WORKSHOPS
Introduction to Theatrical Clown
Facilitated through ArtSpot Productions in New Orleans, Theatre of the Oppressed Laboratory in NYC, and as performer-training for artist ensembles in San Francisco, New Orleans, and London.
Clown: the anti-hero, the naïf, the constant failure, the forever hopeful. The theatrical clown is a character who seeks the vertical of the hero, but trips over his feet and falls into the sawdust of the circus ring. This workshop will explore the clown state (state of idiocy, delight, bafflement, and play) and the character-centered, absurd theater that clown work proposes. We will research the edge between comic and tragic and will touch on the worlds of Samuel Beckett.
"I cannot express enough how meaningful the workshop was for me not only in my participating but the information I came away with about myself and how it might be useful in my artistic pursuits."
Visual Artist, Workshop Participant
Collaboration and Creating New Theater
At the Brooklyn Arts Exchange Teen Arts Conference
Facilitated by Elisa Matula and Jennifer Sargent
Drawing inspiration from Vagabond Inventions' unique practices, this workshop will explore absurd physical theater and the collaborative devising process. Participants will discover the worlds of the anti-hero and the profane clown, referencing Alfred Jarry's classic King Ubu. Exercises will explore the clown state, grotesque movement, character creation, physical approaches to Jarry's text, and inventing new material through improvisation. Participants will work as an ensemble to create original scenes inspired by Ubu's world and will engage in a process of giving peer feedback and revising work as group.
An Introduction to the Theater of Jacques Lecoq
A week-long residency at Oberlin College
Based on the teachings of the late Jacques Lecoq, this workshop offers starting points from which the performer-creator may observe and interpret our living world and its movement for the stage. Participants will approach methods of transposing living situations, physical characterization, improvisation, and collaborative creation by exploring the neutral body, space, rhythm, dynamics (the dramatic qualities of the natural elements, man-made materials, and animals), and movement technique (manifesting internal and external forces, decomposition, and articulation skills).
“You can spend your life inside a drop of water and see the world.”
Jacques Lecoq
The Architecture of the Passions
At Oberlin College
Where does joy situate itself in a room? How does jealousy enter a space and how does it move across it? What trail is carved in the air when annoyance becomes anger and anger becomes rage? What does the body of vanity or fear or love look like?
This two-hour workshop is based on the work of the Laboratory for the Study of Movement (the LEM) - or the Scenography Department - of the Jacques Lecoq School in Paris, France. This is not an acting class, but a playful exploration into our common human experience in order to observe, discover, and construct the "human passions" in space and movement. We will experiment using the wisdom of our own bodies and the material assistance of wooden poles which, positioned in space, will create dynamic structures: the bodies of the Passions.