viaCORPORA

Summer Residency in France

2012-01-14T06:32:00.000-08:00

Our Colleagues at Au Brana in the South of France have announced their 2012 workshops.
John Britton will return to lead his work on improvisation and the ensemble entitled Self - With - Others from the 16th - 23rd of June along with members of his company, Duende.

Christopher Sivertsen of the Awake Project will lead The Breathing Performer workshop from the 29th June until the 3rd of July.

We will run the extended July residency for the third year, this time in collaboration with Jonathan Grieve and Kasia Zaremba - Byrne alongside our resident company, OBRA from the 11th - 31st July.

Full details on each of the workshops are attached to this mail and can also be found at www.aubrana.com

Next Melodrama Workout

2011-11-13T04:21:00.001-08:00

Grand Guingolers are back in the workout mode! Come play.

29 November 2011

Grand Guignolers Physical Theatre

Melodrama Workout

PLAY BIG * PLAY FIERCE * PLAY TO SURVIVE

TUESDAY 29 Nov 2011

Dear Guignoler Friends:

RATES WILL SOON BE GOING UP. NOW ONLY $18 FOR 2.5 HRS OF INTENSIVE WORKOUT!

Join us for a physically theatrical workout to get you out of your head and into your body. All levels welcome in an inclusive and safe environment. This is physical theatre: authenticity in a very heightened and physically expressive style. It is ideal for actors seeking to improve movement skills, physical theatre artists just looking to get a 'workout' and non-artists who want to sweat and have fun. This is the only training of its type in Los Angeles and unlike many acting classes, you'll be up and moving far more than watching.

Melodrama is the most expressive of Western theatre forms, closest to the theatrical impulse, based in heightened physical gesture, high stakes, big emotion states, the struggle of virtue and evil ... to music. It is the visceral expression of Artaud's "athlete of the emotions." It's cathartic, powerful and FUN!

Sign up to secure your spot as workshops fill up quickly.
$18/workout.
TUESDAY, NOV. 29, 7:30-10.
ArtWorks Theatre. 6569 Santa Monica Blvd., LA 90038. No parking in lot.
If you would like to join in the post-workout soiree, please bring treats/drinks to share.

Classes taught by Debbie McMahon, Artistic Director Grand Guignolers.
Feel free to email info[at]grandguignolers.com with questions.

GET TICKETS HERE

WWW.GRANDGUIGNOLERS.COM

Grand Guignolers' - Absinthe Opium & Magic: 1920s Shanghai. Annie Appel Photography.

Building Community (Old Revolution Style)

2011-10-21T01:20:00.000-07:00

With all due respect to the global Occupy movement and its primarily Open Source Technology approach to community building, Grand Guignolers and Art via Corpora invite you to come celebrate the dead day a few hours early.

It's all fun and games, until someone loses an eye ... or two.

"See" for yourself.

Free Admission but Reservations Required.

The Grand Guignol

Class Recital

After a two week intensive workshop in Grand Guignol...

The class will present scenes from the classic Grand Guignol repertoire: The Laboratory of Hallucinations, The Final Kiss, and A Crime in the Madhouse. The Theatre of Terror and Laughter, Grand Guignol combines the styles of melodrama, naturalism, suspense and of course ... blood. This is not appropriate for children as violent is explicit.

WHERE: ArtWorks Theatre. 6569 Santa Monica Blvd. LA 90038

WHEN: Fri. October 28 at 8:30pm. About an hour or less. Absinthe & drinks available. Doors open at 8pm.

FREE ADMISSION BUT RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED. EMAIL: info@grandguignolers.com with names/email.

Come share some gory times with us and get worked-up to experience the drama yourself:

NEXT MELODRAMA WORKOUT WORKSHOP

TUESDAY 8 NOVEMBER 7:30 - 10:30

$18

WWW.GRANDGUIGNOLERS.COM for more info

Grand Guignol Intensive

2011-09-10T00:52:00.000-07:00

viaCorpora is pleased to announce that our cohorts, the Grand Guignolers, want to share a very special Halloween preparation with you.

Two Weeks of Terror

A Grand Guignol Intensive Workshop

October 16-28, 2011

GRAND GUIGNOL

The Theatre of Laughter & Terror

Dubbed the "Theatre of Laughter and Terror," the Théâtre du Grand Guignol, ran from 1897-1962 in a small Parisian theatre. An evening of "hot and cold showers," alternated short plays of drama, farce, and horror with gory special effects, the latter for which it was most famous (an evening's success was judged by the number of fainting patrons). The genre was the precursor of German Expressionism, film noir and the contemporary horror film.

The Workshop

This workshop is an earnest approach to Grand Guignol honoring the power of this form: real suspense and full engagement in dark psychological themes - jealousy, madness, and fear. And, of course, there will be blood... All levels welcome.

ACTING STYLE in exercises and classic Grand Guignol scenes. This unique form combines the grand physical expression of melodrama with an intensely psychological naturalism.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND in lecture, books, articles, handouts, photos, and video.
SPECIAL EFFECTS, the highly guarded secrets of live gore making.
AN EVENING OF HORROR, a class 'recital' of Grand Guignol scenes for your invited guests. Experience the power of this visceral form with a live audience.

COST: Early Bird Price $375 by Sept. 28. Regular Price: $425. Deposit of $150 required to secure your spot. Cost includes material fees. But not a shower. Which you will need.

LOCATION: ArtWorks Theatre. 6569 Santa Monica Blvd. LA 90038; alternate locations TBA.

DATES: Oct. 16-28. Weeknights 7-10/11; Sundays - 4-8; OFF: 10/19, 10/20, 10/27. SAT 10/20 TBA. Bring popcorn for the bonus movie night! Oct. 28 is the Final Presentation.

TO SIGN UP & FOR MORE DETAILS: www.grandguignolers.com

Workshop taught by Debbie McMahon, the 'puppet lady' of the petits guignolers and the creator/director of the Grand Guignoler shows. Debbie studied at Dell'Arte School of Physical Theatreand earned an MA in Performance Studies at NYU . She recently co-taught the Grand Guignol Summer Workshop at Dell'Arte with master teacher, Michael Fields. In addition to Grand Guignolers, she recently directed a commedia dell'arte play at USC MFA School and clowns with Cirque du Soleil.

Melodrama Workout Sept 15

2011-09-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

Come Play!

Grand Guignolers Physical Theatre

Melodrama Workout

PLAY BIG * PLAY FIERCE * PLAY TO SURVIVE

THURSDAY * SEPTEMBER 15th

Join the Grand Guignolers for another physically theatrical workoutto get you out of your head and into your body. All levels welcome.
Melodrama is the most expressive ofWestern theatre forms, closest tothe theatrical impulse, based in heightened physical gesture, high stakes, bigemotion states, the struggle of virtue and evil ... to music.
The workshop issomewhere between Artaud's "athlete of the emotions" and cops &robbers. It's cathartic, powerful and FUN! The workshop focuses on the physical workout not dialogue.

Sign up to secure your spot as workshopsfill up quickly.
$18/workout.
THURS., SEPTEMBER 15th 7:30-10. ArtWorksTheatre. 6569 Santa Monica Blvd.,LA 90038.
No parking in lot.
Feel free to bring treats/drinks tojoin in post-workout soiree.

Classes taught by Debbie McMahon, ArtisticDirector Grand Guignolers. Feelfree to email with questions.

WWW.GRANDGUIGNOLERS.COM GET TICKETS HERE

Grand Guignolers' - Absinthe Opium & Magic: 1920s Shanghai. Annie Appel Photography.

SomaFest registration open

2011-08-12T09:51:00.000-07:00

Teri Carter has been building the excellent Somatic Movement Arts Festival in Los Angeles for the last few years and SomaFest 2011 promises to be a luminous gathering.

Take advantage of the Early bird registration until August 15.

Please visit: www.somafest.org

Next Melodrama Workout

2011-07-23T02:42:00.000-07:00

Come Play!

Grand Guignolers Physical Theatre

Melodrama Workout: French Revolution Theme

PLAY BIG * PLAY FIERCE * PLAY TO SURVIVE

THURSDAY * AUGUST 4th

THEME: FRENCH REVOLUTION - THE GREAT FEAR

+ celebrating August 4, 1789 feudalism abolished in France

Grand Guignolers next Melodrama Physical Theatre Workout incorporates the spirit of the French Revolution - the setting of their next big production. Join them for a physically theatrical workout to get you out of your head and into your body - grand gestures, stakes, full heightened physical expression. All levels welcome.

Melodrama is the most expressive of Western theatre forms, the one closest to the theatrical impulse, based in heightened physical gesture, high emotional stakes, bold characters, spectacle, the struggle of virtue and evil, and all to music. The workshop is somewhere between Artaud's "athlete of the emotions" and cops & robbers. It's cathartic, powerful and FUN!

$18/workout.

THURS. AUGUST 4th 7:30-10 at ArtWorks Theatre. 6569 Santa Monica Blvd., LA 90038.

No parking in lot. Free street parking after 7pm.

Feel free to bring drinks/treats to join in post-workout festivities!

Classes taught by Debbie McMahon, Director/Creator Grand Guignolers. Feel free to email with questions.

Attire: workout clothes. hair secured off face. no dangling jewelry.

TICKETS HERE
Come play!

WWW.GRANDGUIGNOLERS.COM

Au Revoir, Louis XVI!

Bastille Day Bash!

2011-07-03T04:28:00.000-07:00

Come on out and celebrate Bastille Day like you never have before!

Grand Guignolers Physical Theatre

Melodrama Workout: Bastille Day Eve

PLAY BIG * PLAY FIERCE * PLAY TO SURVIVE

WEDNESDAY * JULY 13th

FOCUS: BASTILLE DAY EVE

On the eve of Bastille Day, our friends at Grand Guignolers are offering another Melodrama Physical Theatre Workout that incorporates the spirit of the French Revolution. The Revolution will be the setting of their next big production. Join them for a physically theatrical workout to get you out of your head and into your body - grand gestures, stakes, full heightened physical expression. All levels welcome.

It's cathartic, powerful and FUN!

$18

WED., JULY 13th 7:30-10

ArtWorks Theatre, 6569 Santa Monica Blvd., LA 90038.

No parking in lot. Free street parking after 7pm. Feel free to bring drinks to join in the post-workout Bastille Day Eve celebration!

Classes taught by Debbie McMahon, Director/Creator Grand Guignolers. Just back from leading a Guignol workshop at Dell'Arte International!

Feel free to email with questions.

Attire: workout clothes. hair secured off face. no dangling jewelry.

TICKETS HERE
Come play!

WWW.GRANDGUIGNOLERS.COM

More North

2011-05-14T02:48:00.000-07:00

Our cohorts the Grand Guignolers are offering a workshop at Dell Arte International in June!

JUNE 20-24 in beautiful Blue Lake, CA: arcata/eureka area - great healthy food, Redwood forests, Ocean, and other good stuff you'd find in that part of the country.

GRAND GUIGNOL

The theatre of terror and laughter....

with Michael Fields & Debbie McMahon

Once the most popular entertainment in Europe, Grand Guignol is an exciting theatre form that begat current thriller and horror films. Rarely taught, this “theatre of laughter and terror” explores our fascination with the macabre, playing with the violation of society’s taboos. Grand Guignol is wildly physical, intensely psychological, and filled with gruesome special effects. Explore both the physical performance styles and skills at the heart of the form, as well as the special effects (often closely held secrets) that so terrified the Grand Guignol audiences that a medical doctor was on hand for every performance to treat those who passed out from shock! The workshop will culminate in a late-night presentation of horror. Fee includes materials. $475.

Enrollment is here:

http://dellarte.com/dellarte.aspx?id=268

Dance on Land/Dance Without Sight

2011-05-09T11:28:00.000-07:00

Our friends in Northern California are offering a workshop we'd like to bring to your attention.

DANCE ON LAND
DANCE WITHOUT SIGHT

DANCE WITHOUT SIGHT
Led by Mana Hashimoto
July 2 & 3, average of 5-6 hours per day, 2 days

DANCE ON LAND
Led by Shinichi and Dana Iova-Koga
July 5-9, average of 6-8 hours per day, 5 days

Held at inkGround, a dance center located in the remote Mattole valley of California’s Lost Coast, 6-hours drive from San Francisco.

This summer our explorations in the connection between body and its surroundings will include a two-day session with Mana Hashimoto, entitled “Dance without sight,” and a 5 day session with Shinichi and Dana Iova-Koga.

In “Dance without sight,” (July 2 & 3) participants will work under the guidance of gifted dancer and teacher Hashimoto, who is blind. Dancers will work with a new approach to the body and space that doesn’t use visual information- with eyes blindfolded- in order to open their other senses and to focus on their internal body. (more below)

During “Dance on Land,” (July 5-9) we will be training in rigorous physicality and subtle listening. Elements of nature inform our movement. In yielding to the landscape’s mandate, we discover focus and sensitivity. We exhaust the body and its habits to activate the sensate body. We investigate core kinaesthetic and imagistic motives for movement in order to find dance on land.

We work from the body’s intrinsic tension, releasing the unnecessary to find a balance of strength and softness. We work from the center (tanden) to move the far-reaching limbs. We develop listening in relation to time, space, motion, inner rhythms and one another.

inkGround is surrounded by trees, mountains, river, ocean, gardens and orchards. We will be working in all of these microclimates, as well as in the dance studio in the barn. Discovering the body in the environment and our places within it, we’ll work in solo, duet and group improvisations.

Housing is your tent.

Kitchen is outside. (Food is Delicious!)

Toilet is rustic.
To register, we require a non-refundable $50 deposit by June 1st to hold your place.
Go to: http://danceonland2011.eventbrite.com

Complete payment must be received on or before the first day of the workshop.

LOGISTICS:

Costs:
Tuition for “Dance Without Sight” only: $200
Tuition for “Dance on Land” only: $500
Tuition for both workshops $600 (You save $100!)
Food: $20 per day for omnivores, vegans or vegetarians, $25 per day for other special needs diets (ie gluten free, candida diet, etc.)
Food costs will be calculated once you arrive, depending upon the number of days you stay.

* Workshop tuition does not cover the cost of transportation to Petrolia
* WORKSHOP DATES DO NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL DAYS. Please allow for one day on either end to account for travel time. (ex: if attending entire workshop, you would travel up on July 1 and travel back down on July 10).

* Discount available for “Dance on Land” session for returning students

* Very limited Work-trade available. See below.

This year there are very limited work trade spaces available. We only need a few people with experience in construction/carpentry. The work session will fall during the week of June 24th-30^th. Participation in the work trade session waives the $500 workshop fee for “Dance on Land” only. There is no work trade available for “Dance Without Sight.” Those doing work trade must contribute $10 per day to cover the cost of food for the work-days and $20 (or $25 for special diets) per day for food during the workshop week and any in between days. If interested in work trade, please request an application from Dana: daisy@inkboat.com.
Applications to apply for work trade must be received by June 1st.
For more information about upcoming events, workshops and performances, please visit our website at: www.inkboat.com
Need to get a better idea of what goes on? Go here: http://vimeo.com/10794703

Dates for BOTH workshops
(not including travel time)

Saturday, July 2 through Saturday, July 9

Location

inkGround

627 Lighthouse Road

Petrolia, CA 95558

Song of the Goat Workshop

2010-12-09T01:38:00.000-08:00

viaCorpora is pleased to host a 2-day workshop with a founding member of Song of the Goat Theatre (Teatr Pieśń Kozła), one of the leading physical theatre companies in the world.

C o o r d i n a t i o n - i n- A c t i n g

“Sensual and spiritual, expressive and ecstatic, gentle and furious.”

Teatr on Song of the Goat’s Macbeth (2008)

“As near to perfect theatre as I have seen in a very long time, it is food for the soul.”

The Sunday Herald on Chronicles (2004)

The workshop explores the concept of actor’s coordination, which unifies rhythm, voice and movement. Ideal for those using their body as the key element in the theatrical devising process, the training incorporates the body into voice, song and text work. It also contributes to the classical actor’s technique, theatre or film, by awakening the sense of internal and external rhythm, working with physical impulse, spatial awareness and focus. For performance professionals, the workshop offers a unique opportunity to examine how the body, voice and imagination can be used to find the new sources of creativity.

This workshop is a culmination of Rafal Habel’s 13 years of research with Teatr Pieśń Kozła (Song of the Goat Theatre), one of the most exciting and innovative Avant-garde theatre companies in Poland and beyond.

Suitable for actors, dancers, performers, directors, university & drama school students.

WHEN: Saturday-Sunday, January 15-16, 2011 12-4:30 pm

WHERE: viaCorpora Studio, 6575 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA

FEE: General: $120, Students:$90, EARLY Bird :$85 (before December 31).

HOW: Please email contact@viacorpora.com to receive an application and further instructions.

DETAILS: Participants should be prepared to work physically and vocally throughout the day. Please wear comfortable practice clothes and be prepared to work in bare feet.

R a f a ł H a b e l, Actor/Musician, has been a member of the internationally renowned Polish theatre company, Teatr Pieśń Kozła (Song of the Goat Theatre) since its inception in 1997. His performances with Pieśń Kozła include ‒ Dithyramb, Chronicles: A Lamentation, Lacrimosa and Macbeth, touring throughout Europe, North America, Australia and Asia. Rafał is one of the teachers in the MA Acting course through Manchester Metropolitan University run by Teatr Pieśń Kozła in Poland. He is a former member of chamber folk music group Lautari, Wrocław, Poland, and a collaborator with Bread In The Bone Theatre Company in London and Poland.

Working with Teatr Pieśń Kozła for 13 years, Rafał Habel has led and co-led workshops around the world. United Kingdom: Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester; Rose Bruford Colledge, London; MAC, Birmingham; Nightingale Theatre, Brighton; The Point, Eastleigh; The Junction, Cambridge; Playhouse Education Outreach Programme, Oxford; The Centre of Performance Research in Wales; Welsh College of Music and Drama, Wales. Australia: Australian Theatre for Young People, Sydney; La Troube University, Melbourne; Black Swan Theatre, Perth. USA: La MaMa Theatre, New York City; UCLA Live, Los Angeles; Claremont College, Claremont CA. Cuba: Danza Teatro Retazos; Havana, Cuba. Asia: The National Theatre of Taiwan. Poland: Since 1997 Workshops led and co-led in Wroclaw, Pozna, Jelenia Gora, Tornow, Warszawa, Gdansk.

LO SATURNALIA!

2010-12-02T00:20:00.000-08:00

Those puckish Grand Guignolers are conspiring to play and revel one more time before 2010 runs out! Come celebrate with the viaCorpora Fellowship!

THE FOOL

Grand Guignolers FINAL

Physical Theatre Workout 2010

LO SATURNALIA!

WEDNESDAY * DECEMBER 15th

CELEBRATING SATURNALIA!

Dear Friends:

Our final physical theatre workout of the year devilishly delves into the spirit of the ancient Roman holiday, Saturnalia. This pagan holiday/festival was the historical pre-curser of the Feast of Fools and the Christmas season featuring gift giving, revelry, misrule, and the reversal of social roles. Death and rebirth. Fool and trickster. Joyous celebration. Post-workout libations.

To stay for the post-workout festivities, please bring your favorite libation and edible treats to share (please let me know what you are bringing to even out the goods... though I suppose 10 bottles of red wine isn't a BAD thing.)

Spaces for this evening are already filling up. BUY TICKET HERE. $18.

ABOUT MELODRAMA PHYSICAL THEATRE WORKOUTS: Join us for a physically theatrical workout to get you out of your head and into your body. Melodrama is the most expressive of Western theatre forms, the one closest to the theatrical impulse, based in physical gesture, high stakes, big characters, big emotion states, spectacle, the struggle of virtue and evil, and all to music. The workshop is somewhere between Artaud's "athlete of the emotions" and cops & robbers. It's cathartic, powerful and FUN! All levels welcome.

$18/workout. WED., DECEMBER 15th 7:30-10 at ArtWorks Theatre. 6569 Santa Monica Blvd., LA 90038. No parking in lot.

Taught by Debbie McMahon, Director/Creator Grand Guignolers.

WWW.GRANDGUIGNOLERS.COM

Come play!

MELODRAMA WORKOUT NIGHTS

2010-10-15T01:00:00.000-07:00

Grand Guignolers Melodrama Workout/Workshop

PLAY BIG * PLAY FIERCE * PLAY TO SURVIVE

NOVEMBER 3 * NOVEMBER 11

Join us for a physically theatrical workout to get you out of your head and into your body. All levels welcome.

Melodrama is the most expressive of Western theatre forms, the one closest to the theatrical impulse, based in physical gesture, high stakes, big characters, big emotion states, spectacle, the struggle of virtue and evil, and all to music. The workshop is somewhere between Artaud's "athlete of the emotions" and cops & robbers. It's cathartic, powerful and FUN!

Sign up in advance for LIMITED SPOTS. We often have a waiting list. $18/workout. WED., NOVEMBER 3rd and/or 17th 7:30-10 at ArtWorks Theatre. 6569 Santa Monica Blvd., LA 90038. No parking in lot. Feel free to bring drinks for post-workout play.

more dates will be added - please check back here or the website below for details.
WWW.GRANDGUIGNOLERS.COM

TICKETS HERE

Come play!

Amy Vorpahl & Amanda Street in A Crime in the Madhouse

Commedia Classes with John Achorn

2010-09-17T02:27:00.000-07:00

viaCorpora is delighted to announce that master teacher John Achorn is returning to the House. With his wisdom and immense experience, John offers a detailed and extensive introduction to commedia dell'Arte with a light and accessible touch!

presented in association with Lo studio degli zanni

A New Workshop in

commedia dell’Arte

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

Beginning Saturday, October 16 ~ thru November 20

Fee: $180 ~ Early Registration Discount (before October 15): $150

Contact: 310-396-3314 or jachorn@yahoo.com

viaCorpora is located at 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.

MELODRAMA WORKOUT NIGHTS

2010-08-01T11:20:00.000-07:00

GRAND GUIGNOLERS

MELODRAMA WORKOUT NIGHTS

play big * play ferocious * play to survive

UPCOMING:
August 11 2010

Theme: INSANITY/SANITY

Amy Vorpahl & Amanda Street in A Crime in the Madhouse

7:30 PM (about 2.5 hours)

$18 for one night.

ArtWorks Theatre 6569 Santa Monica Blvd. LA 90038

spaces limited so reserve your spot.

For more information

http://www.grandguignolers.com/workshops.html

COME PARTAKE

hosted by viaCorpora

MIR Caravan

2010-07-27T11:35:00.001-07:00

Those of you that attended the viaCorpora conversation with Slava Polunin in Jan 2007 might remember the amazing and inspiring story he shared with us of the MIR Caravan tour in 1989, a true testament to the creative citizen and the powers of thinking in a world of possibility, rather than in one constrained by measurement.

To celebrate the 20+ year anniversary, MIR Caravan returns.

Please visit the site, spread the word, attend the performances and spectacles, and most of all, celebrate.

http://www.mircaravan2010.eu/

SHANGHAI BOUND AGAIN

2010-04-30T02:59:00.001-07:00

"INSANELY ENTERTAINING...CREATES NEW GENRE"

LA Stage Blog

"FIERCELY IMAGINATIVE..."TOUR DE FORCE"

LA Weekly

11 performances only

May 7 - 29

Created/Directed by DEBBIE MCMAHON
The Cabinet of Hands by Chris Bell

VISIT THE MOST DEBAUCHEROUS CITY OF ITS ERA

Grand Guignolers and viaCorpora are delighted to announce that the outstanding run at Hollywood's ArtWorks Theatre is being transferred to the Ivy Substation to allow West Side and Culver City patrons easier access to the boat! Set sail again or experience 1920s Shanghai for the first time!

Don your best cocktail and/or vintage attire and join the Grand Guignolers on a 1920s luxury cruise to Shanghai. Meet Sing Song girls (Chinese geishas) and The Green Gang in Sing Song Girl Sing Last Song, a dancing/brawling movement based melodrama. Witness spectacle and magic in the absinthe fueled hallucinations of The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Visit a sinister opium den in The Cabinet of Hands by Chris Bell, a Grand Guignol play about a Madame with a penchant for collecting hands. And see hypnosis and ventriloquism turn deadly performed by the ever popular, Petits Guignolers, a French finger puppet troupe.

Come early for on-board travel photos, treats, absinthe and entertainment

WHERE: THE IVY SUBSTATION * 9070 Venice Blvd. * Culver City, CA 90232. Hosted by the Actor's Gang.

WHEN: May 7 - 29. Thurs - Sat ~ 8pm Absinthe & Entertainment ~ 8:30pm showtime. No late seating.

SUGGESTED ATTIRE: Vintage/Cocktail.

TICKETS: $25-30. www.theactorsgang.com or www.grandguignolers.com for tickets.

Pre-purchased highly recommended. Due to violence, this show is inappropriate for children.

Premiere! Artel's Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms

2010-02-18T01:39:00.000-08:00

www.kharmful.com

Fresh off the heels of the critically acclaimed Grand Guignolers’ Absinthe, Opium & Magic: 1920s Shanghai, viaCorpora, International Performance Research and Development House is proud to present its resident laboratory’s world premiere production, Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms. After a riotous oversold presentation of the workshop production last spring, ARTEL – a mad-gang of artisanal scientists comprising the underground American Russian Theatre Ensemble Laboratory – brings Daniil Kharms back with a vengeance! And he is more charming, macabre, and scintillating than ever! Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms is an original decadent comedy illogically formulated from Russian Surrealist and Absurdist motifs, constructed as an evening of not-so-innocent commotions and antics, vignettes and dreamlike incidents, all set to a rousing live musical score.

Where: Art|Works Theatre 6567 Santa Monica Blvd. 90038
When: Feb 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, March 5, 6, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20 at 8:30pm; March 7 and 14 at 3pm
Tickets: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/93470
Dress Code: Dress to impress while enjoying yourself at a night of irrepressible theatre, circa 1930s is encouraged. Wear a moustache (or be prepared to have one given to you) and you'll receive a free soup to accompany the evening's performance.

When you come to see us, forget everything that you have been used to seeing in all other theatres. Perhaps much of it will seem absurd.

-OBERIU, 1928

Declaring 2010 as the Year of the Absurd, ARTEL is making explosive (re)solutions to the New Year, beginning with detonating notions of theatre as a dramatic servant of literature. While English speaking academics are just now wrestling with Hans-Thies Lehmann’s ten year old articulation of a ‘post-dramatic theatre’, ARTEL ransacks a storehouse constructed eighty years ago by Daniil Kharms when he divined a creative practice of sluchai*, to propose its own poetics of perplexing alogical perspectives formulated for a new decade of twenty-first century theatre.

Daniil Kharms, an early Soviet-era surrealist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist, was a post-modern artist before the term had any cultural currency. Kharms exploded the conception of theatre as a literary representative, defining the rules of theatre not as dramatic but scenic. By the late 1920s, his anti-rational verse, nonlinear theatrical performances, and public displays of iniquitous and irrational behavior earned Kharms - who always dressed like an English dandy with a calabash pipe - the reputation of being a talented but highly eccentric "fool" or "crazy-man" in Leningrad cultural circles. Exiled briefly during the “relatively vegetarian” days of the early 1930s, ten years later he was imprisoned in the psychiatric ward of Leningrad Prison No. 1. Kharms died in his cell – most likely from starvation – in February, 1942 as the Nazi blockade of Leningrad was well underway. His writings (a vast assortment of stories, miniatures, plays, poems, and pseudo-scientific/philosophical investigations) were virtually unknown until the 1970s, and not published officially in Russia until the late-1980s period of "glasnost".

ARTEL has found a kinship in the writings, theories and spirit of OBERIU (Union of Real Art), the avant-garde collective founded by Kharms, that adds a legacy and language to the ways in which the ensemble laboratory has been training performers and devising theatre since its inception. Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms is therefore presented as homage to OBERIU whose aesthetic centered on a belief in the autonomy of art from the real world's rules and logic as well as the intrinsic meaning to be found in objects and words outside of their practical function.

By ‘Real Art’, OBERIU intended the creation of an artistic language that refused symbolism and subtext as a means to present realism. The Oberiuty rejected literary drama, in which all the elements are subordinate to the dramatic plot, that is the play as ‘a tale told by people about something that happened’, and in which everything is done on the stage in order ‘to explain the meaning and the course of the events more clearly, more comprehensibly, and in a more life-like way’. ‘Theatre’, said the Oberiuty, ‘has nothing to do with that.’

OBERIU embraced a creativity that demanded “the transformation of the forms of private life into a fact of art”. The promotion of an aesthetic and ethos that blurs life and art has been a main line of research for ARTEL, and coupled with the notion of ‘scenic plot’ was a central dramaturgy for the Bulgakov variations over the last three years.

Derided as literary hooligans in the increasingly hostile atmosphere of 1930s Stalinism, OBERIU survived as a collective for only a few short years, but are considered “the last of the Soviet avant-garde”.

As the cultural weather continues to fluctuate in our own tumultuous times, Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms disrupts the experience of daily entertainment routines, challenges the central questions around the role of art, the responsibility of artists, and the creative capacity of all living citizens, and ultimately aims to provoke an incident of love.

You want to find the laws of normality and logic which you think you see in life. But you will not find them here. Why? Because an object and a phenomenon transferred from life onto the stage are no more dependent on the laws of ‘life’ and acquire laws of another kind, those of the theatre. We are not going to explain what they are. To understand the laws of a theatrical presentation you have to see it.

- OBERIU, 1928

*Sluchai is a Russian word uneasily translatable but academically agreed to be closest to the English word “incident”. The Kharmsian incident is best described by two definitions: the first from a general understanding is “an occurrence or event that interrupts normal procedure or precipitates a crisis”, while the second comes from a physical understanding as a “falling upon or striking a surface”. Incidents, like life, are brought to us as well as provoked by us. It is this nebulous area within which action lies, and therefore, ARTEL views the theatre as space to overturn and question assumed notions of the division between life and art.

2009-10-07T11:21:00.000-07:00

The Year of the Absurd will make you live longer!

(at least sharper)

It's apparently true. Absurdity sharpens the mind.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/health/06mind.html?_r=1

Pssst...the Year of the Absurd is Coming

2009-09-20T07:05:00.000-07:00

....keep looking down

Laughter is a collapse of control in response to something which can't be fitted in the file cabinet of the mind. It is a form of ecstasy, a collapse of reason into basic clarity.

-- Joseph Chaikin

TEATR ZAR Workshops

2009-09-20T07:00:00.000-07:00

In partnership with the Grotowski Institute, Arden 2 and UCLA Live!, Teatr Zar return to Los Angeles with the premiere of Triptych, the first part of which was shown at UCLA 2 years ago (Gospels of Childhood). viaCorpora is honored to be organizing 4 days of workshops with this special ensemble of unique performers.While Teatr Zar's work incorporates a coordinated physical and polyphonic vocal and rhythmic approach to performer training, the workshops will be separated in order to allow more concentrated time on one particular path. While we encourage participants to experience both workshops, we believe this separation will allow those participants who only wish to challenge their comfort in their "specialized" medium sufficient access.

Workshop 1

Wakening the Listening Body

practical meeting led by Matej Matejka

The meetings aim to explore a specific line of personal and individual expression of the performer. It addresses practical questions present in our work in theatre, a search for the process of the performer that retains the essential expression and avoids unnecessary aesthetics.

The work evolves from the centralizing of energy in the body, awakening the center of the body and grounding the energy of the performer. Special attention is place on isolation techniques as well as improving subtle expression, or inner-articulations, of the body.

During the work we address the following aspects:

*Sensitivity in the work with the partner. Exploring different qualities of physical contact. Induction between partners.

*Using stimulus - needs, inner impulses or reflections from everyday like - as a source for improvisation and the creation of physical scores. awakening an Intuitive body.

*Searching for forms of expression through the nature of one's own personality.

The session is targeted towards practitioners with an interest and experience in dance or theatre.
This challenge requires serious focus and precision from all engaged in the work.
It is open to those who are willing to search in less common fields of physical and vocal expression.

Workshop 2

Into The Sound
Led by Jaroslaw Fret and Teatr Zar

The work session will be focused on the natural harmonics of the voice expressed through rhythmical breathing patterns and connected to actions based on physical contact between the singers. Participants of the session will be introduced to the following elements: Svanetian harmonies (from the high Caucasus); Georgian Liturgical songs (Gelati tradition); cries/calls. The work will explore rhythm / breath-rhythm (based on Balkan rhythmical patterns), co-ordination and exploration of natural rhythmical tendencies through improvisation, exploring the breath through physical impulses and acrobatic elements. A separate part of the work session will be a practical reconnaissance into the forms of Kyrie Eleison, as complex scores of breath, belonging to different traditions.

Information

Date: Monday-Thursday, 16-19 November 2009
Time: 11-2 (Wakening the listening body), 3-7 (Into the sound)
Price: One workshop: $270.00-Before 15 Oct, After-$300 Both Workshops: $500
To pay: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/producer/6719
Notes: 1) There is an application for this workshop as space is extremely limited, please contact bryan@viacopora.com
2) Times may be subject to change. If you are interested in these workshops, but cannot make the times, please fill out an application form and tell us the times you are available.
3) These workshops will most likely be held at a space downtown rather than our Hollywood building. Please factor that in.

Biographies

Jaroslaw Fret:
Director of the Grotowski Institute, and a founder and leader of Teatr ZAR. Beginning in 1999, together with Kamila Klamut, he organised several expeditions to Georgia, Armenia, Greece and Iran, conducting research into the oldest forms of religious music of Eastern Christianity. This research became the point of departure for the performance Gospels of Childhood, which has since been presented in Poland, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Slovakia, Hungary, the United Kingdom and the United States. He has conducted work sessions in various countries including Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and Brazil. He produced the world’s first documentary film devoted to the Mandeans – the only ancient Gnostic group remaining in the south of Iran. He graduated in Polish philology from the University of Wroclaw in 1994. In 1994–1995 he collaborated with the Centre for Theatre Practices 'Gardzienice'. Fret was co-editor of a special annual bound volume of Pamietnik Teatralny, dedicated to Jerzy Grotowski (Warsaw, 2000-2001). He worked in the Centre for the Study of Jerzy Grotowski’s Work and for Cultural and Theatrical Research from 1995, assuming the director’s function in February 2004. He has been director of the Grotowski Institute since 29th December 2006.

Teatr Zar:
The ensemble of the Teatr ZAR was initially formed through almost three years of expeditions and rehearsals concerning the project Gospels of Childhood. Members were gathered for the project from training sessions at the Grotowski Centre and their work was directed towards the long-term development of actors’ skills, as well as towards discovering new forms of expression, based mainly on acting through song. Therefore, the character of the project proved to be musicological, but was not so much dedicated to conventional ethno-musicological research as to an attempt to recompose and reshape the musical material acquired during the expeditions.

Matej Matejka:
Matej is originally from Slovakia. He has been a collaborator of The Grotowski Institute since 2005 where he is engaged in research of physical expression in the theatre. He is an actor with Teatr ZAR and one of the leaders of physical training for the company. He performs in Gospels of Childhood, Cesarean Section and is currently working on Anhelli, Calling. He has performed with the Theatre Studio Prague, and Farm in the Cave on Dark Love Sonnets, Journey to the Station and SCLAVI / The Song of an Emigrant. He is has also recently been collaborating with choreographer and dancer Jaro Vinarsky.

Breathing Performer Workshops

2009-09-20T06:03:00.000-07:00

viaCorpora is honored to be co-producing with Ilana K Turner the first Breathing Performer workshops in Los Angeles. Christopher Sivertsen was last in Los Angeles performing with the Song of the Goat theater at UCLA and assisted Grzegorz Bral in their one-day workshop in 2005. He now returns to Los Angeles with his unique approach to performer training.

The Breathing Performer workshop is an opportunity to learn from Christopher Sivertsen's rich experience in laboratory theatre practice and his own personal research into the performer's craft. He draws upon a broad range of inspirations including; folklore, hip-hop, acrobatics, rhythms, traditional, devotional and secular music and stories.

Using specific exercises that are designed to open your body and develop your trust in your own physical and imaginative creativity, the participants will be guided into their own unknown territory.

You will choose any classical monologue you know very well and using its text, a score will be created consisting of music, physicality and movement. Assisted by the other participants as the ensemble or the chorus of characters in the play, you become the narrator, the puppeteer, the conductor, the master of ceremony and the protagonist.

Date: Saturday and Sunday, 24 -25 October 2009
Time: 12 -5pm
Price: $200 Before 5 Oct, After $240
Note: There is an application form for this workshop. Contact bryan@viacorpora.com

Watch the AWAKE Project video to a glimpse into Christopher's work
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRMGxmgKhaY

As a performer, Christopher was a member of both Theatre Slava in Sweden and Teatr Piesn Kozla (Song of the Goat) in Poland. Since 2006, Christopher has been collaborating and working with a many companies and institutions, such as RADA in London, the Diaspora project and RSAMD in Glasgow and Georgetown University in Washington. Christopher is the artistic director of the Awake project, a group of international theatre artists brought together to create a performance, and to lead large scale youth exchange projects in Europe. The Awake project is also the Swedish representative for the UNESCO year of Grotowski.

For more info and a fantastic PDF with photos:
http://www.awakeproject.com/

The Return of JOHNSON

2009-09-20T05:14:00.000-07:00

HURRY - $120 fee is good till September 26th! Purchase online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/83214

Fields of Play: seed and harvest
Lecture w/Q&A, 4 day workshop, Evening of Sowings

Building upon two previous workshops at viaCorpora, Jef Johnson and Olya Petrakova have devised an extended workshop and opening into the larger community by orchestrating a 4 day workshop in creative techniques that begins with Johnson giving a FREE lecture with Q&A and ends with a Sowing of the work done by the participants at ArtWorks Theatre!

“The natural flow of all things is driven by restraint and passage.”

How do you create new material?

Do you sit down and try to think it up?

Do you get bogged down worrying about music, props, character?

Do you think “if I have the magic idea the rest will be easy?”

Do you tell yourself “all I need is the seed?”

You are the seed! The most immediate and truthful inspiration comes from the natural flow of all things, as you experience it. Come discover practical tools for navigating the landscape of your fields of play.

This is a practical workshop series which will focus on strategies for identifying and developing ideas for performance. Three evenings of workshop will culminate in a public sharing, "Seeds"!

This special workshop series will kick off with a FREE LECTURE, followed by a Q&A. Jef will share experiences, discuss performance theory, clown and the power of theatre.

FREE Lecture: Tuesday, 6 October, 7:30PM

Workshop: Wednesday- Friday, 7-9 October , 7-10pm
(for those participating in the Sowing, we will also meet Saturday 10 Oct 1-4pm)
Price: $120 before Sept 26; After - $180!
Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/83214

Evening of Sowing: Saturday, 10 October, 8PM
For guests: $5.00 suggested contribution.

J e f J o h n s o n is a principal in the Broadway and international touring company of Slava’s Snowshow. He has worked with Cirque du Soleil as clown, special artistic consultant and workshop director. He conducts his practical research out of Jef Johnson’s CLOWN LAB in New York City.

Alternative Workshop Payment:
write a check, payable to ARTEL and mail it to:
ARTEL
6567 Santa Monica Blvd.,
Los Angeles, CA 90038

Prankster Art Playshop

2009-09-20T05:01:00.000-07:00

PRANKSTER ART PLAYSHOP: Blurring the Lines between Life and Play
with Olya Petrakova

Feeling creatively sluggish lately? Inject your life with mischief.

Using Olya's Instant Creation Techniques, principles of Happenings and Improv, materials of Absurdist Literature, Zaum Poetry, artistic output of Dada, Fluxus and Punk Rock, threaded together with Monty Python's brand of antics, we will collide creative performance ideas with Impossible Timelines and Unlikely Spaces to create that irrepressible sense of mischievous anticipation, provocation and play.

Prepare to have your abs hurting from laughter, your everyday perception re-focused and sense of socially-acceptable behaviour absurdly enlarged.

Suitable for actors, writers, dancers, performers, housewives, lawyers, and personal assistants.

Price: $28.88
Date: Saturday, 3 October 2009
Time: 13:00 - 16:00
Tickets: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/80261

Are you ready to set sail?

2009-09-17T05:55:00.000-07:00

www.grandguignolers.com

Auditon for Artel's Kharmful Charms of Dani Kharms

2009-09-16T05:47:00.000-07:00

After a sold-out workshop production last April, ARTEL returns with Kharmful Charms of Dani Kharms - A World Premiere collaborative ensemble-devised project based on the works of Russian absurdist Daniil Kharms (1905-1942).

DATE/TIME/LOCATION: Oct 2, 6:30-8pm or Oct 3, 11-12:30. Artworks Theatre & Studios. Studio C, 6575 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, 90038. Tel. 310-985-9996.RUN: Presented at Artworks Theatre. Opens February 12, Fri-Sat 8pm (occasional Wed, Th or Sun shows) 4 weeks. Please be open to extend. (another 4 -6 weeks)

We are looking for character actors-creators, dancers, singers, puppeteers, musicians with a proclivity for comedy and absurd. Physicality, expressivity, courage to create are a must. Everyone will be required to devise solo and group work. Training in physical approaches to theatre, commedia dell'arte, clown, cabaret is a plus.

SEE ARTEL WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION
www.arteltheatre.org

Auditions for Upcoming Grand Guignolers Show

2009-09-03T10:10:00.000-07:00

Director/Producer Debbie McMahon of Grand Guignolers, a physical theatre based company within the [via]Corpora House, is casting an ensemble of men/women to play multiple parts for

Absinthe Opium & Magic: 1920s Shanghai

Running November 21- January 3 (plan to extend) at ArtWorks Theatre. Color blind, sometimes gender blind casting. 99 Seat Equity Waiver. Submit headshot/resume to info@grandguignolers.com for consideration. Auditions 9/2-3 and 9/5-6. See www.grandguignolers.com for additional info re audition and show. Audition includes dance, movement, group improv, some reading.

Teatr Zar Workshops in November

2009-07-20T11:52:00.000-07:00

In collaboration with The Grotowksi Institute and Arden 2, [via]Corpora is proud to announce that it will be hosting workshops with Teatr Zar when they return to Los Angeles for the presentation of their Triptych at UCLA Live! presented in association with Arden 2.

Members of Teatr Zar will be leading different workshops while they are in LA in mid-November.

One will focus on their polyphonic singing technique utilizing songs primarily from Georgia and Corsica. This workshop is open to anyone interested in work with songs. We hope to see many of our friends that participated in the Karagod workshops last year!

The other workshop will be an extended session of song and physical work. These workshops will aim at discovering the creative possibilities when polyphonic song is used for ensemble building and theatrical action. The physical work will be solo and partner investigations utilizing rhythm, isolations, contact, and actor-acrobatics to discover the links between image and action.

We hope to gather a group of dedicated artists that want to experience the ensemble rigor that distinguishes Polish theatre.

The workshops are planned for Mid-November (dates and times to be announced in early Autumn). We will be posting an application for the workshops soon; however, if you are interested please contact Bryan Brown at bryan[at]viacorpora.com

Thank you ACTION! Theater for creating in our home!

2009-04-21T01:52:00.001-07:00

R. U. R.

directed by Tiger Reel

April 18, 2009 8:00 PM
Through May 16, 2009 8:00 PM

323.908.7276

We are delighted to be supporting the third production of Action! Theater in our space! Action! Theaer and director Tiger Reel continue to challenge the accepted and expected and we are sure that R.U.R will not disappoint.

R.U.R. stands for Rossum's Universal Robots. Written in 1920 - R.U.R. garnered worldwide acclaim for its author and introduced the word "Robot" to the English language. Mass-produced, efficient and servile labor, Capek's robots remember everything, but lack creative thought, and the Utopian life they provide ultimately lacks meaning. When the robots revolt, killing all but one of their masters, they must attempt to learn the secret of procreation.

Working from a new adaptation by Action! Theatre Company Artistic Director, Tiger Reel, this production will highlight Capek's themes of technology's effect on society, gender and class roles and will wrestle with the question: "Are we as a race worth saving?"

As the genesis of the "Robot Revolution" scenario, R.U.R. prefigures such greats of the genre like "The Terminator", "Blade Runner", "2001: A Space Odyssey" and the re-imagined "Battlestar Galactica."

TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/60106

for more info: http://www.action-theatre.com/

Inspiration

2009-04-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

After years of investigating and ruminating on the concept of Home, we recently came across an unsent letter from Sulerzhitsky to Stanislavski of December 1915 in which he reflects on their efforts with the First Studio :

“I particularly liked the nature of the land you bought at Eupatoria for the Studio, desert-like and arid, where we would have had to work hard to construct a common home."

This link back to the tradition of Russian acting practice supports and inspires our recent decision to change a portion of our name and rewrite our mission statement. We have never felt completely comfortable with the association attached to being a Center, but we are more than a School and not at all an Institution.

We aim in fact to be a home.

And so we are pleased to announce our decision to rename ourselves [via]Corpora Performance Research and Development House!

CLOWNLAB with Jef Johnson

2009-03-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

Pre-payment is set up at https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/61407
Space is limited to 20 people ~ Hurry!

CLOWNLAB with Jef Johnson

NOTHING STUPID

a new Workshop for no one in particular

To think is to not know how to be.
-- Fernando Pessoa

Our perception is challenged constantly by the rules of organized society and daily living. The mind, body and spirit are in a perpetual tug of war with the fabric of who we think we are and who we wish to become.

In this workshop, you will be challenged to let go of fear and be free.

We are all clowns. We are all children.

Come join us and reconnect with the joy that dreams within you!

April 12, 4-9PM
April 13, 6-10PM

ArtWorks Theatre
6569 Santa Monica Blvd.
Hollywood 90038

$150 both days, or $120 if paid by April 4th!

Space is limited. Enroll soon.

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/61407

***

Jef Johnson is a principal clown in the international touring company of Slava's Snowshow. As Clown, he has also toured with Cirque du Soleil. Jef has more than 20 years of experience working in a wide range of physical styles. His approach is rooted in subjective expression, physical expression of condition through impulse and reflex. He has studied corporeal expression from disciples of Grotowski, Suzuki, Marceau, Decroux, Lecoq, Meyerhold, M. Chekhov, Vakhtangov.He has been commissioned for Master Classes, Lectures and Workshops in Acting, Theory, Character, Mask, Creative Play, Improvisation, and Clown for numerous theatre companies and universities, including Cirque du Soleil, New York Clown Theatre Festival, Camp Broadway, Slava's Snowshow, University of Houston, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, University of Minnesota, Empire State College and NYU.

For more on Jef and his Clown Lab: http://www.nyclown.com/

http://www.theaterlabnyc.com/Theaterlab3/Jef_Johnson.html

2009-03-19T02:19:00.000-07:00

Propose
1. To put forward for consideration.
2. To offer.
3. To make known one's intention.

Proposition
1. A matter to be dealt with; a task.

originally, to set forth

Unleashing Creativity
Pathways to engaging performance

Saturday, April 4th, 11 - 2pm, $30
[via]Corpora, 6575 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood 90038
Reservations email... bryan@viacorpora.com

There are as many ways to performance and performer training as there are performers. What is essential is the Perspective of Joy and Ease with which a performer approaches each moment of work. Through full-bodied play we will discover the pathways to engaged and engaging performance.

After three months of teaching and researching in Leeds, England, Bryan Brown returns to [via]Corpora with his particular physical approach to actor training and performance development. This new workshop will investigate both areas by focusing 1/3 of the day on the physical, vocal and rhythmic training that allows for the offering of self in spontaneous and imaginative moments and 2/3 of the day applying the experiences of the training to the development of individual Propositions.

A Proposition is an active sketch, a short structured sequence of movements and sound.

Participants should come with a proposition. If you do not have a proposition, we can still work as long as you are willing to improvise and work towards one in front of the group.
(Propositions can consist of text, song, object(s), costume. Keep it simple. The details and subtlety are what we will be focusing on.)

BRYAN BROWN has taught and studied extensively in New York City, Europe, and Los Angeles. He is co-creator of Artel and [via]Corpora, Performance Research and Development House. Deeply influenced by American Experimental theater and dance practitioners, Bryan has spent the last two years investigating the contemporary theater practices of Eastern European and Russian ensembles primarily through his relations with the Grotowski Institute and the Song of the Goat Theatre. Recently he was Artist-in-Residence at Hooyang Performing Arts Centre, South Korea. Besides consistent teaching in Los Angeles at [via]Corpora, Bryan has led workshops in Poland, New Orleans and NY. Currently, he teaches Performance Technique at the University of Leeds where he is a Postgraduate Research student.

Tickets are going fast!

2008-12-26T18:00:00.000-08:00

Closing Jan 10,

8 shows left,

4 of which are SOLD OUT!

Don't miss the best-selling show this Holiday Season!

A Grand Guignol Children's Show*
(*not for children)
written and directed by
Debbie McMahon.

LA WEEKLY SAYS "GO!" - "vivacious and rude entertainment that's part French vaudeville and part British Punch and Judy show"

LA TIMES calls it an "enchanting evening," and "delightful"

BACKSTAGE WEST calls it a "disturbingly enjoyable celebration of the ghastly"

Grand Guignolers celebrate as only they can!

2008-12-02T17:21:00.000-08:00

Debbie McMahon, [via]Corpora, and Don Cesario proudly present :

A Grand Guignol Children’s Show*

(*not for children)

Come celebrate the French puppet Guignol’s 200th Birthday
as the Grand Guignolers de Paris offer us

Hansel & Gretel:
A Horror Play
Little Red Riding Hood
A Horror Play
The Ugly Duckling: A melodrama Ballet

and

Rapunzel:
an Erotic Thriller
(performed by French finger puppets)

Due to violence, this show is not recommended for children.

Expect Dance, Absinthe, Puppets, Birthday Cake, Masks, and GORE!!!

WHERE: Art/Works Theatre
6569 Santa Monica Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90038.

DATES: Dec. 5 - Jan. 10. Fri/Saturdays at 8:30 (except 12/26), with two Thur. also at 8:30 (12/18 & 1/8) and two Pay What You Can Sun. (12/28 & 1/4) at 7pm.

Pre-Show Absinthe Demo
about 1/2 hour early *
grown up drinks & absinthe * Suggested Dress: Cocktail,
Birthday Party and/or 1920s-30s.

TICKETS: $20-30. Buy tickets for A Grand Guignol Children's Show* (*not for children) 1-800-838-3006

written and directed by Debbie McMahon
www.grandguignolers.com for more info

Master Worksessions in commedia dell'Arte

2008-06-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

[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
Please make checks payable to:

John Achorn
653 Rose Avenue
Venice CA 90291

Contact: 310-396-3314 or jachorn@yahoo.com

[via]Corpora: 6575 Santa Monica Boulevard Hollywood, CA 90038

The Song of the Goat comes to Los Angeles

2008-06-01T10:30:00.001-07:00

The Song of the Goat (Teatr Piesn Kozla) begins its first 5 day workshop in LA Monday!

Artel Members Bryan Brown and Valerie McCann as well as [via]Corpora participant Garth Whitten will be joining 7 others for the first American extended workshop held by Grzegorz Bral and co-produced by Ghost Road Company with support from [via]Corpora.

Another workshop is planned for November and we hope this is only the beginning of Teatr Piesn Kozla's work in Los Angeles.

Updates and thoughts on the practice are planned for the What Arises? blogsite later in the week.

For more information:

Justyna Warecka
Assistant to the Director
Wroclaw / Los Angeles
Teatr Piesn Kozla / Song of the Goat Theater
jwarecka@piesnkozla.pl
justynawarecka@yahoo.com

www.piesnkozla.pl

[via]Corpora Producing NEWS: Stephen Wangh Teacher's Summit

2008-05-26T21:30:00.000-07:00

[via]Corpora is proud to announce that we have successfully helped Stephen Wangh (author of An Acrobat of the Heart) to gather a Teacher's Practicum at NACL in the Catskills July 5 -12, 2008. Bryan Brown will be attending the Practicum and will be reporting back on it later in the summer at the newly registered [via]Corpora What Arises? thoughts from the practice blog : whatarises.blogspot.com

International Clown Sensation brings LA his unique CLOWN LAB!

2008-05-26T21:27:00.000-07:00

[via]Corpora is incredibly excited to host Jef Johnson (principal clown in the international touring company of Slava's Snowshow) for a weekend intensive of his

CLOWN LAB

June 21 and 22
1pm - 5pm
Art|Works Theatre
6569 Santa Monica Blvd.
Hollywood 90038

$150
Early Bird Special: $120 (pay before June 8)

register: see payment options in the upper right hand corner of this page

questions or more info:
Contact Bryan@viacorpora.com

The way to have and to be a sharp, powerful instrument is to be
minutely sensitive, and use that sensitivity to see the epiphanies that
have been sitting around you all along.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Come and experience what the Clown Lab is about.
Unlock your creative impulse.

* Do you remember who you are?

* Forget what you think you know.

* Get back in tune with your heart.

* Re-discover the magic in the minute,
the simplistic, the absurd.

* Feel the joy of being stupid.

The feeling I have experienced is that you can't escape that
'just right' place. It becomes a sacred space, if you allow it.
Jef Johnson and his teachings brilliantly place the person in
just the right space for this to occur.
Julie Josephson, trombone artist

Suddenly there I was, standing blindfolded,
trying to count in two directions while walking
sideways and I had the most beautiful feeling
of stupidity...When the control was gone I felt
the greatest potential--the greatest freedom--
as if the control was actually big steel chains
holding me down.
Thomas McGinn, Actor/Director

Jef Johnson is a principal clown in the international touring company of Slava's Snowshow. As Clown, he has also toured with Cirque du Soleil. Jef has more than 20 years of experience working in a wide range of physical styles.His approach is rooted in subjective expression, physical expression of condition through impulse and reflex. He has studied corporeal expression from disciples of Grotowski, Suzuki, Marceau, Decroux, Lecoq, Meyerhold, M. Chekhov, Vakhtangov.

He has been commissioned for Master Classes, Lectures and Workshops in Acting, Theory, Character, Mask, Creative Play, Improvisation, and Clown for numerous theatre companies and universities, including Cirque du Soleil, New York Clown Theatre Festival, Camp Broadway, Slava's Snowshow, University of Houston, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, University of Minnesota, Empire State College and NYU.

For more on Jef and his Clown Lab: www.nyclown.com

Los Angeles Contact Bryan@viacorpora.com

6 week Acting Intensive

2008-05-03T09:35:00.000-07:00

YOU ARE YOU
Laboratory Theater Work for the foundations of the actor’s practice and the devising of performance
Based on Eastern European and Russian Traditions

Monday Evenings
May 19 – June 23
7 - 10pm
$240
limited scholarships available

This Workshop will approach the necessities of creating a foundational actor's practice and its application to monolog and scene work through the systematic isolation, coordination and development of the psychic, physical and vocal aspects of the performer’s body thus allowing deeper expression and revelation of the self in performance.

[via]Corpora Studio
6575 Santa Monica Blvd Hollywood, CA 90038
Contact: bryan@viacorpora.com
213.249.1690

Necessities:
Clothes to move in
Text (chosen by participant and instructor)

You may want:
An extra shirt
A long sleeve shirt/sweatshirt (during breaks)
A notebook and pen (time for hunkering)
Water/snack

BRYAN BROWN has studied physical theater extensively in New York City, Europe, and Los Angeles. He has recently been invited to South Korea as Artist-in-Residence at Hooyang Performing Arts Centre. Previously, his last reconnaissance was 6 weeks in Wroclaw, Poland intensely working with instructors gathered by the Grotowski Institute as well as a profound worksession with Song of the Goat (teatr Piesn Kozla). For almost a decade, Bryan has researched with various physical theater investigators including Stephen Wangh and Raina von Waldenburg, Shinichi Iova-Koga, Mary Overlie and other Viewpoints practitioners, the members of Odin Teatret, Commedia dell'Arte instructors, Contact Dance originators, as well as the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. The deepest application has been the process of creating, leading and learning with various experimental ensembles culminating in the work with Artel.

Actor's Practice Evening

2008-03-19T09:57:00.000-07:00

YOU ARE YOU
An intensive of Freedom Bound: foundational actor's practice

Monday March 24
7 - 10pm
$40

This Workshop will approach the necessities of creating a foundational actor's practice by combining work taught in longer weekend intensives and ongoing weekly worksessions in order to isolate, coordinate and develop the psychic, physical and vocal aspects of our instruments for deeper expression and revelation of the self in performance.

[via]Corpora Studio
6575 Santa Monica Blvd
Hollywood, CA 90038
Contact: bryan@viacorpora.com or 213.249.1690

Necessities:
Clothes to move in
Text

You might want:
A long sleeve shirt/sweatshirt (during breaks)
A notebook and pen (time for hunkering)
Water/snack

BRYAN BROWN has studied physical theater extensively in New York City, Europe, and Los Angeles. His latest reconnaissance was 6 weeks in Wroclaw, Poland intensely working with instructors gathered by the Grotowski Institute as well as a profound worksession with Song of Goat (teatr Piesn Kozla). For almost a decade, Bryan has researched with various physical theater investigators including Stephen Wangh and Raina von Waldenburg, Shinichi Iova-Koga, Mary Overlie and other Viewpoints practitioners, the members of Odin Teatret, Commedia dell'Arte instructors, Contact Dance originators, as well as the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. The deepest application has been the process of creating, leading and learning with various experimental ensembles culminating in the work with Artel.

Developing your Actor's Practice

2008-03-07T08:23:00.000-08:00

The Will is in your Actions
Laboratory Theater Work for the foundations of performance training
Based on Eastern European and Russian Traditions

March 22 and 23
11am
4 - 6 hours depending on will of participants that day.

Both days:
$150
$100 (students)
One day:
$90
$60 (students)
Limited scholarships available

[via]Corpora Studio
6575 Santa Monica Blvd
Hollywood, CA 90038
Contact: bryan@viacorpora.com or 213.249.1690

Workshop Description:

Aim -

This workshop aims to provide applicable experiential knowledge for the actor's practice, the incentive to develop the will to practice, and the connection between the will, body and voice that is the heart of the actor's craft through the coordination of intense physicality, rhythm, text and song work.

For those actors with an established practice, exposure to new approaches will deepen and challenge your practice and aim to strengthen your will through active extension of that will into the world.

Practicalities of workshop –

The design of the work is to meet each participant's edge. Through discovery of joy and ease within rigorous discipline as well as the continuous switching of the plugs in our brains (experiencing text as movement, song as text, movement as song, so on), a meeting of new physical, vocal, emotional and spiritual doors is approached. Encountering these doors we experience the opportunity to undomesticate ourselves by entering through them. Whether we choose to or not remains a matter of our will, but repeated experiences begin opening ourselves to deep listening and recognition of our will as both the carrier and dependant of the wills of others, thereby allowing mutuality and musicality to ignite our will towards greater expression, connectivity and presence.

What we hope Participants walk away with –

A desire to never give up on themselves
A new experience of their will and its relation to body, voice and performance
A connection of text with movement/action
The will as the vehicle for expression through Text, song or movement
A sense that one's practice or a new depth in that practice has begun
Potential future collaborators
Exercises for Ensemble Regimen

Necessities:
Clothes to move in
Text (something you are emotionally connected to. Poems or classical text recommended.)

You might want:
A long sleeve shirt/sweatshirt (during breaks)
A few shirts (you will be sweating a lot)
A notebook and pen (time for hunkering)
Water/snack

BRYAN BROWN has studied physical theater extensively in New York City, Europe, and Los Angeles. His latest reconnaissance was 6 weeks in Wroclaw, Poland intensely working with instructors gathered by the Grotowski Institute as well as a profound worksession with Song of Goat (teatr Piesn Kozla). For almost a decade, Bryan has researched with various physical theater investigators including Stephen Wangh and Raina von Waldenburg, Shinichi Iova-Koga, Mary Overlie and other Viewpoints practitioners, the members of Odin Teatret, Commedia dell'Arte instructors, Contact Dance originators, as well as the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. The deepest application has been the process of creating, leading and learning with various experimental ensembles culminating in the work with Artel.

Ongoing Weekly Classes

2008-02-28T14:18:00.000-08:00

FREEDOM BOUND:
Foundational Worksessions towards your own physical approach to the performance craft
with Bryan Brown

Now twice a week!

Mondays and Thursdays
mornings
$20 / limited scholarships available
limit of 10 students
private sessions also available
bryan@viacorpora.com or 213-249-1690

The Raft: from Practice to Performance

with Bryan Brown

This weekly session aims to deepen your craft as a performer, to strengthen your foundation while steadily building towards a solid product. To investigate and create the personal process of taking the internal, expansive experiences discovered in practice and organically allowing them to grow into a rich and nuanced performance.

This worksession is on need basis working with particular participants demands and schedules. Normally in the studio, occasionally we work outside, in parks, on trails, or at the beach. bryan@viacorpora.com or 213-249-1690.

AIKIDO
"The Way of Harmony"
A martial art dedicated to peaceful conflict-resolution
with Andrew Reichart Sensei
presented in association with Theatre Dojo

Thursdays
7pm-8:30pm
$20 per class

or 5 class block for $75
beginners always welcome
questions? call Andrew Reichart Sensei at 510.388.4483

What is a Theater Laboratory?

2008-02-27T07:51:00.000-08:00

Grotowski wanted his theater to be like the lab of Niels Bohr that his older brother Kazimierz once worked in, a place for continuous exploration.

History of a theater laboratory

Claims for laboratory status in the theatre really began in the early decades of the twentieth century. Before that, there were clearly pockets of actor training in the West which were both investigative and systematic — Ian Watson traces the genesis of actor training back to the early 1700s in Britain and in France to 1786, with the birth of the Royal Dramatic school in Paris. But it was the late nineteenth century’s love affair with science and technology which spawned a new scientific rhetoric in the theatre, a development begun by Delsarte’s proto-behaviorist study of actors’ emotions. Delsarte’s work may have been criticised for its mechanistic approach but it heralded a new interdisciplinary language for actor training, a language which drew on the common associations of the scientific method: rigour, objectivity, systematic interrogation.

The laboratory in Russia

This language was never more embedded than in the Russian tradition of actor training; in Stanislavsky’s system (and in the ‘sub-systems’ of Meyerhold, Michael Chekhov and Richard Boleslavsky). From his first experimental Studio in 1905, to his final project, the Opera-Dramatic Studio, Stanislavsky’s preference was to develop a research culture outside of his main institution, the MAT. These satellite activities allowed Stanislavski a creative space to work with young actors and were designed to share what he called "the results of ... research into stage techniques". Increasingly, the research agenda was uppermost in his thoughts, and that agenda was couched in scientific terms.

The Opera-Dramatic Studio, Stanislavski's final project was to be the laboratory he called for in his essay, October and the Revolution ... He made it quite clear to the young actors and directors he gathered around him that there could be no question of gearing their work to performance; it would be done for its own sake, as research.

In Meyerhold's work, the appropriation of scientific terminology was both explicit and calculated. Indeed, of all Stanislavski’s pupils, his is the most emphatic use of an interdisciplinary language, fusing theatrical 'laws' with scientific laws — Huntley Carter called Meyerhold's actor training system, biomechanics, "the science of motion in acting". Meyerhold was founder of GITIS, the State Institute for Theatrical Art, an umbrella organisation which was responsible for the training of some of the key practitioners of the twentieth century, including Grotowski.

From Meyerhold's perspective, GITIS grew out of his attempts to realise an "exemplary model" of revolutionary theatre. Meyerhold's vision was of a mutually supportive, interactive organisation incorporating a stage, a workshop and a training school in which: "the discoveries in the workshop would affect the training in the school as well as what was exposed on the stage" in a three-fold symbiosis.

Everyone learned — students and teachers alike. It was a laboratory for working through the foundations of a new aesthetic.

GITIS was to be: A place unique in the planet, where the science of theatre is studied and drama is built. Exactly: 'science' and not 'art' — 'built' and not 'created.' Clearly for Meyerhold, the laboratory walls extended much further than the building in which he was working — the Zon theatre — for the experimental attitude he was adopting at a local level was reflected on a much grander scale — the huge social experiment of the October revolution itself. Central to this commitment to science was the emphasis on outcomes — the impact science had on the people. Such an emphasis may in part explain the popularity of the machine as a ‘symbol of the new age of mechanical and scientific industrialism’, as Carter puts it. The machine stood for productivity, for the benefits technology can bring a new society. Thus, the work of the laboratory was not seen in isolation. The laboratories of the Russian revolution fed the technological advancement of the society, the electrification of the country, for example. From a theatrical perspective, Meyerhold's work at GITIS established the same principle. The experimental findings in his workshop informed the presentations on the stage — the 'product' of a theatre industry.

The Threefold Model

Firstly, Meyerhold’s ‘exemplary model’, devised in the early 1920s, to be contrasted with Stanislavsky’s secluded investigations in the Opera Dramatic studio which set the stage for later instances of process-dominated practice such as Grotowski’s and Anatoly Vasiliev’s. With such work, there is no imperative to disseminate the research findings beyond the walls of the laboratory, no measurable outcome.

Secondly, Meyerhold’s model sees research as part of a wider picture. His laboratory shared with some of us that old fashioned notion that teaching is an integral part of research. It then extended that idea to incorporate research and teaching into the making of an original creative act — a performance.

Thirdly, is the related issue of outcomes. It is interesting to note that some ninety years ago in the new Soviet Union the research agenda was still pre-occupied with outcomes! The context is clearly a mechanistic one, related, as I have said, to the necessity to produce. But for Meyerhold it nevertheless promoted a dynamic symbiosis of original workshop research, pedagogy and performance.

The engine room of this triangular research model was the experimental workshop, described by Maria Valenti in recognisably research-oriented terms:

The students were not required to present preconceived conclusions, but were expected to find new paths, along with Meyerhold and his colleagues, to create new concepts of theatre.

What I believe is striking about this model is that, as a self-sustaining form, all areas of this symbiotic triangle feed into Meyerhold’s agenda of innovation, not because they are in themselves research but because the environment in which the activity is taking place, the wider picture, is essentially research-centered. And by that I mean:

· it stimulates originality and creativity
· it is underpinned by a set of theoretical principles
· it is designed to test the validity of those theoretical principles and to feed those findings back into the loop
· it utilises an organic system of dissemination.

In this holistic framework it is not necessarily the ‘instance of practice’ which is under scrutiny but the surrounding research environment. Research, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

The above excerpt is from a speech given by Jonathan Pitches, author of Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting
The opening line is from The Grotowski Sourcebook, eds. Schechner and Wolford

Master Worksessions with Russia's "zasluzhenniy deyatel" of Folk song and dance

2008-02-25T17:34:00.000-08:00

Karagod: Discover and Explore Your Folk Voice
(A joyous voice-movement workshop in the ancient Russian tradition of village songs and games)

Karagod – a festive ritual of song, dance and games

March 15 and March 16, 2008
Saturday and Sunday
1 - 5 PM
viaCorpora Studio
6575 Santa Monica Boulevard
Hollywood, CA 90038
Cost: $80.00 per day, or $150.00 for both, limited scholarships are available.
Reservation: $50.00 non-refundable deposit to hold your space (payable by check or through PayPal / Credit Card at www.viacorpora.eventbrite.com )
Additional Information: bryan@viacorpora.com or 323-871-8382

ViaCorpora presents a weekend of vocal workshops in Russian folk singing with Evgeniya Osipovna Zasimova suitable for singers/musicians, actors, directors and dancers interested in Russian/Slavic culture or the application of song work to theatrical performance.

Day One – Level 1 (Open to All)
Discover your Folk Voice – exercises in open throat voice technique (“white voice”)
Experience the joy of creating harmonies
Learn basic Old Russian village songs, their meaning, cultural/historical context, and significance in rituals
Learn the movements that accompany these songs and why they help you discover the depth and color of your voice

Day Two – Level 2 (Open to participants of level 1 and advanced folk singers)
Learn specific techniques to expand and strengthen your folk voice
Practice the creation of Russian harmonies and dissonances, rhythms, ornamentations, and resonant sounds
Learn intricate Old Russian village songs, their meaning, cultural/historical context, and significance in rituals
Learn the movements that accompany these songs and why they help you discover the depth and color of your voice

You do not need to be able to speak/read Russian or read music to participate in either day.

Evgenia Osipovna Zasimova, a professor of solo folk singing and dance at the Moscow State University of Arts and Culture, is considered a "zasluzhenniy deyatel" or national treasure in Russia. She has been leading expeditions to Russian villages to learn ancient and traditional songs, dances and games for over twenty-five years. Her ensemble, Karagod, performs at some of the most prestigious concert halls in Russia and abroad as well as provides music and musicology for numerous film and theater productions.

A Workshop to inspire Workshops!

2008-02-24T20:49:00.000-08:00

On Feb 17th Bryan and Olya held a free workshop for 8 students (primarily from CalArts) in order to share our work with younger performers as well as to expand the potential and purpose of Artel's teaching opportunities.

With no set timeline or criteria, the workshop was an exercise in meeting. How do artists interested in something verbalized as similar meet to work with minimal discussion, meet by letting their bodies speak, meet by entering the unknown?

For three hours we traversed a series of exercises aiming at the expansion of awareness, of listening, of glowing. We all experienced the edges of ourselves and shared in the support of that experience as an ensemble of players should. As many of Bryan's recent worksessions have, this workshop ended in a jam of sorts with the intent of pursuing the expression of the freedom found in moments throughout the day's work.

As we discussed the practicalities of the work at the end, Olya asked how many hours a day the participants all worked together (as she was not involved in the setting up of the workshop and therefore believed they were all in the same level at CalArts). But in fact, two of the participants had never met any of the people in the room before!

Everyone expressed a desire to continue the work on a regular basis and this, together with Bryan's ongoing weekly sessions, have led us to realize how much our approach is needed in the Los Angeles community, the need for a transmission of a new approach to the creation of a strong practice a performer can call their own craft, one which allows them to meet and work with anyone at anytime, if even they just met that day.

So, at the least, monthly workshops will be forthcoming. Please email bryan@viacopora.com , call 213.249.1690, or check this blog regularly for more information.

Center for Performance Research in crisis!

2008-02-24T19:14:00.000-08:00

CPR, the Center for Performance Research in Wales, is facing the struggle inherent in all theater practitioners lives, the sand we build our castles on is perilously close to the ocean. The Center for Performance Research in Wales, a deeply important enclave of theatrical research is in jeopardy of losing its funding! CPR is a model for Artel's [via]Corpora. For over ten years they have been creating international networks, offering some of the foremost worksessions in physical and voice work in theater today, publishing important journals and books (their next two years are almost solely committed to Polish theater and Grotowski). Wales has made itself stand out and seem like a beacon of light to artists who are underappreciated and undervalued in their own countries and now the Welsh government is disregarding this international "status" that it was beginning to develop and going the way of all conservative governments in an economically unfriendly time. In our letter of support we quoted this from Stanislavsky which seems mightily apropos:

The theatre is not a luxury in the life of the people, but part of its bread and butter. It is not something one can quite well do without, but something incontestably necessary for a great people....You can't postpone the art of the thetare for a while, padlock its workshop, and suspend its animation for a time. Art cannot go to sleep and then, when it suits us, wake up again. It can only go to sleep for ever, by dying. Suspend it, and it will perish...returning to life only centuries later, if then. The death of art would be a national catastrophe.

You can view letters of support from around the world here: centreforperformanceresearch.blogspot.com
For direct information: www.thecpr.org.uk/
To view/sign the petition please visit: http://www.gopetition.com/online/17052.html

Conscious Birth Movement workshop and screening

2008-02-23T19:09:00.000-08:00

Elena Tonetti-Vladimirova, one of the leaders in the Conscious Birth Movement in Russia and the US, is coming to Los Angeles April 5 and 6 for workshops on Limbic Imprint Re-Coding.

Pilates Sports Center, Encino 11 am - 6pm Sat & Sun $400 single/$750 couple for more info/register: Crystal@BirthintoBeing.com (530)566.0199

Limbic Imprint re-coding invokes our emotional and physical memory of Bliss, unlocking the mysteries of our behaviors and realigning our actions with our emotions and desires. You too can enjoy the delicious, juicy experience of comfortably owning a body, being fully engaged in life, and loving it!

www.birthintobeing.com

A screening of Elena's powerfully informative film Birth As We Know It will be taking place at our Art|Works Theater Thursday March 13th. 7pm. $10 - 15 donation.

Now in 44 countries, this stunningly beautiful film is receiving global recognition as the most profound and comprehensive guide to Conscious Birth. Impactful, inspiring and informative, the film is a journey into the miracle of Life and the nature of birth.

See a trailer at www.BirthAsWeKnowIt.com

The latest on Alexander Technique at [via]Corpora

2008-02-04T09:37:00.000-08:00

Sharon Jakubecy is on a minor hiatus. Please read posts below for more info on the benefits of Alexander Technique or visit Sharon's Alexander Technique LA website at our extensions link to the right. Sharon is an excellent teacher who takes the time and care to help performers and non-performers alike to find more ease and alignment in their body and mind. We highly recommend her workshops.

If you have taken Sharon's workshop and want to take more of them or you haven't gotten the chance to yet, but want to, please contact Bryan at bryan@viacorpora.com to help hasten Sharon's time away from the studio.
Thank you

Mask and Clown Worksession

2008-01-17T17:37:00.000-08:00

Mask and Clown Performance Workshop

with Alyssa Ravenwood

6577 Santa Monica Blvd. 90038

Studio B

Free Introductory Workshop:

Monday, January 21, 7 - 10 pm

Limited Enrollment - must register in advance

Ongoing Mask and Clown Performance Workshop

Monday nights, 7 - 10pm

Session 1: January 28 - February 18

$120

Limited Enrollment - must register in advance

An introduction to mask and clown performance techniques. Learn to express yourself with greater spontaneity and physical dexterity.

Appropriate for people with no physical theatre performance background and for experienced performers looking to practice and expand their skills.

About Alyssa Ravenwood:

An award winning physical theatre director, performer and mask designer. Artistic Director of the new Los Angeles mask troupe, Ravenwood Performance Group. A graduate of the Dell'Arte School of Physical Theatre. She also studied Clowning with Sue Morrison at the Canadian Clown Institute and Commedia with Ole Brekke of the Denmark Commedia School.

For more information visit www.alyssaravenwood.com

Registration:

www.a;yssaravenwood.com/workshop

ph: 323.227.8028

email: ravenwoodmasks@yahoo.com

credit card payments accepted through PayPal

clown, mask and Kelman work

2008-01-04T08:30:00.000-08:00

[via]Corpora is pleased to announce that we are in talks with Alyssa Ravenwood, graduate of Dell'Arte and phenomenal maskmaker, to begin teaching a series of developmental classes in clown and mask work as well as an ongoing Kelman-based class.

[Kelmanworks, developed by the late Scott Kelman, is a mindfulness and body-based approach to the creative process. This unique and innovative process is open to anyone interested in accessing more creativity into their art, work and lives and has benefited thousands over the last 45 years. For more information, www.kelmangroup.com ]

The clown and mask developmental series is looking to begin the week of January 21st.

Check back here for updates or email bryan@viacorpora.com for more information.

For information on Alyssa please see her gorgeous websites:
Alyssa Ravenwood
Masks: www.ravenwoodmasks.com
Film and Theater: www.alyssaravenwood.com

JAN 12 WORKSHOP

2007-12-30T11:37:00.000-08:00

Destress and Decompress
Achieve Peak Performance with the Alexander
Technique

Relieve compression of your spine, counter gravity, and find yourself
feeling expansive, light and energetic. By utilizing basic principles
from the Alexander Technique, you will realign your body (and mind) in
order to release tension and improve freedom of movement. You will
learn simple techniques to move with grace, poise and confidence.
DESTRESS & DECOMPRESS with the Alexander Technique.

Saturday January 12th, 1:00pm - 3:00pm
at [via] Corpora 6575 Santa Monica Blvd.
(north side of street between Hudson and Seward)

Cost $20
Sign up today, Spaces are limited Call (310) 383-1796

Sharon Jakubecy is an AmSAT certified Alexander Technique teacher.

Holiday nights of Physical Laughter and Terror!

2007-11-07T08:28:00.000-08:00

[via]Corpora is proud to Present

the First Los Angeles Physical Theatre Arts Festival
www.laptaf.com
a double bill of 3 of our favorite Los Angeles Physical Artists

Nov. 23 - Dec. 23
thur - sun
ArtWorks Theatre
6569 Santa Monica Blvd.
(NW Corner of Hudson)
90038

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOU SUPPORT! The festival was a strong step towards building a committed physical theater community (artists and audience) in Hollywood. The shows were an excellent sample of the breadth and depth of physical theater in America and we cannot thank the artists enough for their work, generosity, and feedback. Please support them by visiting their websites:
The Grand Guigonlers
Ten West
The Mitchell Evans Mime Project

destress and decompress

2007-10-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

"DESTRESS & DECOMPRESS with the Alexander Technique"
Taught by Sharon Jakubecy

Are you stressed out? Feeling run down? Is your neck aching? Are your shoulders tense? Does your back hurt? This is a hectic time of year. Take some time to DESTRESS & DECOMPRESS with the Alexander Technique. If you want to relieve tension, rigidity, strain, and fatigue, this workshop is for you! You will learn simple techniques to move with grace, poise, and confidence. By utilizing basic principles from the Alexander Technique, you will realign your body (and mind) in order to release tension and improve freedom of movement. You'll relieve compression of your spine, counter gravity, and find yourself feeling expansive, light, and energetic. Enjoy this time of year without stress and tension.

DECEMBER 18th, 1PM - 3PM at [via] Corpora
6575 Santa Monica Blvd. between Seward and Hudson

Cost $20 Call 310 383 1796 to register. Spaces are limited. Sign up now! Sharon Jakubecy is an AmSAT certified Alexander Technique teacher. www.AlexanderTechniqueLA.com

Workshops in Alexander Techinque!

2007-10-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

The October Workshop was exquisite and an excellent start to the weekend!
Look for Holiday de-stress Workshops coming next month!
Ongoing Group Workshops will be coming in the new year.
If you are interested in participating in future workshops please contact Sharon Jakubecy at info@AlexanderTechiniqueLa.com or bryan@viacorpora.com

The Alexander Technique
– Achieve Peak Performance in Your Body

Relieve Pain
Prevent Injury
Find Centeredness
Minimize Tension
Improve Flexibility
Access Energy

If you want to relieve tension, rigidity, strain and fatigue, this workshop is for you! You will learn simple techniques to move with grace, poise and confidence. By utilizing basic principles from the Alexander Technique, you will realign your body (and mind) in order to release tension and improve freedom of movement. You’ll relieve compression of your spine, counter gravity and find yourself feeling expansive, light, and energetic.

October 27, 10am – 12noon
Cost $20
Call 310-383-1796 to register.
Spaces are limited. Sign up now!

Sharon Jakubecy is an AmSAT certified Alexander Technique teacher.
www.AlexanderTechniqueLA.com
info@AlexanderTechniqueLA.com

AIKIDO, "The Way of Harmony"

2007-05-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

AIKIDO
"The Way of Harmony"
A martial art dedicated to peaceful conflict-resolution
with Andrew Reichart Sensei
Presented by [via]CORPORA, Aikido Shusekai & Theatre Dojo.

Thursdays, 7pm-8:30pm
$20 per class
or 5 class block for $75
beginners always welcome

Benefits of Aikido Shusekai training include:
• Increased calm, confidence, awareness, and focus
• Improved stamina, posture, flexibility, and coordination
• Increased poise and resourcefulness in the face of crisis and conflict
• A bearing and attitude that helps to defuse potential conflicts before they start
• Healing of old fears and traumas related to conflict and aggression
• Meeting good people
• Fun!

questions?
call Andrew Reichart Sensei at 510.388.4483

ABOUT Aikido Shusekai:

Andrew Reichart Sensei of Theatre Dojo, founding member of Aikido Shusekai of Berkeley, Calif., is now teaching in Los Angeles. Aikido is a cutting-edge martial art that provides great exercise and increased self-confidence, as well as practical self-defense.

Aikido literally means "the way of harmony" or "the way of peace," and Aikido Shusekai means "Aikido for an excellent world."

Aikido is a peaceful martial art. It provides self-defense, but not by bashing your opponent until they stop moving. Instead, you learn to harmonize with an attacker's movements, enabling you to use their momentum against them with minimum effort on your part.

After all, an attacker isn't much of a threat if you're stronger than them. If you're bigger, you can just shove them aside and shrug. But what if someone is far mightier than you? Learning how to punch and kick is only going to get you so far. And what if there are two of them? Or three...? (With Aikido, you just throw them into each other. It's not only easy, it's hilarious.)

Perhaps most importantly, Aikido provides benefits that are
applicable throughout everyday life. Really, how much of our time do we spend in hand-to-hand combat? Hopefully none. So why practice a martial art at all? To improve our everyday lives, that's why.

The Raft

2007-03-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

The RAFT: from practice to performance
with Bryan Brown

How do you continue to deepen your craft as a performer, to strengthen your foundation while steadily building towards a solid product?

How do you take the internal, expansive experiences discovered in practice and organically allow them to grow into a rich and nuanced performance?

This weekly session aims to create a space for intensifying one's developmental practice. By seeking again the primal experience of craft with an outward eye that allows further layers of the craft to take shape, we discover a circular process through which the organic molding of performance material begins its realization.

While the focus of the session is towards the development of originally devised live performance material, participants are encouraged to bring the material that speaks directly to them at the moment. Some possible suggestions are songs, poems, histories, scene studies, monologues, audition and film material. The opportunity is also here for filming of the "developmental performance" material, in other words, if you are interested in how physical approaches to performance translate to better film/TV acting, we have the equipment to explore with camera work.

This worksession is on need basis working with particular participants demands and schedules. Normally we work in the studio but occasionally we work outside, in parks, on trails, or at the beach. If you are interested please contact Bryan for more info.
bryan@viacorpora.com, or call 213-249-1690.

BRYAN BROWN has studied physical theater extensively in New York City, Europe, and Los Angeles. His latest reconnaissance was 6 weeks in Wroclaw, Poland working with instructors gathered by the Grotowski Institute as well as a profound worksession with Song of Goat (teatr Piesn Kozla). For almost a decade, Bryan has researched with various physical theater investigators including Stephen Wangh and Raina von Waldenburg, Shinichi Iova-Koga, Mary Overlie and other Viewpoints practitioners, the members of Odin Teatret, Commedia dell'Arte instructors, Contact Dance originators, as well as the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. The deepest application has been the process of creating, leading and learning with various experimental ensembles, most importantly with ARTEL.

Freedom Bound : Foundational Worksession

2007-03-16T10:50:00.000-07:00

What is Presence?

Do you look at children and wonder where that freedom went?

Do you sometimes forget to breathe?

Do you sense a fuller response wanting expression onstage but your body doesn’t seem to quite know what to do?

Is your voice connected to your body?

Are your thoughts connected to both?

Perhaps a more physical based approach to the craft of performance would be the necessary foundation for you to collect, hone and release your experiences, perceptions and imagination into the artistic dynamo you know is percolating inside you.

With clear and practical application of the later investigations of Stanislavsky’s Method of Physical Actions alongside the current adaptations of Jerzy Grotowski’s research, these foundational worksessions offer actors, dancers and performing artists to investigate the technique of coordinating breath, body and voice with the freedom of being alive in the moment of performance.

“Spontaneity and discipline, far from weakening each other, mutually reinforce themselves…to become the real source of acting that glows. This lesson was neither understood by Stanislavsky, who let natural impulses dominate, nor by Brecht, who gave too much emphasis to the construction of a role.” – Grotowski

FREEDOM BOUND:

foundational worksessions towards your own physical approach to the performance craft

contact for exact times
[via]Corpora
6575 Santa Monica Blvd.

$20

bryan@viacorpora.com, or call 213-249-1690.

BRYAN BROWN has studied physical theater extensively in New York City, Europe, and Los Angeles. His latest reconnaissance was 6 weeks in Wroclaw, Poland intensely working with instructors gathered by the Grotowski Institute as well as a profound worksession with Song of Goat (teatr Piesn Kozla). For almost a decade, Bryan has researched with various physical theater investigators including Stephen Wangh and Raina von Waldenburg, Shinichi Iova-Koga, Mary Overlie and other Viewpoints practitioners, the members of Odin Teatret, Commedia dell'Arte instructors, Contact Dance originators, as well as the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. The deepest application has been the process of creating, leading and learning with various experimental ensembles.

ABOUT [via]Corpora

2007-03-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

[via]Corpora, an extension of not-for-profit Los Angeles based theater collective ARTEL, is a center designed for performers and non-performers alike who desire to deepen their experience of the world and their expressive abilities. Through classes and workshops participants explore individually as well as collectively the connections between breath, rhythm, alignment, coordination, voice, intellect, emotion and spirit. Our goal is to build a community of participants based on Joy and Play in which all can discover and share their insights into body-mind perception and expression.

Performance Research and Development Center, is the heart of [via]Corpora. While extending our research into non-performance related applications, the bulk of worksessions offered at the center are designed to provide training to the Los Angeles community of actors and performers based on physical approaches to the craft.

Our long-term goal is to create a format for a deeper investigation, a series of ongoing weekly workshops, based on the participants' needs and interests. Possibilities include: Advanced Physical Explorations, Application of Physical Approaches to Scenes or Monologues, From the Feet Up: approaches to character, BodyVoices, Toning and Tuning, Presence: Generating Gravitas, Composition to Performance, etc. If you are unable to attend our worksessions but wish to participate in the future, please contact us at 213-249-1690.

viaCORPORA

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Freedom Bound : Foundational Worksession

ABOUT [via]Corpora

DANCE ON LAND
DANCE WITHOUT SIGHT