Photo credit : Christa Holka
Photo credit : Christa Holka

SPLIT BRITCHES (USA/UK) – Making It Together, a workshop on collaborative performance

Sept. 12 to 16, 2022 – 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (Mon.-Fri.)
Full week rate: 90$ with Services Québec / 500$ is non-eligible
Drop-in class rate:
n/a – full week registration only
Language of instruction: English
Capacity:
23 people, priority to full week attendance
Open to artists of all disciplines

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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 // Seems like now, more than ever, we need to find creative ways to be together, talk to each other, and make collective efforts to thrive and survive. In their 4 decades of working as Split Britches, Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw have been creating collaborative performance with diverse communities while, at the same time, developing ways of using performance as a method for meeting their own life challenges. Their workshop will share these tried-and-true techniques and explore old-and-new possibilities for making collaborative performance for this current moment. They will encourage independent vision and skill while cultivating an interdependent cohort of creators. In a relaxed yet structured environment, they will work with impulse movement techniques, impulse writing, autobiographical and found text, music, personal fantasy, popular culture, and conversation to give performers of all abilities – even non-performers – the tools to create a collective performance from individual issues and concerns.

ACCESSIBILITY // Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw have experience running inclusive workshops and facilitating participants with diverse needs due to age, disability, and neurodivergence. Although not officially provided, the workshop can accommodate additional support such as ASL interpretation and Audio Description. Each day will begin with a ‘go round’ session during which participants voice their personal concerns and needs for that session. The day will then be divided into two parts: 1) a series of exercises-writing, movement, and material gathering- that will be conducted individually or in pairs; and 2) collaborative sessions designed to share, collate, edit and create as a group. All exercises, including movement and impulse work, will be guided by each individual’s capacity and pace. Part of the collective performance-making process will focus on incorporating diverse visions, needs, and abilities into a group offering.  

BIO // Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw are co-founders of Split Britches . Since 1980, they have created an interconnected repertoire of performance and social engagement work, which is part of a larger, lifelong project to facilitate communication, wellness, and social change through performance. Recent projects include Ruff (2013), a performance exploring the experiences of having a stroke; Unexploded Ordnances (2018), a combination of performance and public conversation on subjects of anxiety, ageing, and unexplored potential; and Last Gasp (2020), a meditation on demise – demise of ageing bodies, civil conversations, and a sustainable planet. Over the 40 years, they also remain committed to collaborating with diverse communities. This manifests in the founding of WOW Café in NY; developing projects in domestic abuse safe houses in upstate NY and in LGBTQ+ communities in Minneapolis; collaborating with seniors on a performance about sex and ageing; working in women’s prisons in Brazil and the UK: developing performance with Taiwan Women’s Theatre Festival and creating therapeutic workshops for stroke survivors. Both Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw are Guggenheim Fellows and Peggy was the recipient of the Doris Duke and USA Artist Awards.


 

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