When you are feeling low after celebrating St. Patrick’s Day a bit too much, cheer up! March 18 means the 2009 Magnetic North Theatre Festival passes will be on sale and the festival will have officially launched. Visit our website on March 18 at noon to find out the full festival line-up and to download your pass order form so you can take advantage of the fantastic early bird savings.

The Magnetic North Theatre Festival and The Department of Theatre of the University of Ottawa present

BodySchool
Contemporary Theatre Creation Intensive
Ottawa, April 20-25, 2009

‘Rigorous, liberating and very exciting… a powerful experience that is influencing the development of my creative process today’
Brian Webb, Choreographer, Dancer and Canada Dance Festival Artistic Director

1. Description

BodySchool is an opportunity for professional and pre-professional actors and theatre makers to connect with craft and creativity in a direct physical way. To introduce the craft of creating original theatre in an embodied manner this year’s BodySchool is divided into two units: The Dancing Word followed by Patterns in the Theatre. These two courses will address the actor’s work on their own body and voice, the physical, spatial and sonic relationships between performers and the coordination of the ensemble as a whole.

The Dancing Word: Martial Movement and Voice for Theatrical Devisers, led by Daniel Mroz, presents a synthesis of the approach developed by European company Odin Teatret with work on posture, movement, breath, voice and partnering derived from the traditional Chinese martial arts. This part of the workshop will lead participants along a continuum ranging from performer preparation and training to the composition of original theatre. Participants will come away with concrete approaches to solo and partner training for the body and voice and with a short fragment of original, physical theatre.

Kaleidography: Patterns in the Theatre, led by Jillian Keiley deals with chorus and ensemble-based work, utilizing a musical scores as a meter system to which all other stage action and text is synchronized. This phase of the workshop invites the participants to function as an ensemble to create a living, kaleidoscopic, musical stage where spectacle meets story. The work will entail ensemble building, story telling and listening/group awareness. Participants will work on scoring text and movement to create images out of bodies and music out of text and on laying truthful performances on top of procedural action and music.

The work presented will be highly physical, musical and challenging, but also playful and deeply rewarding. This intensive course can offer both a tonic and an opportunity for continuing education to practicing artists while also providing tools and inspiration to artists at the beginning of their careers.

BodySchool will take place in the studios of the University of Ottawa Department of Theatre, in downtown Ottawa.

2. Teachers

Daniel Mroz Daniel Mroz is the founding director of One Reed Theatre Ensemble, a Canadian company devoted to the creation of original contemporary theatre. He trained as a performer under Canadian director and acting teacher Richard Fowler and his company Primus Theatre from 1993 to 1997. Daniel is an assistant professor at the Department of Theatre of the University of Ottawa, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate theatre courses in English and French. He holds a PhD in the practice of interdisciplinary arts from the Doctorat en études et pratiques des arts of l'Université du Québec à Montréal. In June of 2007 he was nominated for the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre for Directing, Canada’s major theatre arts award. A long-time student of Chinese martial arts, Daniel has combined his martial movement training with the embodied approach to acting he learned from Primus Theatre. He calls this approach The Dancing Word, an integrated system of performer preparation and original performance composition. He has taught this work to professional actors and dancers in Montréal, Toronto, Ottawa, New York, Paris and Istanbul. His book on this approach, also entitled The Dancing Word, is forthcoming from Rodopi Press (New York/Amsterdam) in 2009. He is currently at work devising an interdisciplinary performance for the 2010 Canada Dance Festival as part of Les Ateliers du corps, his long-term artistic research/creation project supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Jillian Keiley Jillian is the Artistic Director of Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland, winner of the Canada Council's John Hirsch Prize, the NLAC Emerging Artist Award, Calgary’s 2006 Betty Mitchell Award for Directing and the 2004 Siminovitch Prize in Theatre. Selected Artistic Fraud productions include In Your Dreams Freud, Under Wraps: A Spoke Opera, Emile’s Dream, The Cheat , Burial Practices, Belly Up, Fear of Flight and The Chekhov Variations. In 2002/2003 Jillian directed Jack Five Oh for Sheila's Brush, and Tempting Providence for Theatre Newfoundland Labrador (TNL), both of which continue to tour to national and international venues and festivals. In 2006, Jillian staged the massive Ann and Seamus Children’s Opera for Shallaway Youth Chorus, which toured to points in central Canada, the US, Ireland and the Copenhagen Opera House. She directed Orpheus for Cork Opera Works in Ireland, Tilt with Teatro Sotteraneo in Florence, Italy, Sailor Boy with Ghost River and The Old Trout Puppet Workshop in Calgary, and Wind in the Willows for the Montgomery Theatre in PEI. University productions include Dr.Faustus with Queens University, Metamorphoses with York University, and Creon for the national City of Wine Project for Grenfell College. She co-created Fear of Flight for Artistic Fraud, which will tour to Toronto and Ottawa this year, and Alberta and BC next year. This spring Jillian will open AfterImage at the World Stage Festival at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. Jillian produced the Televised Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council Awards for The Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council and CBC for four years. Jillian is also the instructor for Chorus and Ensemble at The National Theatre School of Canada.

3. Who Can Apply:

Performers of all levels of experience are invited to apply. We will accept up to 16 participants.

4. How to Apply:

Please send a letter of intention and CV to Lindsay Tremblay: linds_tremb@hotmail.com

5. Application Deadline:

The deadline for submission is March 31, 2009. The fee for the intensive is $100.00. Applicants accepted for the program will be asked to send a $30.00 deposit to reserve their place.

6. Food and Lodging:

Light refreshment will be provided during the workshop, but participants are responsible for the cost of their own food and lodging. Students from outside the Ottawa area should inquire about the possibility of being billeted by a local artist or in the University of Ottawa residences.

7. Course Hours:

The workshop will run from 10:00am-5:00pm from April 20-25 inclusive. There will be a 1-hour lunch break and two shorter pauses throughout the day.