HercuSleaze par Liana the Ghost

HercuSleaze — Develop your Drag Persona and build a Stage Act

Mar. 6 to 10, 2023 – 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (Mon.-Fri.)
Full week rate:
 85$ with Services Québec support / 330$ regular rate
*Drop-in class rate: 
22$ with Service Québec / 68$ if non-eligible (Monday and/or Tuesday only)
Language of instruction: English
Capacity
: 16 people, priority for full week attendance
Open to artists of all disciplines

REGISTER FOR THE FULL WEEK>

*Drop-ins welcome Monday and/or Tuesday: Payment by credit card or e-transfer on site the morning of, if capacity allows (no reservations).


By registering for a workshop, you agree to cancel your participation if you have symptoms or suspect you may have COVID-19. Please read the Participant Engagement before registering. Thank you!



CONTENT
Over the course of the week each student will develop a drag persona and build a stage act, which we’ll present to each other on the last day. There are so many facets to being a drag artist that the art form can feel mystifying and putting oneself out there can feel very vulnerable. This class will be a safe space to learn and empower ourselves and each other.

Monday: Students will be lead through exercises to help them develop their personas and choose a drag name. We’ll explore movement and how to physically embody our alter egos. Each student will determine what kind of act they’d like to build based on their existing skillsets. Individuals will select songs for their acts, if applicable. 

Tuesday: The focus of day will be drag makeup! HercuSleaze will demonstrate step-by-step how to paint a drag king makeup (this can be modified for anyone wanting to learn drag queen or gender-bending makeup.) It’s encouraged that students watch Herc’s 90min video makeup class prior to this class (free link will be provided) so that everyone arrives with the same fundamental knowledge. Other aspects of drag king transformation such as wigs, padding and binding will be discussed. 

Wednesday: We’ll begin developing our acts through an array of skills like lip syncing, costume reveals, magic tricks, strip teases, storytelling, puppetry and dancing. We’ll uncover surprising twists and turns in our acts for maximum impact.

Thursday: Using second-hand clothes and items you already own, we’ll assemble our costumes. Each person will customize an item of clothing to enhance its stage appeal using paint, patches, rhinestones and more. We’ll work on any props the students will need for their routines using recycled materials like EVA foam and cardboard.

Friday: Students will get into full drag, and each person will present an act of 5 min or less to the class for some constructive feedback and encouragement. Everyone will then have an act that they could perform live in the future!


ACCESSIBILITY
Students with visual or hearing impairments, physical disabilities, mental health disorders, intellectual disabilities and/ or students who require service animals are welcome to register for this class and will receive accommodations to fit their needs. 


BIOGRAPHY
HercuSleaze is Canada’s most recognized drag king, he can be seen as a contestant on season 1 of OutTV’s Call Me Mother and on instagram where he’s built up a following that places him in the top ten drag king accounts in the world. He’s the producer of the Montreal drag cabaret, Mythos, and the founder of the instagram community account, @thekingdomofdrag, both of which were created to promote artists who are underrepresented because of their gender. Known for his detailed costumes and precise makeup, others can learn from HercuSleaze at the DragAcademy.ca, where he has a pre-recorded course on everything you need to know to transform into a drag king. Out of drag, Meags Fitzgerald is an art director and an award-winning graphic novelist. She’s internationally recognized for her feminist comics, which often pertain to queer identity.


.

WAITLIST >
DETERMINE WHICH RATE TO PAY >

WORKSHOP BURSARY >
STUDIO 303’S ACCESSIBILITY >
OPEN REGISTRATION FORM IN NEW TAB >

 

 

Aisha Sasha John — Waters

Feb. 13 to 17, 2023 – 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (Mon.-Fri.)
Full week rate:
 85$ with Services Québec support / 270$ regular rate
*Drop-in class rate: 
22$ with Service Québec / 56$ if non-eligible (Monday and/or Tuesday only)
Language of instruction: English
Questions can be answered in French
Capacity
: 23 people, priority for full week attendance
Open to artists of all disciplines

REGISTER FOR THE FULL WEEK>

*Drop-ins welcome Monday and/or Tuesday only. Payment by credit card or e-transfer on site the morning of, if capacity allows (no reservations).


By registering for a workshop, you agree to cancel your participation if you have symptoms or suspect you may have COVID-19. Please read the Participant Engagement before registering. Thank you!



CONTENT
I am working on encounter: on dancing together
I am working on encounter as water — I as water am working on encounter as if encounter is essential and as if being itself is inherently an encounter and certainly all dancing 
But also I am working on dancing together 
To face the other and to not resist nor insist upon the joining of eyes
To have an orientation that acknowledges
The ocean within and without
To situate one’s body in rhythm and in space—to as water play air
To antennae 
In pleasure and in need
To listen
To await 
To be told:
The information is in the form of 
Desire 
Fear 
Resistance 
Knowing 

To be willing to discover 
Ceaselessly 
To arrive and arrive and arrive and arrive 
To encounter movement 
At the juncture of presence and paying attention 
To meet the mystery 
The boundless mystery of the other and 
The terrifying unknown of the self 
To dance listening 

To let yes mean yes 
To let no mean no 
On our bodies 

In this workshop, we elect to let ourselves be seen listening. What can we commit to that will make certain our access to the unknown? How can we move at the rate of reception and experience the freedom of choicelessness? How more possible is our togetherness when we let breeze be in our chest?

We practice both performing and witnessing with a group listening score called The Pool which systematizes moving and voicing as supportive response.


ACCESSIBILITY
The structure of each day will be the same : arrival exercise, warm-ups which will evolve over the course of week, and then we will spend most of the final 2/3 of the day working on a group performance score called The Pool.

Folks are invited to participate in ways that feel comfortable for them, and I will offer a range of options for participating in all the exercises I propose.

For the arrival exercise, participants will be invited to lie on the ground in a circle and share into a microphone what they need to express as a means of arriving in the space: words, vocalization or mere presence. This will be timed – one or two minutes per participant.

Our warm-ups are an opportunity to move energy and to sweat and we will be softly following each other in small groups to a playlist in which songs played fairly loudly gradually increase in tempo. There is an invitation here to move together closely at the beginning but the work of feeling each other’s energy can be accomplished with less proximity as well.

Likely there will also be an invitation for the group to practice moving in relation to someone’s inspired speaking/vocalizing or to practice speaking/vocalizing in response to someone’s movement as preparation for the work of The Pool.

The Pool is a score for up to five players that we will spend most of our time working on. It begins with one person who is joined by up to two others in the performance space and up to two additional others with vocal support according to a fairly simple logic. Everyone will have a chance to perform and witness.

There will be some supportive discussion as we think and feel our way through the material that we produce and witness in The Pool. There may be occasional invitations to journal in reflection.



BIOGRAPHY
Aisha Sasha John is interested in choreographing performances that are occasions for real and multitudinous actions of love. John recently premiered her first ensemble work, DIANA ROSS DREAM (Danse-cité) which was developed during her 2019-2022 Dancemakers choreographic residency with additional support from a choreographic residency at Toronto Dance Theatre. John’s full-length solo work debuted as the aisha of oz at the Whitney Museum in 2017, and in 2018, iterations of the aisha of is were presented at Montreal, arts interculturels (MAI) and Toronto’s SummerWorks Festival. From 2015-2017, John choreographed, performed and curated as a member of the collective WIVES, presenting ACTION MOVIE at Théâtre La Chapelle (2017) and the performance series ASSEMBLÉ through Studio 303’s Curator-in-Residence program.  John is the author of the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize nominated collection, I have to live. (McClelland & Stewart 2017), as well as THOU (Book*hug 2014), and the chapbook TO STAND AT A PRECIPICE ALONE AND REPEAT WHAT IS WHISPERED (UDP 2021). She’s currently working on her fourth poetry collection, total and a solo performance, The Vestibule. 


.

WAITLIST >
DETERMINE WHICH RATE TO PAY >

WORKSHOP BURSARY >
STUDIO 303’S ACCESSIBILITY >
OPEN REGISTRATION FORM IN NEW TAB >

 

 

Crédit photo: Matthew Hayes

B SOLOMON — Ancient Awakenings and Technologies

Jan. 30 to Feb. 3, 2023 – 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (Mon.-Fri.)
Full week rate:
 85$ with Services Québec support / 195$ regular rate
*Drop-in class rate: 
22$ with Service Québec / 41$ if non-eligible (Monday and/or Tuesday only)
Language of instruction: English
Capacity
: 23 people, priority for full week attendance
Open to artists of all disciplines , ages 9 to 90

REGISTER FOR THE FULL WEEK>

*Drop-ins welcome Monday and/or Tuesday only. Payment by credit card or e-transfer on site the morning of, if capacity allows (no reservations).


By registering for a workshop, you agree to cancel your participation if you have symptoms or suspect you may have COVID-19. Please read the Participant Engagement before registering. Thank you!



CONTENT
Come join in the adventure of a lifetime, through space, time, and the cosmos and forge a greater understanding of your body. Your true nature, your child spirit, and how you were born to interact in this world with everything around you, is waiting to be heard and acknowledged — with the only thing you truly have, for just a moment, your ancient body.

Our mission is an attempt to forge a deeper connection to every part of ourselves.

Every part of ourselves.

A brave call to our ancestral senses to hold in our awareness as much of everything we are, as possible.

Taking on the state of the natural world, it’s environments and how they’re threaten, all from the studio within the universe of Us.

We are trying to SAVE THE WORLD and ourselves in this workshop.
This will happen from PLAY, HUMOUR and JOY.

By paying particular attention to the functions of the senses we don’t normally associate with movement, we tap into the body’s instinctive awareness of semiotics as one large communicating body. Our bodies are ancient, and we are meant to be in communication with it. As a giant speaking body filled to the brim with under used sense-function, we’ll discover some of our ancient technologies that relate to what is referred to in Anishinaabewiin as our “Original Instructions”.

We will physicalize these philosophies through warm-ups, somatic explorations, Storytelling, old fashion North American show-dances, spontaneous Choreography, and more.

We gonna truly feel.
We gonna sweat.
We gonna meditate.
We gonna activate the parasympathetic nervous system.
Gonna jump without impact.
Gonna cut like a knife without cracking the handle.
We gonna express and body-speak in ways we’ve always desired to.

You will leave feeling well-worked and ready for whatever your day might be, while maintaining a vessel to last you 200 hundred years. 

Many Contemporary and Classical forms, techniques, teachings and traditions will be referenced and drawn from within the workshop (Pow Wow, Ballet, Somatic Release, Street etc.).

Every type of artist and person is welcomed and encouraged to join — every experience level will be challenged 

ACCESSIBIILITY
The workshop is designed to evolve and be in response to the participants. Including, but not limited to working with; mobility aids, limited mobility, deaf and hard of hearing, children and elders, cognitive and neurological disabilities and more.


BIOGRAPHY
Multi-award nominated, winner and loser, Artist B. Solomon (Anishinaabe niini / Irish settler) was born and raised on the land in Shebahonaning of the North Channel of Lake Huron. 

As a creator his work is multidisciplinary, highly expressive and full of spirit. His commissions have ranged from community-rooted works with over 40 interpreters, solos in trees, to animated installations of landfill. His works have been presented and toured across Turtle Island and many nations abroad.

Since he was a teenager much of Solomon’s work has been committed to community activation with a focus on unacknowledged and underserved peoples and land.  He is passionate about helping people relearn the nature of their ancient bodies, and take back the space those bodies occupy as caretakers. More info at: electricmoose.ca


.

WAITLIST >
DETERMINE WHICH RATE TO PAY >

WORKSHOP BURSARY >
STUDIO 303’S ACCESSIBILITY >
OPEN REGISTRATION FORM IN NEW TAB >

 

 

QUEER PERFORMANCE CAMP

SHOWS / WORKSHOPS / RESIDENCIES
From Tuesday, August 14th 2018 to Thursday, August 23rd 2018