By offering workshops and panels, TimeWave aims to:
- Encourage ingenuity with regard to problem-solving during productions;
- Inspire innovation via the use of new digital applications and devices; and,
- Facilitate theoretical conversation and debate on best practices in the theatre.
Theatre Out of Bounds: Personal Technology, Adaptation and Experience
Facilitator: Dr. Peter S Petralia, Artistic Director, Proto-type Theater.
Description: This workshop will explore how artists (actors, directors, musicians, performers) can use technology to inspire and shape rich theatrical experiences that happen for participants in theatres, galleries, bars and within the fabric of daily life. Focusing on the relationship between object, idea, writing and tactile interactions, participants will be invited to explore personal technologies such as iPods, mobile phones, email, video cameras, and laptops along with a more specialised, bespoke kit of software/hardware that uses RFID (radio frequency identification), to create their own creative interventions. Together we will develop a dramaturgy of experience that focuses on how performance can be poetic, instructive, illusive and playful instead of completely grounded in singular narratives. Workshop participants will be involved in practical exercises in writing and performing for various platforms and will create small performance works using the methods developed by the artists. Participants are encouraged to bring their mobile phone, a laptop, a healthy dose of playfulness and any interesting objects that they'd like to take apart and understand better as theatrical objects.Bio: Dr. Peter S Petralia is a producer, director, writer, curator and artistic director of Proto-type Theater. He is fascinated with the way that technology is changing our relationship to intimacy and is currently working on two books that deal with this territory. With Proto-type, he has written and directed over a dozen full-length performance works that have premiered in the US, the United Kingdom, Romania, Armenia, South Korea and Amsterdam. Peter is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre in the Department of Contemporary Arts at MMU Cheshire. Find out more about Proto-type at www.proto-type.org.
The Physiology of Light: How to Manipulate People
Facilitator: Rebecca Makus.
Description: A simple form of emotional manipulation is through text. Like the romantic comedy: Boy meets Girl, Boy loses Girl, Boy gets Girl back again. And as an artist you can get great response from this and it is relatively direct because it is a familiar medium for our society. If we read a sad story we likely feel sad. More complex forms of emotional manipulation involve methods that do not rely on text: one familiar form of this is dance. Although these forms are not exclusively narrative sometimes narrative does exist. In some cases the narrative is recognizable and in others it lives "behind the scenes." But often there is no narrative at all; we are telling a story using the physical response humans have to certain stimuli. Essentially, we are creating an arc of experience based entirely on our very human and very physical emotional responses and nothing else. The use of light can be a powerful tool to enhance and support this method. This lecture is a short tour through several different approaches and gives a brief introduction to the DIY method of creating lighting sources. Each participant will build their own battery powered light and will be introduced to the Arduino, an artist friendly programmable micro-processor.Bio: Rebecca M. K. Makus holds an M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts and a B.A. from Smith College. She has an impressive background in international design and has worked extensively in France and the UK. She has been Resident Lighting Designer for Proto-type, Inc for over 12 years. She also works extensively in dance and is a frequent collaborator with Bill Young, Colleen Thomas and Dancers based out of NYC. She also works with Otto Ramstad and Olive Bieringa of Body Cartography of Minneapolis, MN and Mira Kingsley, a Professor of Dance at UC Santa Barbara. Her international work includes designs at Lyon Opera Ballet, Nuffield Theatre at Lancaster University, Opera de Monte Carlo, Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Sibiu International Theatre Festival. She has also worked extensively in New York City for over 10 years including shows at Lincoln Center, Mint Theatre, Dance New Amsterdam, Dance Theatre Workshop, P.S. 122, HERE Arts Center and D.R.2 Theatre.
Working with Social Media in Live Performance
Facilitator: Baba Israel, Artistic Director, Contact.
Description: This workshop will explore how to integrate social media into the creative process, expanding audience interaction, agency, and awareness. Please see Baba Israel's TEDxYork talk, "Making New Contact."
Bio: Baba Israel was raised in New York by parents who were core members of the Living Theatre. He developed as a young artist exploring spoken word, Hip Hop, and experimental performance. He lived and worked in Australia working on major community theatre projects and festivals. He has toured across the US, Europe, South America, Australia and Asia, performing with artists such as Outkast, The Roots, Rahzel, Ron Carter, Afrika Bambaataa, Vernon Reid, and Bill Cosby. Previous directorial work includes the Project 2050 (New World Theatre), Countryboy Struggle (Maxwell Golden) and Sharpening SAWDS. He was co-founder and Artistic Director of Playback NYC Theatre Company which brought theatre to under-represented communities. As an educator he has worked internationally developing projects with a young people-centered focus. He holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary arts from Goddard in the United States. He became Artistic Director of Contact in 2009, after several years of performing and leading workshops at the venue as a visiting artist.
Mapping Out Strategies for Integrating Technology into Live Performance
Facilitators: Sheldon B. Smith, Lisa Wymore, Co-Artistic Directors, Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts.
Description: Sheldon Smith and Lisa Wymore from Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts will present a workshop exploring multiple approaches to working with pre-recorded and live-feed video in live performance. Participants will be exposed to typical hardware and software that is involved including cameras, projectors, Kinect systems, Isadora and Madmapper. We will work both technically and performatively with the technology. Throughout the workshop, materials will be developed that will generate a short technologically augmented movement/theater work to be performed in the final half hour. The workshop is open to technicians and performers of all skill levels.
Bio: Sheldon B. Smith, Co-Artistic Director Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts, received his B.A. in dance from The Colorado College and his M.F.A. in Dance from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. He has been making dance, music and video art for close to twenty years. Prior to his recent move to Berkeley he was a vital member of Chicago’s experimental performance community. He has received generous funding from a Theater Bay Area sponsored CASH grant, the National Performance Network, the Chicago DanceMakers Forum, the Illinois Arts Alliance, and the Cultural Affairs office of Chicago. He was also the recipient of the winter 2006 Counterpulse, SF Artist Residency. His dances have been seen throughout the Midwest, Alaska, Colorado, and California, as well as in Philadelphia and New York City. He is currently a lecturer in the dance department of Mills College.
Bio: Lisa Wymore began her graduate study at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she was awarded a Creative and Performing Arts Fellowship, an Outstanding Achievement Award, and a Moe Family Award for her creativity. After graduating with an M.F.A. in Dance in 1998, she moved to Chicago and began her career as dancer, choreographer, and teacher. For her choreography, Lisa has been twice awarded Illinois Arts Council Fellowships, and has been awarded several Community Arts Assistant Program Grants from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. Her work has been seen in numerous festivals, including the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art Summer Solstice Celebration, Dance Chicago, and the Performing Arts Chicago PAC/edge Festival. In January 2004, she traveled to Vietnam working on a project entitled Artistic Voices Across Cultures in Collaboration. She is now an Assistant Professor at the University of California Berkeley in the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies.
