Cutting It Up: A Theater Workshop That Illuminates the Rules of the
Room So We Can Change Them
a one-day workshop facilitated by Julia Lee Barclay
Saturday, June 16, 2012 12:00 noon to 6:00 pm
at the Brecht Forum
451 West Street (West Side Highway, at Bank Street, one block north of
West Eleventh Street)
New York City
In this introductory workshop, we will break down both the basic elements
of how we communicate with each other and the (mostly unspoken/hidden)
rules which govern that communication. Working with verbal and
gestural clichés relating to class, race, religion and gender, we will
look at how (and to whom) we speak, and develop tools that will enable
us to get underneath social clichés in a playful way, thus coaxing the
hidden rules into the room. By doing so, those rules will be shown to
be mutable rather than fixed.
These tools are useful both for creating new kinds of
political-philosophical performances and interactions, and also for
learning new ways of communicating within and among groups which are
interested in getting beyond stale patterns of hierarchical/binary
“that's the way it is” thinking. This workshop offers some basic tools
to help change old perceptions and to allow for new ways of making
things happen.
The Cutting It Up workshop evolved from more than a decade of work
with actors, dancers, writers, visual artists and musicians in
experimental theater labs in New York City (The Present Company,
1997-2001) and in London (Apocryphal Theatre, 2004-2011).
This workshop is open to all and no prior theater experience is
necessary to participate. Pre-registration is strongly encouraged.
Please write to
topl...@gmail.com for further information or to let
us know you will be attending.
Julia Lee Barclay is an award-winning director and writer whose work
has been published and produced internationally. She lived in NYC for
most of her professional life, and, having lived and worked in London
for the past eight years, returned home in October 2011. She received
a practice-as-research PhD from the University of Northampton (UK) in
December 2009, for which she received a full fellowship, and was the
founding Artistic Director of Apocryphal Theatre in London from
2004-2011. She has led these workshops at many universities,
conferences, festivals and other venues throughout Europe and the US.
Many of her plays have been published in anthologies and most can be
read online at
http://www.indietheaternow.com. She writes about her
shifting roles and identities on her blog Somewhere in Transition
(
http://julialeebarclay.blogspot.com), which may also prove the basis
for a performance in the near future. She is Adjunct Assistant
Professor at CUNY, teaching acting (Hunter College) and interpersonal
communications (Bronx Community College).
Tuition--sliding scale: $35-$65
Register online:
http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12238&reset=1