Fredericton physical theatre company Solo Chicken Productions announce a new round of workshops as part of the Groundwork Workshop Series.
Solo Chicken Productions is excited to announce that their COOP CORPS training initiative will continue into its second season, offering diverse and exciting workshops with guest teachers and performance artists from across Canada through the GROUNDWORK Workshop Series. The COOP CORPS is Solo Chicken’s physical theatre initiative, which is led by contemporary choreographer Lesandra Dodson and physical theatre artist Lisa Anne Ross, which focuses on providing creative opportunities for professional artists and training and development opportunities for emerging artists. GROUNDWORK is open to anyone with a curiosity for movement including actors, dancers, physical performers, movers, and martial artists.
The COOP CORPS’ successful first season of training workshops and in-studio creative growth resulted in the rousing performance of the new physical work, The Despot in Saint John, and Fredericton at the Perspectives Series (Connection Dance Works), an outdoor community centered Creative Residency with the Fredericton Arts Alliance in August 2017, and an outdoor performance as part of The Bridge Project in September 2017. Maintaining its goal of increasing physical literacy through artistic practice and creation, the COOP CORPS model continues to adapt and grow to meet the needs of the artists, and creative community at large.
The 2017/2018 GROUNDWORK series, in co-production with the Charlotte Street Arts Centre, will continue its mission to offer new training workshops and approaches to artistic practices aimed at today’s contemporary performing artist. The first workshop in the series features coop alum Jean-Michel Cliche who will be teaching – Introduction to Stage Combat. Discover how violence can help create dynamic stories on stage and screen. Learn the basic techniques needed to perform and direct believable and safe, falls, slaps, punches and more.
The second workshop in the series with Alanna Kraaijeveld, a Montréal based dancer, teacher is Technique for Every Body. Alanna shared that this work is informed by her experience as an improviser, choreographic research collaborator, and through her encounters with Fighting Monkey (FM). “FM aims to nourish and restore movement patterns and mobility,” she said. “Using these sources as a point of departure, workshop participants will examine and test tendencies and limitations, both individually and in partners, and nurture mental and physical potential through difficulty and danger.”
Award winning director, playwright, movement coach, Thomas Morgan Jones, will offer his expertise in our third workshop in Viewpoints training, inviting the performer/artist to notice what is already there and what is changing. Its focus is on elements of Time and Space and how we as theatre makers can interact with both.
The last workshop offering, Tools for Creation with contemporary dancer, choreographer Sarah Power, will use Energy Medicine warm-up modules, intended to open up channels so that our energies can move more freely through the body and with more vitality. This will be followed by a series of improvisations, a practice to help us listen more deeply for latent inner impulses. What is gathered from this practice will be made into a ‘palette’ from which to initiate movement, molding these into short choreographic phrases.
GROUNDWORK WORKSHOP SERIES:
The Charlotte Street Arts Centre 732 Charlotte Street – Auditorium (2nd Floor) 7PM-10PM (Dates Below) $10/Workshop for Students/Under-waged $15/Workshop for Everyone Else
- Sunday December 3rd Intro to Stage Combat with Jean-Michel Cliche
- Sunday January 28th Technique for Every Body with Alanna Kraaijeveld
- Monday February 26th Viewpoints with Thomas Morgan Jones
- Sunday March 25th Tools for Creation with Sarah Power
the coop, so named to encompass a creative cocoon or incubator, is a performance collective for professional artists to research, develop and perform original works of physical theatre. It aims to support artistic growth of emerging New Brunswick artists through training and performance opportunities. the coop was conceived out of a growing need to create, nurture and support the wealth of emerging NB performance artists through access to meaningful creative process and collaboration.
Learn more at www.solochickenproductions.com
A Solo Chicken Productions media release
