Serious Play! Theatre Ensemble Auditions for Meta/Pina

Event Details

Time: May 14, 2012 from 4pm to 4pm
Location: Northampton Center for the Arts
Street: 17 New South Street
City/Town: Northampton, MA
Website or Map: http://www.nohoarts.org
Phone: 413.584.7327
Event Type: audition
Organized By: Northampton Center for the Arts
Latest Activity: May 9, 2012

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Event Description

Serious Play! Theatre Ensemble is preparing to begin work on a devised theatre piece based on the gestural style and creative process of German choreographer Pina Bausch.

This work will be co-directed by Serious Play! Artistic Director Sheryl Stoodley and Toby Bercovici.

Performance schedule: The Meta/Pina Project will be performed at the Northampton Center for the Arts on four evenings: Thursday through Sunday, August 9 through 12, at 8 p.m. A dress rehearsal with invited guests is planned for Wednesday evening, August 8.

Rehearsal schedule: Rehearsals will be held in Northampton, most at the Center for the Arts, on Sunday, Monday, and Thursday evenings, from 5:30 to 10:00 pm. The first rehearsal will be on Monday, June 4.

AUDITIONS
Monday, May 14 (callbacks on Monday, May 21)
Northampton Center for the Arts
4 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Auditions will be scheduled at 15-minute intervals. To schedule an appointment, call Elaine at 413.320.3147 or email seriousplaytheatre@gmail.com. Please provide us with phone and email contact information.

We are looking for actors age 17 to 65. We are asking performers to bring a 1- to 3-minute piece of music (CD) to the audition, to which you will move in a stylized way or dance - either a self-choreographed piece or an improvisation. We want to see not only how you move but also how you create. If you need inspiration, you may respond to gestures from Pina Bausch's ensemble of theatre-dance actors (Google "Pina Bausch"), but the idea is to create something new from yourself. Be able to talk about your process.

Summary of the Meta/Pina Project: Calling upon the gestural style and creative process of German choreographer Pina Bausch, Meta/Pina will explore the complexity of the dynamic relationship between a director-choreographer and her performers, laying bare interactions that can vacillate between those of lovers, co-conspirators, enemies, tyrant and subject, parent and child, therapist and patient, etc. These interactions can be symbiotic, parasitic, and everything in between. And while Pina Bausch's invisible form can be felt dancing with and inside of her dancers, our process will literally become our product, as we expose the dynamic between ourselves (co-directors Sheryl Stoodley and Toby Bercovici) and our performers by placing ourselves onstage with the performers, guiding and shaping during performances. For nine weeks this summer, using only minimal text and set, we and eight physically trained actors will first improvise and then formalize and rehearse movement compositions that arise with each new relationship discovery and exploration. To capture and shape the initially improvisational work, we will use Viewpoints, a vocabulary for working with movement and gesture that was codified in the 1970s by choreographer Mary Overlie.

The Northampton Center for the Arts is located on the third floor of the Sullivan Square building, 17 New South Street in Northampton. Visit the Center's website, www.nohoarts.org, for directions.