in Directing from the Yale School of Drama. She received additional training at the Dell Arte School of Physical Theatre in California and the St. Petersburg Academy of Theatre Arts in Russia. She is an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota.
They will jointly lead a lab on biomechanics, the system of actor training developed by legendary Russian director Vsevolod Meyerhold in the 1920’s as the study of the body in motion. Training begins by working with wooden dowels, after which the student moves through a series of five etudes of still poses. Heightened physical awareness and mental concentration is required to achieve fluidly and synchronization of body parts, negotiating a variety of time signatures and rhythms within the body. The detailed focus of biomechanics allows the performer unwavering confidence.
and beyond...
Following months' teaching artists include Randy Reyes, Dario Tangelson, Luverne Seifert and others. Stay tuned!
Game?
Contact Joanna Harmon at joanna@liveactionset.org with your contact information and days/weeks/months you would like to attend.
Bring an outfit you feel comfortable sweating in and sneakers with clean soles as some of the work will be in shoes. These are professional level training sessions, so the pace will be quick, but everyone is welcome and enthusiasm counts for a lot.
All participants are required to complete both a Liability Waiver and a Documentation Waiver. Click on the links to download them yourself. Otherwise, copies will be provided to you on the day of your first attendance.
Find which option is right for you and follow the steps!
New Monthly Members
1. Register via email or in person. Payment accepted online (credit card) or in person.
2. If registration is via email, we will respond with confirmation your place and include important information. If registration is in person, please come 10 minutes early to go over the details.
3. Arrive ready to work.
Returning Monthly Members
1. Register via email or in person. Payment accepted online (credit card) or in person.
2. Arrive and continue working.
New Drop In Members:
1. Register via email or in person.
2. If registration is via email, we will respond with confirmation of your place and include important information. If registration is in person, please come 10 minutes early to go over the details.
3. Arrive ready to work.
Returning Drop In Members
1. Register via email or in person.
2. Arrive and continue working.
Annual Members
1. Register via email or in person.
2. If registration is via email, Joanna will respond with confirmation of your place and include important information. If registration is in person, please come 10 minutes early to go over the details.
3. Arrive ready to work.
Payment
Payment is due on the first day of participation. For "drop in" and annual memberships we accept cash or check. Monthly members may also pay via credit card. (Please note there is a credit card fee associated with this method.) Simply add each month you wish to attend to the cart and follow the secure checkout procedure.
Already taken a P.E. session?
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