- Small group and individual mentoring with successful touring artists.
- Experience writing and devising solo performance pieces.
- Work with Guest Artists with a range of experience from theatre and performance poetry to mime, dance, and storytelling.
- Learn how to work with – and without – a Director.
- Learn real world practical information on marketing and touring a solo performance – and making a living as a performance artist.
- This workshop will culminate in a public performance of student work.
Each Guest Artist has extensive experience touring solo performance works. Students will receive information about the nuts and bolts, such as financing and publicity of touring a solo show, if they choose to proceed with the work they begin at Summer Arts.
As a thread through the course, students will explore their work in terms of social and cultural identity – how it connects them with not just their audience but broader social movements, histories of oppression, and the ability to speak out.
Undergraduate: DRAMA 426, 3 units
Graduate: DRAMA 626, 3 units
none
Anyone can apply – you don’t need to be a theatre major! Students should feel comfortable on stage and comfortable writing and performing their own work. Actors are welcome and so is anyone who has a desire to make performance.
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Submit an essay describing your interest in the course (one page maximum). Also, attach either a resume describing your performance work, or a description of skills and experiences that might lead you to compel an audience. Really, it’s okay to be creative here – performance art does not always equate "acting."
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Send the materials listed in Step One with your completed Registration Form to the
Summer Arts Registration Office by
May 17, 2010.
The deadline to apply for this course has passed.
Professor Kimberly Dark
kimberly@kimberlydark.com
619-708-8115
Heather Raffo
Heather Raffo’s award-winning show, 9 Parts of Desire, is a portrait of the extraordinary (and ordinary) lives of a whole cross-section of Iraqi women: a sexy painter, a radical Communist, doctors, exiles, wives, and lovers. This work delves into the many conflicting aspects of what it means to be a woman in the age-old war zone that is Iraq. It is an unusually timely meditation on the ancient, the modern and the feminine in a country overshadowed by war. The New Yorker says 9 Parts of Desire is “an example of how art can remake the world! A triumph! Thrilling!” The New York Times calls it “Powerful! Impassioned! Vivid! Memorable!”
Check out her website at: www.heatherraffo.com
Heather Raffo’s award-winning show, 9 Parts of Desire, is a portrait of the extraordinary (and ordinary) lives of a whole cross-section of Iraqi women: a sexy painter, a radical Communist, doctors, exiles, wives, and lovers. This work delves into the many conflicting aspects of what it means to be a woman in the age-old war zone that is Iraq. It is an unusually timely meditation on the ancient, the modern and the feminine in a country overshadowed by war. The New Yorker says 9 Parts of Desire is “an example of how art can remake the world! A triumph! Thrilling!” The New York Times calls it “Powerful! Impassioned! Vivid! Memorable!”
Check out her website at: www.heatherraffo.com
Bill Bowers
As an actor and a mime, Bill Bowers has performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. His solo shows include, It Goes Without Saying, 'Night Sweetheart, 'Night Buttercup, and Under a Montana Moon. The New York Times writes: “To watch Bill Bowers’ collection of silent stories, Under a Montana Moon, was to see the technical elements of a European style that probably still brings Marcel Marceau to mind, joined to the American West. Mime can be wonderful - the air between him and us was his palette.” The New York Times called It Goes Without Saying “Zestful and endearing. Full of life!” Mr. Bowers holds an MFA from Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts, and an Honorary PhD from Rocky Mountain College. He studied mime with the legendary Marcel Marceau.
Check out his website at: www.bill-bowers.com
As an actor and a mime, Bill Bowers has performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. His solo shows include, It Goes Without Saying, 'Night Sweetheart, 'Night Buttercup, and Under a Montana Moon. The New York Times writes: “To watch Bill Bowers’ collection of silent stories, Under a Montana Moon, was to see the technical elements of a European style that probably still brings Marcel Marceau to mind, joined to the American West. Mime can be wonderful - the air between him and us was his palette.” The New York Times called It Goes Without Saying “Zestful and endearing. Full of life!” Mr. Bowers holds an MFA from Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts, and an Honorary PhD from Rocky Mountain College. He studied mime with the legendary Marcel Marceau.
Check out his website at: www.bill-bowers.com
Violet Juno
Since 1990, Violet Juno has performed and exhibited her multi-media work at over 70 theatres and art spaces in 30 cities in the United States, Canada, and Scotland. Ms. Juno’s stage work is often multi-sensory incorporating the use of kinetic and fragrant props, soundscapes, flamboyant costumes, live video projection, and a unique form of cognitive mapping. She also creates sound performance work and site-specific performances in natural and urban settings. Ms. Juno has shared strategies for developing layered, authentic performance work at thirteen universities. She is excited to partner with you to fully flesh out the ideas underpinning your performance work using what is readily available to you: your body, your voice, and simple yet intriguing props.
Since 1990, Violet Juno has performed and exhibited her multi-media work at over 70 theatres and art spaces in 30 cities in the United States, Canada, and Scotland. Ms. Juno’s stage work is often multi-sensory incorporating the use of kinetic and fragrant props, soundscapes, flamboyant costumes, live video projection, and a unique form of cognitive mapping. She also creates sound performance work and site-specific performances in natural and urban settings. Ms. Juno has shared strategies for developing layered, authentic performance work at thirteen universities. She is excited to partner with you to fully flesh out the ideas underpinning your performance work using what is readily available to you: your body, your voice, and simple yet intriguing props.
Kristina Wong
Kristina Wong is a nationally presented solo performer, writer, actor, educator, culture jammer, and filmmaker. Described by the East Bay Express as “brutal but hilarious... a woman who takes life's absurdities very seriously,” her body of performance work includes short and full-length solo performance works, outrageous street theatre stunts and pranks, subversive internet installations, and plays and sketch comedy. She was awarded the Creative Capital Award in Theatre and a Creation Fund from the National Performance Network to create her third full-length solo show, Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest exploring the remarkably high incidence of suicide among Asian American women in a world that's more nuts than we are. Ms. Wong wrote and performed in the CBS Multicultural Comedy Showcase. Her show Free? was also featured at Comedy Central's South Beach Comedy Festival in Miami.
Check out her website at: www.kristinawong.com
Kristina Wong is a nationally presented solo performer, writer, actor, educator, culture jammer, and filmmaker. Described by the East Bay Express as “brutal but hilarious... a woman who takes life's absurdities very seriously,” her body of performance work includes short and full-length solo performance works, outrageous street theatre stunts and pranks, subversive internet installations, and plays and sketch comedy. She was awarded the Creative Capital Award in Theatre and a Creation Fund from the National Performance Network to create her third full-length solo show, Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest exploring the remarkably high incidence of suicide among Asian American women in a world that's more nuts than we are. Ms. Wong wrote and performed in the CBS Multicultural Comedy Showcase. Her show Free? was also featured at Comedy Central's South Beach Comedy Festival in Miami.
Check out her website at: www.kristinawong.com
David Ford
Writer and director David Ford has been collaborating on new and unusual theatre for eighteen years. Recent work includes Not a Genuine Blackman with Brian Copeland, which performed more than 370 times in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, and Charlie Varon’s Rabbi Sam, playing at sold-out performances. He also worked with Bill Talen on the original creation of Reverend Billy, the Obie Award-winning theatre piece/ political action. Mr. Ford’s work has been seen regionally at the Public Theatre, Second Stage, St. Clement’s, Dixon’s Place, One Dream Theatre, Theatre for the New City, Highways, and Woolly Mammoth, as well as at theatres around the San Francisco Bay Area including the Magic Theatre and Marin Theatre Company. He is a Resident Artist at the Marsh Theatre in San Francisco.
Writer and director David Ford has been collaborating on new and unusual theatre for eighteen years. Recent work includes Not a Genuine Blackman with Brian Copeland, which performed more than 370 times in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, and Charlie Varon’s Rabbi Sam, playing at sold-out performances. He also worked with Bill Talen on the original creation of Reverend Billy, the Obie Award-winning theatre piece/ political action. Mr. Ford’s work has been seen regionally at the Public Theatre, Second Stage, St. Clement’s, Dixon’s Place, One Dream Theatre, Theatre for the New City, Highways, and Woolly Mammoth, as well as at theatres around the San Francisco Bay Area including the Magic Theatre and Marin Theatre Company. He is a Resident Artist at the Marsh Theatre in San Francisco.
Kimberly Dark
Kimberly Dark’s award-winning solo performances combine humor, storytelling, spoken word performance, and audience interaction to delve into cultural themes we rarely discuss -- at least not in polite company. The Evening Echo in Cork, Ireland calls her “a force to be reckoned with on all levels.”
Check out her website at: www.kimberlydark.com
Kimberly Dark’s award-winning solo performances combine humor, storytelling, spoken word performance, and audience interaction to delve into cultural themes we rarely discuss -- at least not in polite company. The Evening Echo in Cork, Ireland calls her “a force to be reckoned with on all levels.”
Check out her website at: www.kimberlydark.com
Check out our other theatre and performance courses:
Ensemble Intensive with Steppenwolf Classes West
Auditioning for the Broadway Musical with Paul Gemignani
Sword and Forcery: Armed and Unarmed Stage Violence
Remember, California residents can take two courses (up to six units) for the same tuition dollars!