Hey! Hey! Hey! We're the NEW Peers!

If you haven't heard already, there are BRAND NEW Peers for the 2008/2009 school year. With brand new peers comes brand new ideas, goals and opportunities for you, the students, to voice your opinions and have them heard by the University Theatre Arts and Dance Department faculty. Missed the peers formal introduction at the ice cream social? Not to fear we'll do it all over for you again right here on this blog:


Tom Lloyd: BA Acting Major- 4th year
Office Hours: Mon: 10:30-1:25, Tues: 11:50-12:40, Thurs: 11:50-12:40




Iman Milner- BFA Acting Major- 4th year
Office Hours: Mon: 5:30-7:00, Wed: 1:00-2:00, Thurs: 5:30-7:00



Molly Stoltz: BFA Dance Major- 4th year
Office Hours: Tues: 12:30-2:00, Wed: 11:45-1:00, Thurs: 12:30-2:00

EATING THE ELEPHANT: A Class with Kari Margolis

**Article about the MARGOLIS METHOD in ATME Newsletter

Eating the Elephant: A Class with Kari Margolis
by Denise Myers, Millikin University

While as theatre movement teachers we may instruct from a variety ofmethods, we ultimately want to help our students become more free to have variety and clarity in their theatrical choices. For those of us who teach in academia though, our system is set up and therefore encourages students to compartmentalize their learning. Often what is learned in acting class, for example, is separated from techniques learned in Play Analysis, Voice, or Movement classes. While I'm sure that we all speak of the eventual necessity of integrating these studies, often we leave that blending to happen magically in production work or in an upper level "capstone" course. Is it possible instead to begin teaching theatre with out these divisions?

I took advantage of the offer made to ATME members from Kari Margolisto receive a free DVD that featured clips from her teaching, philosophy and performance work. Intrigued, I was able then to take class for three weeks this summer with her in Barryville, NY. I came away with some specific exercises, of course, but more importantlywith a way of teaching that is very exciting to me. Her methods integrate everything about creating a theatrical moment immediately. I was training as an actor, one who is capable of thinking feeling and moving in an integrated way, right from the beginning.

What I found was that my goal with her was not so much to learn a codified way of moving, but rather how to use a way of moving specifically to practice the larger issues of making theatre. The daily challenges for research would change, but the overall goal of creating something strong and vital emotionally, physically and thoughtfully was always essential.

To give an example, using "the international language of physics" Kari would begin by leading a simple movement score such as breathing down into the core through the top of the head ("whale spout") while the arms respond to that impulse by moving upwards. Then we would reverse the movement to breath up into the core through the tailbone while the arms respond by moving down. We would also transfer the motor to the arms pressing up/down causing the response to be an in take of breathin the core.

We then would improvise with those movements, but are instructed to say what we are doing out loud. Voice is therefore immediately connected to the movements as well as a conscious awareness of what movements are being done or attempted. If you begin to go into a monotone drone, you can hear that disconnect and change it because the exercise is to match the energy of the voice to the dynamic of the movements. Eventually then to change to any text is a matter simply of changing words, not of adding the mechanism and intent of speaking. It becomes difficult to waft through space just "feeling" it, because the mind is connecting to what is happening both by impulse instinct and by choice. The physics of the movement must influence the shape of the vocalization.

We are then challenged to devise a "packet" of sequential moves. The packet, like a beat, asks that the movements connect, transform fromone another, and develop through a beginning, middle and end. Once the movement cycle begins, active resistance is used to keep the character from coming to stasis. In something as simple as putting five moves together, you are drawing on techniques of play analysis, shape,dynamics, objective, conflict, and of course physics.

Then as you move in space, you also consider more elements ofdramaturgy, as for example, what do your three steps mean vs. your onestep? Where are you moving in reference to the space available and to the perspective of the audience? How do you take what you are doing and work with another person, inspiring the other through your voluntary actions and your vulnerable responses to what the other is giving you? What is the pattern/story that is developing and how can you work with it and your partner to find its conclusion or its development into the next moment?

What I especially like is her attitude towards vulnerability, speaking about it as a simple honest result of physics, rather than as an opening of your entire being and soul to the world to be ripped asunder as most of my students seem to think I'm asking them to do when I mention "being vulnerable". Margolis works with how you voluntarily set a movement in action, which then results in an involuntary response. As the actor you need to be able to instigate that initial cause, but then you also, to be truthful, have to be open to where that movement may take you or to be available to what it causes to happen in the other person. Sometimes your action goes just where you planned and other times you are surprised at the outcome.This process is of course, the same as a character's journey through a play. You, as actor and character, need to be able to receive the result of your action muscularly, psychologically and emotionally. You are asked to keep the history of the effect as the basis from which to transform into your next voluntary move. By keeping vulnerability as a result that continues to transform, it seems to position that notion as something more dynamic and useful and less emotionally terrifying and static.

Time to flail around is important time in class, and since Margolis terms all of this work as "research" I was encouraged to use that time to look both at what I was developing as well as how I was finding it,what was missing, and what was yet to be done. Questions of "what" "why" "where" "how" and "what next" were continuously guiding me through my solo investigations, my constructions of packets as well as my improvisations with others.

`Yes, you are trying to do, think, feel 2,573 things at once, and yes, it's hard and frustrating. But isn't multi-tasking what we are doing when we are acting? It takes practice to connect since we have all been taught so well to separate and to compartmentalize. It takes practice to find an honest psychophysical ease of acting in the moment, i.e., eventually to just do it. Even though I was there only three short weeks, I feel that I came away with a method that gives me a way to study further because Kari Margolis has created a method that integrates learning about how theatre works; I am deliberately practicing using the parts to create a theatrical moment ofspecificity and depth.

Yes, her method is about eating the whole elephant right away. While many other techniques and most academic programs start by munching an ear and then progressing to nibble at the right leg, I think with Margolis' work I can start with gulping a whole elephant the size of an ant. If I can do that, I get the whole elephant and have a good idea of what the elephant is. With practice I can then progress to bigger sizes, but I'm still working on the whole.

Winter Workshop Week

TWO Exciting Workshops are being offered as part of Winter Workshop Week.

Workshop Week is designed to bring together the students of Theatre Arts and Dance in creativity and collaboration with artists who often blur the lines between performing arts disciplines. They are a great way to gain experience and develop as an artist.

Workshop With Rainpan 43
Performance Artists Trey Lyford and Geoff Sobelle

Monday, January 14: 2pm-4pm
Tuesday, January 15: 2pm-5pm
Thursday, January 17: 2pm-5pm
Friday, January 18: 2pm-5pm

Barker Center 100

Museum of the Self - led by Rainpan 43 artistic directors Trey Lyford and Geoff Sobelle and director of Amnesia Curiosa, Andrew Dawson. This workshop in theatrical creation, inspired by Rainpan 43's performance piece Amnesia Curiosa, will investigate how we relate to our past, and how we carry memory across generations. We will use personal stories as source material, filtered through the dramaturgy of Amnesia Curiosa (medical anomaly, 19th century spiritualism/séance, cabinet of curiosities) to tell stories in arresting and surprising ways. Working with both sculpture/installation and physical theatre, we will find new and unique ways of making the "internal" external.


Workshop with Joe Chvala
Monday, January 14: 9-1pm
Tuesday, January 15: 9-1pm
Wednesday, January 16: 9-1pm
Thursday, January 17: 9-1pm
Friday, January 19: 9-1pm

Barker Center 100

A percussive dance/theater workshop with Flying Foot Forum's artistic director - Joe Chvala. This workshop will use the lives of Loie Fuller and Franz Kafka and Kafka's work "Metamorphosis" as inspiration for a percussive exploration (movement, text, voice) of the artistic transformations these artists created. Participants will concentrate on the contrasts between these two artists and on the connections of their artistic metamorphoses to their personal stories, to the beautiful but ephemeral art nouveau movement, and the inevitable natural decline of the human body.

If you are interested in participating in this free one-week workshop before the start of Spring Semester, please sign up in the Barker OR Rarig Center. Space is very limited; workshop participation and wait-list spots will be confirmed before the winter break.

Congratulations to the 2008-2009 Sounding Board Student Ambassadors

Dance Ambassadors:
Renee Copeland
Molly Stoltz

BA Theater Ambassadors:
Alissa McCourt
Kat Wodtke
Tom Lloyd
Addy Salami
Molly Corkins
Laura Lechner
Andria Schumann

BFA Acting Ambassadors:
Elizabeth Griffith
Danice Cabanela

BA Design/Tech Ambassadors:
Rebecca Struch


These students, along with the Peers will act as your student/faculty liaisons. Go to these individuals with any concerns YOU may want to be brought up to faculty, or in a formal discussion setting where issues can be dealt with.

Congratulations again to these great students!

Best,
The Peers
Kendra, Ashley and Briar


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TH 3120: 20th Century Irish Drama: Nationalism, Identity, and the Stage
Spring Semester, 2008
Monday & Wednesday 1:25-3:20pm
Instructor: Kay Martinovich

COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course examines the development of Irish dramatic literature from the late 19th century to the present. In addition to critical analyses, students will rehearse, stage, and perform selected scenes. Beginning with the establishment of the Irish Literary Theater in 1899 -- which later became the Abbey Theater – this course will focus on issues of nationalism and identity in a broad range of Irish play texts as well as in the cultural and political climate in which these texts emerged. Students will analyze the plays through the lenses of various critical and theoretical discourses including post-colonialism and feminism. Unique to this course is a practical engagement with the plays. Students will work on textual analysis, specific dialects, and the particular structure of each play's language. This dual interaction with the material -- performing and critical thinking -- is vital to an interrogation of the idea of 'Ireland' -- as well as the world beyond.

TEXTS
The Playboy of the Western World - John M. Synge;
Juno and the Paycock - Sean O'Casey;
Translations - Brian Friel;
By the Bog of Cats - Marina Carr.

INSTRUCTOR
Kay Martinovich is in the Ph.D. program of the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota. Alongside her graduate school career, Kay works as a professional theatre director predominantly in the Chicago area. From 1999-2006, she was an Artistic Associate with Irish Repertory of Chicago. For Irish Rep she directed several productions including the American premiere of Marina Carr's /By the Bog of Cats.../, Carr's /The Mai/, Stewart Parker's /Pentecost/, Tom Murphy's /Bailegangaire/, and Brian Friel's /The Yalta Game /and /The Bear/. In 2002 she graduated from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland with a Masters in Philosophy in Irish Theatre and Film Studies.

UPCOMING AUDITION

THE WIZ will audition December 3 and 4 (singing/book) and December 10 (dance) with callbacks on December 11. The show is being directed by Dominic A. Taylor, directing faculty in the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance and Associate Artistic Director at Penumbra Theatre; musical direction by Sanford Moore, founder, director and arranger for the award-winning vocal jazz ensemble Moore By Four as well as director of the University Gospel Choir, and choreography by Uri Sands, co-founder/Artistic Director of TU Dance.

Auditionees should prepare one contemporary comedy or drama piece not to exceed 1 minute. For music auditions please bring in no more than one minute of a song to sing. The ideal audition song should showcase your skills at singing rock music, preferably a 70's pop song or songs from THE WIZ. Please bring sheet music for the accompanist or you may sing a capella. Singers may be asked to sing a short scale or phrase in order to identify vocal range for specific roles. The entire audition may not exceed 2 minutes.

The dance audition will be held December 10. Auditionees will sign-up in groups as indicated on the sign-up sheets. You should come at the appointed time warmed up and ready to go (room 20 has been reserved as a warm-up space). Dress appropriately -- no jeans or sneakers -- we need to see you move. Socks or bare feet are acceptable. Auditionees may be excused from their group at any time. Some auditionees may be requested to return later in the evening.

If you are auditioning for THE WIZ, you must sign-up for both sing/book AND dance auditions. Everyone moves and talks and sings in this show! Sign-up sheets are posted on the Production Notices Bulletin Boards across from the tunnel (NE end of the basement level of Rarig).

In order to audition for this production you must be enrolled for a minimum of 3 credits both this semester and spring semester 2008. Students cast in this production cannot be in PEACE CRIMES, WOYZECK, or THE GALILEO PROJECT.

TOWNHALL, The Wiz

If you are interested in the upcoming Spring show, "The Wiz" be sure to attend the townhall discussion concerning issues surrounding this project. The director, Dominic Taylor, along with musical director, Sanford Moore, will give interested persons a short presentation on their artistic vision for "The Wiz," to be followed by questions, concerns, ideas, and/or thoughts from YOU!

WHO: Any & All students & faculty associated with UofM Theatre Arts & Dance

WHEN: Monday, November 19 5:30-6:30pm

WHERE: Studio A, Rarig Center - UofM West Bank

WHAT: Townhall discussion of "The Wiz"

WHY: If we believe that "diversity" is not an issue to address, but a goal toward which we can be actively committed, it is necessary to analyze every play that is produced and staged within the Department of Theatre Arts & Dance, its implications and propositions, and this is the first step in that direction.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Dear Theater Arts and Dance Folk,

We the Peers want to update you on the status of the coveted and celebrated Backstage Pass. We are in the process of making this site more interactive. Please post comments on what you want to see in the future for this blog. For the time being we will be updating the blog every two weeks with announcements and departmental events. We will also be giving you an update on the status of the BSP during this transitional period. Feel free to e-mail us at peers@umn.edu if you want to remain anonymous when expressing your ideas.

Keep checking the blog for upcoming events, in particular, the Town Hall concerning the Wiz which will happen mid to late November.

Happy Halloween,

The Peers
Kendra, Ashley, Briar


Crisis Point Theatre: a theater of danger and opportunity has been operating on a high level of success and excitement for many years. This year is not much different from the others however, this year your favorite Crisis Point Theatre board members have made it their mission to extend more help for students. Crisis Point would like to invite anyone to come and learn more about what goes on behind the curtain. We would like to invite all the seniors with projects looming to contact us, in order to see how we could better serve your needs. We understand how hectic senior shows can be; we would like to be a spring board for your success in anyway that is possible. We have a large amount of “goods” in storage which we would be happy to lend out to help. Please contact Crisis Point at cpoint@umn.edu or visit our website http://www.tc.umn.edu/~cpoint/ for more information.

Our season this year is going to be fantastic! Look for more details on Crisis Point call board or visit the backstage pass for more information. Wishing you all a wonderful semester!

Your friends at Crisis Point Theatre!