#ifcap

Gianna and the EMIT Theatre Ensemble

GIANNA TELLS US ABOUT HERSELF:

I am a teaching artist. I have worked as an actor, choreographer, and director for a variety of theatre companies in New York City. In 2011, I graduated with a dual degree in Theatre and Communication Disorders.  I have my M.S.Edu in Theatre Education from the City College of New York and am a New York State certified K-12 theatre teacher.

I strive to have EMIT be a sustainable company that is able to conduct research on the impact of experiential theatrical experiences and learning; that we are able to reach many different types of learning populations; and that we create works that impact emerging language learning.

GIANNA TELLS US ABOUT EMIT and their RAW RESIDENCY:

The biggest question at the center of our work is How can we design a theatrical experience that uses interactions and immersion to impact students’ comprehension and engagement? We seek to set up environments that encourage experiential learning and help students feel empowered.

The Parlour is beautiful and extremely well-suited for our needs as an immersive theatre company and our new production of The Tempest; audience members are easily able to “choose their own adventure” and engage directly with the characters and storylines that they find most compelling. There is a wonderful balance of openness in the space, allowing students to easily move throughout the space, and intimacy, allowing students to have interactions with cast members that empower them as participants in the story.

I founded the Educational Mobile Immersive Theatre (EMIT) with Amy Frey, Jo’Lisa Jones, and Amanda Urban, from a desire to create immersive theater that held education at its core and could be easily shared in order to impact as many people as possible.  The company seeks to make our productions as accessible as possible by creating a mobile, flexible format, including elements of site-specific theatre which allow us to adapt to whatever space that we are given.

We believe that theatre should be for everyone, regardless of age or ability. 

We feel beyond grateful to have received an IFCAP RAW Residency. We were seeking a space that could give us flexibility to create a truly unique learning experience for children. We cannot believe how open and supportive IFCAP has been for EMIT.  We would not be able to reach as many students without the IFCAP Raw Residency.

CATHERINE ASKS GIANNA SOME IMPORTANT QUESTIONS:

What are your special and/or secret talents?

Getting children in a circle, pasta making, interpretative dancing, and throwing a spiral  with a football.

What is your favorite…

Snack? Sour Sweet Tart Chewies and Takkis - The official EMIT rehearsal snacks

Book? Love in the Time of Cholera, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Color? Red

Fruit? Apples

Nap Location? On the R Train in the little orange seats that run perpendicular to the window

What is your Spirit Animal? A flying squirrel

If you were a shoe, what kind of shoe would you be? A sandal that you can walk in but still wear to dinner

If you could live anywhere, you’d live? Belfast, Ireland

Who are some of your Bigtime Artistic Influences that inform/explain why you do what you do?

Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival: The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival was my first real exposure as audience to a professional Shakespeare company. I loved and still love how they use their space to create something really magical.

The Alexander Technique/ Jocosa Wade: As a sophomore in college I was introduced to Jocosa Wade, a brilliant Alexander Teacher. Like all good teachers, she changed my whole perspective on acting and how I live my life. I use many of the movement based exercises she taught me during our rehearsal process to help create authentic connections between the characters.

Gary Izzo/ The Sterling Renaissance Festival :  Gary Izzo is the Artistic Director of The Sterling Renaissance Festival and the author of The Art of Play: The New Genre of Interactive Theatre.  I was lucky enough to be an actor at the sterling renaissance festival and learn from him. His practice on creating immersive work, and interactive characters is at the core of our work at EMIT. I use his book as a model for our process.

Who is your Artistic Crush?

Matthew Bourne

GIANNA ASKS HERSELF SOME IMPORTANT QUESTIONS:

1.      Can everything get done?

2.      Should I do my laundry?

3.      Am I going to pack my lunch or buy it tomorrow?

CATHERINE TELLS US ABOUT GIANNA and EMIT:

What struck me when I first met Gianna and this earnest group of young artists was how powerful their commitment is to bring accessible productions of Shakespeare to New York City students. This mission of accessible Shakespeare is shared by many theater companies in NYC, but EMIT and Gianna had a fresh energy to their striving that was palpable. For all of NYC Theater’s lip service at being a supportive community, it can often be challenging for a young company to find its way in this saturated, expensive city. It is a privilege to host Gianna and EMIT as RAW RESIDENCY artists, providing not only space for their work but also a sense that their work matters, is worth attention and support, and that they can thrive. In surveying the ensemble of EMIT, IFCAP can proudly say,

“O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't!”

Reposted from the PAAL Blog:

Stepping out of a normal routine, finding novelty, being open to serendipity, enjoying the unexpected, embracing a little risk, and finding pleasure in the heightened vividness of life. These are all qualities of a state of play.

Stuart Brown

REMINDER!

The next Institute for Collaboration and Play PLABORATORY POP-UP is in 7 days!

Come play at your own risk!

PLAB POP-UP Wednesday, September 27th 7-10 pm $20 $15 each if you bring someone NEW to the PLAB

Location: The Parlour

SPACE IS LIMITED!

PLEASE RSVP by September 24.

TO RSVP or inquire further about IFCAP or the PLAB, please email [email protected].

KATIE TELLS US ABOUT HERSELF (and Picasso)!

I was at the MET one afternoon and wandered into the room with Picasso’s work. I walked through and tried to hit his paintings in the order that they were painted. I had been feeling like I would never be a great artist. That great artists were born great. However, the work in front of me showed me without a doubt that time and study change the artist and bring out what is brilliant about them as individuals. The journey is part of the astounding beauty. It is much easier to see in fine art than in performing art. Everything you make plays a part in the next thing you make. It’s a constant cycle of growth and rebirth.

I know that there are areas of performance in which I am an expert. I forget that, or perhaps have never been given the permission to be an authority on the things I know. I am at a point where I think I would find great value in sharing that knowledge. I am not an expert at clown, devising my own work, or teaching others the things I know. These are among the many things that I admire about Cat and see great potential for growth. It’s like my brain gets stuck in its little box and Cat is so great at getting you out of your head and bringing creativity into action. I really admire that so much and would love to be able to learn to shift my perspective and think about process and making in a way that is unconventional.

I have always been a rule follower. What I discovered in being in the PLAB is that as an artist you make up the rules. That is when you truly start making things that you can call your own. You make up the rules and you engage them with your imagination and you begin to tell stories inside of those rules. Everything is a win. Everything teaches you something even if not everything becomes part of your final story.

CATHERINE ASKS KATIE SOME IMPORTANT QUESTIONS!

What are your special and/or secret talents?

Playing the clarinet, handstands, opening beer bottles with my teeth, walking with a peg leg, tying cherry stems in knots with my tongue, making up voices and internal monologues for animals and pets.

What is your favorite...

Snack? White Cheddar Popcorn.

Meal? Thick cut Pork Chops cooked on the grill.

Book? Crime and Punishment.

Pizza Topping? Extra sauce.

Nap location? On the sofa with Ollie the poodle.

Author? Tennessee Williams.

Artist? Aurelija Kairyte-Smolianskiene.

Line of text? “Sometimes-there’s God-so quickly.”

Feeling? Floating in the ocean looking up at the sky (that’s a feeling, right?).

Sensation? That mix of fear and exhilaration that happens only on a roller coaster.

What is your spirit animal? A fox. It’s a dog that sometimes acts like a cat.

If you were a shoe, what kind of shoe would you be? A gold Birkenstock sandal. A new twist on an old classic.

How do you define…

Satisfaction? Feeling full with leftovers.

Peace? Standing on the cliffs staring at the volcano in Santorini, Greece.

Freedom? Loving your work.

Fear? Waiting tables for eternity.

Spirit? That indescribable thing that is what we are before body or mind.

Joy? Listening to music I love, being in rehearsal and unlocking a play.

CATHERINE TELLS A STORY ABOUT KATIE!

I had the privilege of first meeting Katie nearly a decade ago when she was in graduate school for acting. I was apprenticing under Christopher Bayes and she was a student in his Clown class. While many students in her cohort were innately facile at Clown, she was the only one I approached after the semester finished, offering my card. I think I said something like If you ever want to make performance work like this when you get out, I’d be honored if you looked me up, thinking to myself, There is no way she will ever want to make work with a tiny, Brooklyn-based Clown/Physical Theater company (I was co-Artistic Director of one at the time), but it’s worth a shot.

Katie’s class contained many singular performers, but she contained such a wonderful balance of pathos, vulnerability and ridiculousness. Strong and sad and smart and so very open. One the older students in her class, she was keenly grounded in herself even as she willingly thrust herself into new territory, risking disaster at every turn. In Clownspeak, she was a mess, and the exact right kind: funny and tragic. As you can see by her favorite meal and book, she doesn’t mess around with life.

As a dedicated member of the inaugural PLAB, I observed Katie continuing to take the biggest bites possible out of every creative conundrum thrown her way. She easily shares space with others onstage and off, offering support through her talents, intellect and generosity.  I could watch her do anything: eat paper, sit on a chair and wait for someone to arrive, sing about her cats, her underwear and the heartache of uncertainty. I’m clear it is a privilege for me to be in a room with her, and to have her join IFCAP as an Artistic Associate means I get to learn from her even more.

When Catherine and I came together for IFCAP nearly a year ago, I had established a comfortable role for myself as her clowning student and sometimes collaborator. I had secretly prepared myself to take on more responsibility since taking my first Clown class with Catherine over four years ago. I remember sitting in our acting lab at Drew University and watching Cat as much as I was watching my colleagues. I wanted desperately to know how she knew just what to say.

When IFCAP was born and I was finally able to study under Catherine as her apprentice, I was struck by an overwhelming desire to be completely ready. I see now that I wanted to forego the training and just become a protege. I was afraid of the training, of the responsibility of holding space for that many people. It's mentally and emotionally daunting to feel somehow in control of other people's experiences, and I was terrified of the failure that inevitably comes with training for something as important as leading a room. What if I got asked to lead warmups and I didn't lead it right and someone got hurt? What if someone asked me my opinion and I gave the wrong one? What if I just don't have the answers? To compensate for this terror, I leaned into my concrete tasks - unlocking the door, collecting RSVPs, answering transit questions. Making things into a list felt like a way to control my experience and qualify it. Look Cat! I checked off all the tasks on the list! I am the best Artistic Associate! And it’s true, being an Artistic Associate of a new enterprise requires a great deal of planning, organizing, emailing, and being a support system for the facilitator. And to the participants of any IFCAP endeavor, I am as much a representative of IFCAP as Catherine.

While lists are helpful and often delightful and make sure you don’t forget anything at the supermarket, they can get in the way of the real task, which is to study, which is often a quiet - but never passive - task. I am more exhausted leaving PLABORATORY sessions than I ever have been leaving a class in which I was a traditional student. My IFCAP notebook is filled with questions. Sometimes I can answer them myself. Sometimes the answer makes itself apparent to me. Sometimes I whisper to Catherine and she whispers it back to me.

It feels incredibly daunting to reflect on the past six months and what I’ve learned. I’ve noticed a marked difference in how I interact with the PLAB members, how I interact with their inquiries, how my inquiry and observation have changed.

We are halfway through the PLAB’s first year. The Dana of February is not the Dana of July.

February Dana said: “How do you think of these composition assignments?” “I can’t forget the warmup order.” “I need to remember all the RSVPs.” “How would I do this composition as a participant?” “What makes something magical?”

July Dana says: “What qualities in the group are being explored in this exercise?” “Why are those valuable?” “Why are they valuable today more than the other days?” “How do we create a space where people feel safe but not coddled?” “How can I, as a leader, facilitate the experience of these participants so that they find new ways to explore what they can do?” “If I was asking this group to do this exercise, how would I phrase it in my special Dana way?” “How can I be the world’s best audience member and hold space for each PLAB member to try and fail and succeed, just by being there for them?”

February Dana was thinking like a participant. July Dana is thinking like a leader-in-training. As we continue to move forward in IFCAP’s inaugural year, I can only hope for more growth in this direction. I have seen my experience of these rooms change. I have become less afraid of failing, of not knowing the answer, of not being ready to lead. I’m a Capricorn. I want to be ready to lead. But there is a freedom in the uncertainty. In knowing that by persisting in inquiry, I will grow and be ready someday.

This quote is scribbled somewhere in the middle of my little purple IFCAP notebook:

“Just because that’s where you started doesn’t mean that's where you’re stuck.”

Often, areas of our lives overlap, ideas cross-pollinate and it's difficult to locate the original source of a particular line of thinking. My work with John here at Interdisciplinaryness has been instrumental in contributing towards the ground from which the PLABORATORY springs, and John continues to be an invaluable partner as we each strive to articulate meaningful aspects of our work.

When we added Value Driven Action to our list of Interdisciplinaryness attributes, I was unaware of how much this aspect of things would begin to dominate my thinking. The PLABORATORY, IFCAP's Laboratory for Play, is becoming a place where values are openly discussed and influence our efforts. Below is a post about our first official session of 2016, wherein three layers of recognition were formulated that created meaning for both maker/performer and audience. 

They are:

1)   Moments of recognition regarding the source material.

2)   Moments of recognition wherein the performer acknowledged/included the audience directly.

3)   Moments of recognition wherein we see/recognize ourselves onstage.

If these three things were prioritized, were considered valuable enough to influence choices made during our creative processes, I wonder what how our experience of making and receiving new work would change?

Click the link below to read the full post:

Dana introduces herself!

Dana Sumner-Pritchard is one of those performer/ writer/ clown/producer/ hyphenate kind of people that probably needs to calm down a little bit. But she's very excited and calming down is hard for her. She prefers to think of it as enthusiasm. She is currently apprenticing/assisting Actor/Creator/Clown Catherine Mueller. She is also the Artistic Associate for the Institute for Collaboration and Play (www.IFCAP.org). Her solo show Boobs and Hope toured to sold out houses in Santa Cruz, CA, Chicago, and North Carolina in 2013, and just wrapped production on Wonder, a new web series that will blow your mind. BA: Drew University.

Catherine asks Dana some important questions!

What is your favorite …

Color? Blue, but that greenish blue that the ocean has sometimes

Fruit? Raspberries!

Nap location? Couches. All couches

Series of words? I love you.

What is your Spirit Animal? A giraffe that thinks it’s a wolf.

If you were a shoe, what kind of shoe would you be? An oxford.

How do you define …

Hope? The feeling you get when you’re toasting a bagel and there’s still a chance you haven’t burned it.

Home? The place you are yourself.

Breath? The easiest, most underrated, most miraculous thing in the world.

Desire? When you’re so excited by something that you don’t know whether you want to kiss it or eat it or punch it or squeeze it, so long as you get to do SOMETHING.

Freedom? The way you feel when you take off your bra at the end of a long day. The way you feel when you laugh without covering your mouth or worrying that you’re laughing too loud. The way you feel when you walk down the street wearing whatever you want and no one has any comments.

Fear? When you can’t predict the future; or, when the lights go out and you don’t know where the switch is.

What are three artistic influences that have shaped your personal artistic aesthetic and your understanding of yourself as an artist and why?

Martin McDonagh was the first playwright that I ever read that made me realize that life, however dark, is absurd and funny and beautiful.

Anne Kauffman was the first director I ever worked with who showed me how to physicalize a script in an absurd and truthful way. What McDonagh taught me with his words, Annie taught me with her actions. Between the two of them, I felt that I truly understood what kind of plays I wanted to see.

The first clown class I ever took was the most profound artistic movement in my life. I felt more alive and brave and important and kind than I ever had before onstage, and I felt, for the first time, like I had within myself the ability to do what Martin and Annie were showing me in their work.

Catherine introduces Dana!

“Presence is having something that you were wired to do, that you are committed to do, so committed to doing it that it’s almost like it’s in your DNA… Presence is not so easy. There’s so much stuff out there. To get presence, you have to move through layers and layers of commotion and noise that grab the light. It’s hard to grab the light these days.”

Anna Deveare Smith, Letters to a Young Artist

 Dana grabs the light.

As a young woman, a performing artist, a student, a person on the earth, Dana grabs the light. It is difficult to be in a room with her and not know she is there. She epitomizes delightful consumption but also solid strength. She has opinions. She is willing to be disliked. She will work hard for what she believes in, sometimes even well after midnight. She loves fiercely, loyally, with every part of her heart. Nothing is held back, and those who are lucky enough to be in the path of this power (her mom comes to mind, her cat Harry, cookie dough and Clown) will be influenced by this onslaught. She is hungry but also careful. She is not accidental. She is brave.

As IFCAP’s Artistic Associate, she has come to the table with a willingness to sit quietly and learn by observing. She is applying her skills towards organizing and implementing the support structures that will give the growth opportunities she articulates above to others, and in turn again and again to herself.