Dear Friends, Colleagues and Artistic Associates,

Would you like to:

Stretch your creativity in a supportive environment? Immerse yourself in art? Meet a really interesting group of people? Join us for one or more of our 6-day intensives with expert teachers who are adept at gearing their classes for all levels of experience.

Past participants have ranged in age from 18 to 80.

Last summer people came from as far away as Bangkok and Hawaii to take part in the theatre training opportunities we offer as part of the KO FESTIVAL OF PERFORMANCE. This year, in our 21st season on the Amherst College campus in Amherst, Massachusetts, we are offering 3 unique workshops:

BODY WISDOM: discovering the inner landscape  

a movement workshop with Naoko Maeshiba  performer/director and Artistic Director of Kibism (Baltimore)

Building on her background in Feldenkrais, Michael Chekhov, Noh, and Butoh approaches, Naoko Maeshiba will take you through a journey of discovering the body's inner wisdom. Working both indoors and outdoors in nature, the workshop will focus on the body's expression through its contact with the immediate environment. 

The class offers participants a place of inquiry for investigating the depth of your body. Each exercise is designed to awaken your inner sense of self and develop an awareness of external visual/auditory/kinetic stimuli.  Tap into the primal essence underlying the surface and examine the relationship between the body and various environments. Participants will work solo, in pairs, or as an ensemble.

All levels of experience and expertise, as well as different body types are encouraged!

Click HERE for more info

 

July 16 – 21

CREATING SOLO PERFORMANCE

with Sara Felder acclaimed solo theatre performer (and world-class juggling diva) (San Francisco)

Come explore your own creativity in this workshop that will generate material for solo performance.  In a safe setting, we will develop performance material from our own lives using objects, character work, monologues and humor.  We will do writing exercises, try on different performance styles, create images, play with objects, investigate characters, consider different narrative voices, find the humor in the pain (and vice versa,) experiment, fail, laugh, juggle and surprise ourselves.  This workshop will emphasize the use of performance to say something important, and, if we’re lucky, we will amuse (or schmooze,  – or cruise) the Muse.

“Sara is amazing. She had 14 students, including me, with a wide range of age (20s to 60s), skills and experiences, and everyone created new pieces that were personally meaningful and theatrically engaging. . . . What we learned went beyond performance skills. We learned about humanity.”  – Student from Sara’s Ko Festival workshop, 2010.

People who have taken this workshop at Ko before are encouraged to c’mon back!

Click HERE for more info.

 

July 23 – 28

MIND THE GAP: a playwright's connection to the empty space

with Juanita Rockwell, Towson University MFA faculty/ Fulbright Fellow/Tibetan Bön Buddhism practitioner (Baltimore)

Creating a text for performance is about forging a connection to presence. Habits of mind send us in the same circles again and again, cutting us off from new creative paths and an experience of Now, including the Theatrical Now.

In this workshop, we will learn to short-circuit our habits of writing and thinking. In that gap, we can reconnect with the stillness, silence and spaciousness that is the natural home of creativity.  Participants will learn specific contemplative and energetic practices (from the Tibetan Bön Buddhist tradition) that can serve as an anchor for creating a daily writing practice in their own lives. The workshop will include structured writing periods as well as times to share our writing with each other.

Click HERE for more info.

Workshops meet from 10am – 4pm on the Amherst College campus. Room and/or board is available for the workshops, which are offered at artist-friendly prices. FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE WORKSHOPS, OR TO DOWNLOAD A REGISTRATION FORM, PLEASE VISIT www.kofest.com

Note that there are discounts for members of NET, TCG companies, all returning workshop students and for all who register by May 1. We are occasionally able to offer partial financial aid. This pool is very limited, so apply early.

Also, some of these workshops are likely to sell out, so reserve your spot today!

Our PERFORMANCES have been curated around the theme of "AN IRREVERANT & INTERGENERATIONAL LOOK AT AGE & AGING"  We'll have five weeks of shows about a process that evokes a gamut of feelings – from trepidation to celebration. It will be a season of high theatricality – featuring outrageous humor, puppets, juggling and images of uncanny beauty!  Stay tuned for more in our next e-blast.

For more on the shows, and the special savings that come with our "KoFest Passes and Posses" program, or on deepening your experience by taking the festival as a UMASS summer class, visit www.kofest.com

Please help get the word out by passing this information along to all appropriate friends, colleagues and students! Apologies for any cross-postings, but some of you are HIGHLY networked individuals!

All best wishes,

Sabrina Hamilton
Artistic Director
Ko Festival of Performance