Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Living Art Workshop Proposal 2017


Living Art workshop – with Claire Elizabeth Barratt





This workshop is for anybody who has a body 
– to investigate the body as a medium for art.
Dancers, actors, artists, Yoga and bodywork practitioners 
and anybody who just wants to move!

As a performing artist, I have been developing a teaching
method that allows the individual to explore Self as a raw
material with which to create.
More organic than a dance technique, Living Art investigates fundamental motions of the body and combines them with imagery in a creative response.
It’s a fun and immersive way to move your body and engage your imagination!


As an MFA candidate I spent two intensive years under the guidance of performance art legend Linda Montano and Dr. Laura Gonzales in the process of honing my performance method into a pedagogy for performance art. I call this method Living Art.
As an on-going practice it includes four main categories of study:
Body Tuning, Creative Response, Performance Art History and the creation of new Original Work.

I would like to offer an introductory workshop to Living Art that allows participants to explore the fundamental concept of the practice – that of Self-as-medium. Just as a sculptor must understand the medium of clay or wood or metal – for example, the performer must understand the medium of the body and psyche as materials for the creation of art.


For information about the Living Art method, please visit the following links:
  
Pedagogy – method development


Workshop Reports:

MFA Final – Workshop at Weaverville Yoga studio - Weaverville NC

images – Weaverville Yoga

Workshop with Circle Modern Dance company - Knoxville TN

Community workshop and performance - Salisbury MD


Comments:

*
This was a very accessible, well structured workshop.  The exercises were very well sequenced and it was flexible enough to appeal to and be suitable for all levels.  Claire did a very good job of creating an atmosphere of open, safe space which made me feel comfortable in the context.

*
I enjoyed the workshop immensely.  I found it engaging, intriguing, meditative, and immersive. 

*
I found the workshop very informative and very stress-less.  As a 64-year-old non-limber person, I wasn't sure if I would be able to do everything I was asked to do, but the way you conducted it put me at ease - basically, just do what I was comfortable with within the parameters of the exercises.

*
Claire's workshop changed my whole perspective on movement and bodily control, and through the Web (physical not virtual web), my entire life. I received such a sensation of renewal and freedom. The more control I gained over my muscles, particularly through my breathing, the freer I felt. The workshop opened my eyes even wider to the power of even, deep, and intentional breathing. If you completely relax, you end up with more energy, as if the more energy you release the more you receive. As if you're breathing in divine source energy. I believe with a clear and focused mind you are. She taught me how to more efficiently practice moving mediation.

*
It allows you to experience on a more literal level that you are part of a bigger picture. All parts equally important and dependent on one another. Claire shows you how to observe that you naturally are already a work of art.

*
I felt so much of myself moving and opening up.  New forms developed, I felt myself connecting the vision of what I saw my body doing connecting with the movement.
It was a powerful and transformative workshop for my dancing practice.

*
The whole experience was relaxing, and I found myself in a very serene state the next day. Unfortunately, that serenity left me the day after that. The workshop taught me to feel in touch with every change that was happening in my body while doing the movements.
There is certainly something poetic about this approach.

*
This work seemed similar to other somatic practices that I have experienced- particularly Body-Mind Centering and contact improvisation.  A difference is that I don't recall anyone organizing their process into semi-distinct segments the way you have with the raw materials. I like the approach because it defines and codifies practices that can be very nebulous, but still leaves room for the raw materials to be explored many different ways through many different lenses.
This method seems like a great resource both for getting started and getting un-stuck in a creative practice



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