Getting ready to lead my first
CPAC workshop tomorrow...
Tomorrow begins yet another leg of my Fellowship Year journey...the start of my three-part workshop series on building theatre for children. I am excited, and filled with nervous anticipation. The roster tomorrow includes so many amazing artists and teachers--I cannot wait to see what the day brings.
As an artist, myself, I have built a method of creating that I call "found" theatre--it involves a combination of devised and scripted theatre, that also works very well in the classroom. At its roots is the belief that the arts are best as a collaboration, as a true ensemble piece that gives every artist involved a voice, and ownership of what they have contributed and created. It is always amazing to me what arises from these collaborative group partnerships, and I am left in awe of the trust, peripheral awareness, and unified energy that develops out of the process. In adult artists, I have seen it bring a new set of eyes, an awakened understanding of how important they are in what they create--and I have watched them develop a new sense of what and how much they have to give to other artists, other people...and how it is okay to let what someone else is giving them IN. In children, I have watched it help with a blooming process, and with communication, cooperation, awareness of self-worth, and a realization of self-confidence. It encourages children be children, and revel in it, and to feel how right it is to be who and what they are.
I am nervous about tomorrow, only because I am so excited to see what grows...and because I am so passionate about making this kind of theatre. Tomorrow is the absolute perfect start to this part of my journey...and I am so pleased and proud to be taking the first steps with all of the people who will be joining me.
Let the games (and the blooming, the growth, and the heart) begin!