Clown Dojo October/November 2011

Creativity, Spontaneity, Adaptability to Change: A Performer's Introduction to the Alexander Technique

Class description: This one-day workshop is an introduction to The Alexander Technique, a process that helps performers to free their full physical, vocal and expressive range, allowing them to be creative, adaptable and spontaneous onstage. This actor-specific approach to the Technique increases each person's ability to better find the behavior of a character and take one's performance to a higher level. With renowned master teacher Cathy Madden, the student will gain valuable performance tools through a playful approach that enhances learning.

Instructor bio: Cathy Madden is Director of the Alexander Technique Training and Performance Studio in Seattle and Principal Lecturer at the University of Washington School of Drama. A faculty member of the University of Washington Professional Actor Training Program for twenty-five years, Cathy teaches the Alexander Technique to performing artists throughout the world.

Clowning on the Edge

Class description: Death! Sex! Betrayal! Politics! Clowning can and should address the scariest issues in our lives. Clowns have done that throughout the span of human existence, by creating their own unique language. In this workshop, Seattle performers will have the rare opportunity to learn to "speak clown" from master teacher Jeff Raz, whose encyclopedia of traditional comic structures, classic routines and skills will give the student a vocabulary with which to explore their own unique "clown dialect." Whether it be through theater, music, magic or circus skills , the individual talents and gut level experience of each student will find a clearer and more powerful expression from this grounding in the primal world and preverbal language of clowns.

Instructor bio: For the last 35 years, Jeff Raz has performed nationally and internationally with circuses and theaters including Cirque du Soleil, The Pickle Family Circus, Lincoln Center Theater, Vaudeville Nouveau, Dell'Arte Players, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Marin and S.F. Shakespeare Festivals, TheatreWorks and Marin Theater Company. He has written 15 plays, including adaptations of Oedipus and the Book of Esther, "Return of the Sun" commissioned by World Arts West, two solo pieces, "Father-Land" and "Birth Mark" and his most recent play "Road to Hades". Jeff's directing credits include Bracebridge Dinner at Yosemite Park, a number of puppet plays with Lunatique Fantastique and The Bright River, a hip-hop retelling of Dante's Inferno.

Jeff played the lead role in Cirque de Soleil's Corteo for over 500 performances in the U.S. and Japan and has offered theater workshops for the casts of Quidam, OVO and Corteo. He is the founder of The Clown Conservatory in San Francisco with students currently performing in circuses and theaters around the world. Jeff continues to perform, write and direct in theaters and circuses and as the Artistic Director of the Medical Clown Project in San Francisco and the Bay Area Casting Partner for Cirque du Soleil.

Jeff Raz.com

Becoming Animal

Class description: How can we imitate the Other with accuracy and deep regard for the spirit of each different animal? In this workshop we will practice the ancient art of animal imitation as movement artists, scientists and shamans. We will carefully morph our hands, spines, faces and voices, enact predator/prey relationships, create creature-characters and observe their interactions. Learn how to disappear yourself without costume or make-up, and study how and why this is funny and/or scary to do and watch.

Instructor bio: Christian Swenson has an uncanny ability to shape-shift his body and voice to imitate creatures from this world and beyond. For 30 + years he has been performing and teaching around the Northwest and the rest of the world. He is known for his pioneering work in what he calls "Human Jazz", a global fusion of dance/drama/music for body and voice.

In 1977 he received a BA in Theater from the University of New Hampshire and moved to Seattle to work with the Bill Evans Dance Company. Further training has included work with Tony Montanaro; Diane Schenker; Ruth Zapora; Korean shaman, Hi-ah Park, and with the late Pakistani master-singer, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He has performed with Bill Irwin, The Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and The Jay Clayton/Jim Knapp Collective and in Europe with Jim Nollman of Interspecies Communication Inc. He presently teaches in the Theater programs at Seattle University and Bellevue Community College. Christian has received Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Washington State Arts Commission and Artist Trust of Washington. He resides happily in Seattle with his wife, Abigail, and two children.

What the critics have said about Christian:

Human Jazz.com

When Less Is More: Clowning from the Inside Out

Class description: Theatre legend Michael Chekov said that "comedy comes from ease and a radiation of one's energy, not attempts to be funny." In this workshop, we'll explore simple presence and the sublime art of doing nothing as a basis for authentic clown character. From stillness and deep listening to the pleasure of physical play, that which is authentic can bubble up to touch deeply the hearts, minds and senses of those we seek to reach. Once accessed, unabashed appetite and pure emotion undergo a transformation through physical exaggeration that at some miraculous moment, if we can stay with the real and avoid play-acting, births the true clown character unique to each individual. Come experience the laughs that spontaneously erupt, the routines that write themselves, and the timeless truth that "when actors are in the right state, they make all the right choices."

Instructor bio: Victoria Millard, Ear to the Ground Board President, studied LeCoq-based clown, mime and physical theatre in New York and Paris, and was a member of a street theatre company in Copenhagen. She was a founder and performer with Seattle's Offshoot Mime Company, and a founding member of SLAPP - Seattle's Loosely Affiliated Physical Performers, with whom she performed at Seattle's Fringe Theatre Festival and International Children's Theatre Festival. As a solo stage clown, she has performed at such venues as The Lucille Ball Festival of New Comedy, The International Clown Theatre Conference in Philadelphia, The First New York Festival of Clown Theatre, Seattle's Broadway Performance Hall, On The Boards, and Bumbershoot Arts Festival. She appeared in Bill Irwin's "Largely/New York" at the Seattle Repertory Theatre and the Kennedy Center. From 1998-2009 she was a member of The Big Apple Circus Clown Care at Seattle Children's Hospital. Victoria majored in Theatre at the University of Washington, holds a B.A. in English from the University of Iowa and is a certified teacher of Interplay, a form of movement-based improvisation and story-telling. She has taught at West Seattle Theatre Arts, Seattle Children's Theatre, Northwest Acting Studio, and for the Big Apple Circus, and has coached both local performers and students at the Professional Actors Training Program at the University of Washington. A former magazine editor and writer, she presently writes poetry, personal essay and memoir, and is thrilled to have this opportunity to support the work, development and training of physical theatre artists.

Discovering Your Personal Stories Through Physical Play and Improvisation

Class description: The practice of telling our own story, and of learning to witness another person’s story, builds community by connecting us to each other. In this two-hour workshop, each student will discover and develop a personal story, presented in an atmosphere of self-reflection, ease and affirmation, rather than authoritative critique. The student will have the opportunity to improvise, using the solo, partner and group techniques of actor-based theatre and Interplay techniques. Drawn from the physical and sensory, as well as the verbal and intellectual, these techniques enable the student to have access to full body experience, creating a more satisfying storytelling performance.

Instructor bio: See Victoria Millard bio above. Return

Suzuki and Slow Tempo

Class description: Become an unforgettable presence on stage. We will practice a non-Western approach to physical theatre and explore ways to adapt it for Western actors and audiences. Tadashi Suzuki’s movement training, Shogo Ohta’s world of Slow Tempo, and exercises from aikido and Viewpoints are combined to produce mesmerizing ensemble and partner work, while developing the individual’s ability to command audience attention through a grounded, emotionally rich inner strength.

Instructor bio: Heidi Wolf resides in Seattle, WA, and is a Certified Teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors. Heidi began her training in the movement techniques of Tadashi Suzuki and Shogo Ohta in 2006, and has taught Suzuki and Slow Tempo at St. Lawrence University, University of Idaho, and University of Puget Sound. Her teachers include Robyn Hunt, Steven Pearson, Michael Place, and KJ Sanchez.