July Class in DC-- Body-Motion-Gesture

center for movement theatre
actor preparation of the body
the imagination
and the art of collaboration
www.thisisthecenter.com 202 462-5810

BODY · MOTION · GESTURE
Taught by Dody DiSanto

JULY 1 – 29 Tuesday nights 7 - 10pm 5 Weeks Tuition - $250
Class location: The Center 4321 Wisconsin Ave, NW
METRO: redline Tenleytown

This class will work from the roots of classical pantomime and progress to a fast-paced style of gestural language that develops both micro and macro image building. They will also investigate spatial dynamics through the use of a reduced playing area. Strong ensemble training.

Dody DiSanto
TRAINING: Diploma, teaching certificate, Laboratoire Etude de Movement from Ecole Jacques Lecoq, where she received a private pedagogic apprenticeship; Etienne Decroux: corporal mime; Ecole Nationale du Cirque: wire, juggling, acrobatics, tap under the direction of Annie Fratellini; George Washington University: Fine Arts, Dance; Corcoran College of Art and Design. Nationally Certified for Massage Therapy and Bodywork.
TEACHING: Faculty at The Academy for Classical Acting for The Shakespeare Theatre at The George Washington University, The Yale School of Drama, The Catholic University of America and at The Center for Movement Theatre in Washington DC; Corcoran College of Art and Design: Dynamic Studies in Space, Gesture and Structure; Theatre of Creation Festival: assistant to Jacques Lecoq; Ringling Clown College and many years of residencies, workshops and coaching in various settings from academia to the curb of life.
PERFORMANCE: Off-Broadway at LaMaMa E.T.C., Lincoln Center Serious Fun Festival, Theatre for the New City, the Avignon Festival and for television and film. Founder and artistic director of Membrane Theatre Ensemble, and a member of several ensembles, including Chantier Theatre, Present Company, Phoenix Dance Theatre and Barking Rooster Theatre. Dody also created, owned and managed internationally acclaimed music venue, Nightclub 9:30 in Washington DC from 1980-87.

INFORMATION – REGISTRATION – WWW.ThisIsTheCenter.com

Didier Danthois

Didier Danthois is a clown and clown teacher based in London, England. Didier first trained in Clowning and Circus skills 24 years ago at the Fratellini Circus School(Paris). He studied Expressionist Dance, Clowning, and then, Indian Raga singing with an Indian master.

He is the founder of the Fool at Heart School of Sacred Clowning and teaches, performs, & directs internationally. The school offers Mime Clown & Musical Clown trainings with a focus on bringing out the healing potential of the fool and the clown for today’s world. Didier is also the spiritual director of ClownCare & Co., an organisation bringing Sacred Clowning into healthcare.

Didier describes Sacred Clowning as follows:

The clown is allowing himself to be vulnerable, to become truly naked to the present, to become empty. Then openness, an unstained perception can manifest, a veil is lifted to the realm of innocence and wonder. A sense of gratitude and a reverence for all things and all people emerge. Love and compassion fill the heart, carrying him, he feels held, as by an infinitively loving mother, holding her child.

In that sacred space, everything is alive, and becomes a source of creativity. A dull face in the audience, a balloon exploding, a light-shadow on the floor, dust flying in the air, a bald head shining…Everything around him starts to tell a story, taking him on a journey into the unknown...

A forgotten microphone stand takes over the stage. He feels left out, laughter in the audience calls him, he waves his hand, the stand is now looking at him severe and grave, and he shrinks under its power…

A story unfolds, where every object speaks, where everybody contributes, where there is an invisible link between all things and all people. Enchanted, he becomes an instrument being played, in service of the unseen. This is Magic. This is Sacred Art. This is the Sacred Clown.

Didier has been inspired by the teachings of the Buddha for the last thirteen years.
He works towards creating an art which celebrates the beauty of authenticity, compassion & the interdependence of all things and all people. His dedication is to encourage a greater understanding of the Wisdom of the Child.

His present work explores the field of emotional and spiritual resonance through the Fool at Heart in mime - dance - music & play, and also through Indian Raga singing, for both adults & children.

To find out more about Didier's work, including workshops with him. visit his website listed below:

http://www.sacred-clown-as-healer.co.uk

Last week for Bill Irwin in Philadelphia

Bill Irwin's show The Happiness Lecture has been extended for one week in Philadelphia. If you have the opportunity, you should see it!

I drove down from NY on Saturday to see it. Overall it was great (Hey, it's Bill Irwin!) And a company of 9 very talented Philadelphia area artists. (including a friend from Dell'arte, puppeteer and performer Aaron Cromie. He actually won't be in the extended week (he had other commitments) Instead, another Dell'arte friend Dawn Falato will take over as the swing.)

I have some thoughts about the show, if you care to read them....

Like most of Bill's original shows, the play is a meditation on his work in the theatre, and a dialogue between tricks, fear of failure (and success), and the utility of worry.

If people over time begin to resemble their dogs, it's even more true with their shows, direct reflections of what they are thinking about as artists. It's very true with this show-- in some ways it is a direct continuation, extension of Regard of Flight. Regard was newer to me of course, and Bill was even more agile then than he is now (which seems hard to believe), and there are a lot of similar elements to this show, but there are also lots of twists that will have Bill Irwin watchers riveted.

I'm not as fond of the writing and directing of the show as I am of the performance of the show, which (especially for Bill) borders on the virtuosic. His use of his body is fantastic, whether it's a remote control podium gone awry, creation of two cavemen (well, let's not call them that-- let's call them early men) that illustrate a sort of Darwinian Happiness Theory, or performing a beautiful Mr. Noodle piece, Bill is always as precise as a Swiss watch. It's a pleasure to watch him work, although work is the wrong word. He glides fluidly from routine to routine, and that's his genius.

An amazing piece of theatrical genius is in the staging. The use of puppets of Bill Irwin and the creation of multiple focused prosceniums of different sizes and scales borders on the fantastic. The stage shifts several times in scale, and each time does so with precision and ease- it reminded me that the most effective techniques are often the simplest.

And it brings home the constant argument that Bill's shows seems to always have- I've got the clown thing going, but what does it all mean? I'm not 100% sure that there's an answer to that question-- there is a kind of constant narrative about narrative throughout the piece, and a use of theatrical conventions (the pre-show speech, the usher, the audience member placed in peril) that is always pleasant to watch but is not really linear or conducive to the "well-made play."

At the end of the show, I heard a grandmother asking her two teenaged grand-children what they thought of the show.

GRANDMOTHER: Wasn't that marvelous and fun? What did you think?
GRAND-DAUGHTER: I liked it, but it was a little weird. I didn't quite get it.
GRAND-SON: Yeah, it was cool, but I didn't really get it. It was weird.

It wasn't their typical play, but they liked it.

If you'd like to see the show, visit the Philadelphia Theatre Company's Website listed below:

http://www.philadelphiatheatrecompany.org/2008/lecture.html

On a related topic-- Cirque du Soleil was just ending a run of Kooza (directed by Irwin collaborator David Shiner) down the block from the theatre. If I had known, I would have tried to have gotten tickets for both. Kooza's next stop is Chicago, then Boston, then Washington DC.

FUNAMBOLIKA 2008 (Italy July 5-8)

Funambolika 2008 is the 2nd edition of the summer circus arts festival particularly focused on clowns, and conceived by Italian clown and director Raffaele De Ritis.
It takes places in Pescara, in the Abruzzo region of Italy, in the open-air Teatro D’Annunzio on the Adriatic beach. This is the same 2000-seats arena where Pescara Jazz, one of the oldest and most prestigious jazz festivals in the world takes place (www.pescarajazz.com). Funambolika is organized by the same company

Last year's festival featured Jango Edwards and David Larible. This year's festival will have three evenings of entertainment:







July 5
DUEL
(Paul Staicu, piano – Laurent Cirade, cello)
The comedy musical revelation of last year’s Edimburgh and Avignon Festival




July 7
PETER SHUB
The legendary clown with his solo theatre show “Nice Night for an Evening”




July 8
GRAN GALA DU CIRQUE
Guest star: Andrei Jigalov
An evening of international circus acts (from Monte Carlo Festival, Kiev School, Moscow Circus, Cirque du Soleil appearances) including among others juggler Boul, acrobat Maxim Popazov, contorsionist-swimmer Aqua and others, around a special guest star: clown ANDREI JIGALOV, the king of contemporary russian laughmakers.






Pescara is a ten minute drive from Aereoporto d’Abruzzo (www.abruzzo-airport.it ), and is easily connected to via many major cities. For all other destinations, the Rome Fiumicino airport is 2 hours drive.

For more information visit the following websites:

Funambolika blog: www.funambolika.blogspot.com
General program: www.entemanifestazionipescaresi.it
Myspace: www.myspace.com/funambolika

Tickets: (39) 085-6920057 – (39) 085-4221463
Organization: (39) 085-693093 • (39) 085-4503036

Email: info@entemanifestazionipescaresi.it
Artistic direction: rderitis@hotmail.com

Slapsticon- Virginia (July 17-20)

SLAPSTICON is a four-day, international film festival dedicated to classic motion picture comedy! This year, the sixth annual festival will be held from Thursday July 17, through Sunday July 20, at Arlington county's spacious Rosslyn Spectrum Theatre in Arlington, Virginia.

The 6th Annual SLAPSTICON will start off with a triple slap when "The 3 Stooges Rarities Show", begins on Thursday July 17 at 7:00pm. This never-before-seen compendium of home movies, TV clips and other Stooge ephemera (with a few classics thrown in) is not to be missed.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:
W.C. Fields' first starring feature, Sally of the Sawdust (1925), directed by D.W. Griffith from Fields' Broadway hit, Poppy (Thursday, July 17 at 9:00 p.m.)

Buster Keaton's rarely screened The Silent Partner made for TV in 1955 and The Scribe (1966), a Canadian industrial film in which 70-year-old Buster walks on construction girders on a windy autumn day just months before his death. (Saturday July 19 at 2:00 p.m.).

Ladies Night in a Turkish Bath (1928) shows how silents could sizzle even before the talkies. Forgotten comedienne Dorothy Mackaill is ripe for a modern-day rediscovery, with Laurel & Hardy foil James ("Doh!") Finlayson in support. (Saturday July 19 at 8:00 p.m.).

The venue, Rosslyn Spectrum was originally built as a movie house in the early 1960's. The newly-renovated theater now has 387 cushioned theater seats - each with folding tables for note-taking critics, or for refreshments (which are allowed inside the theatre)!!

All silent films shown at SLAPSTICON feature LIVE MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT by accomplished musicians, Dr. Philip Carli, Ben Model and Andrew Simpson. Each utilize different styles and both have many years of experience in the art of silent film accompaniment.


SLAPSTICON Screenings will occur:
Thursday, July 17, 1:00 p.m. - 12:00 mid.
Friday, July 18 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 mid.
Sat., July 19, 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 mid.
Sunday, July 20, 10:00am - 5:00pm.

COST: $99 for the full four-day festival; $30 per day; $16 half-day.

For more information about Slapstickon 2008 (including a registration form), visit www.slapsticon.org. You may also e-mail info@slapsticon.org or call 703-228-1841.

Commedia Workshops in L.A.

[via]Corpora & John Achorn Announce Ongoing Worksessions in Commedia dell’Arte
Stage II – A six week intermediate/advanced class exploring character, selected lazzi, & scenarios ~ exploring how to apply commedia to the 21st Century
Monday evenings 7:00~10:00pm @ [via]Corpora Studio
Beginning Monday, June 16 ~ thru July 28

Stage I – A six week introduction to the essential elements of the commedia
style: mask, mime, improvisation, character, physical routines, ensemble.
Saturdays 10:00am – 1:00pm @ [via]Corpora Studio
Saturday, June 28 ~ thru August 2

Cost: $210 ~ Early Registration Discount (before June 9th): $180

Payment information at www.viacorpora.com
Contact: 310-396-3314 or jachorn@yahoo.com
[via]Corpora: 6575 Santa Monica Boulevard Hollywood, CA 90038

John Achorn is a master teacher in commedia dell’Arte, having studied with Carlo Mazzone-Clementi; he was an original member of the Dell-Arte Company and was instrumental in the founding of the renowned Dell’Arte School in Blue Lake CA. Mr. Achorn has taught workshops and classes for over 35 years at such institutions as UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, UC Riverside, University of Redlands, UC San Diego, USC, The Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis, ARTEL and the Antaeus Company here in Los Angeles. He is an actor, director and writer.