information - Trisha Brown

2013 SUMMER INTENSIVE
New York City Center
July 15-26, 2013
INFORMATION
The 2013 Summer Intensive is designed to explore the process and forms inherent in Trisha Brown's body of work. In
addition to a focus on technique and repertory, classes will specifically engage with Brown's rich archive of
multidisciplinary work to uncover new outlets and help students accomplish individual creative goals. Particular attention
will be paid to the development of movement vocabulary into phrase material. The sessions will offer students a deeper
knowledge of technical movement principles, compositional structure, and improvisation. This will be achieved through
classes, video showings, written materials and an in-studio showing at the end of each week. The Summer Intensive is
geared toward professional/advanced dancers ages 17+.
JULY 15-19
Session I // 10am-1pm
Technique & Repertory with Iréne Hultman
Lunch Break // 1:30-2pm Lecture & Video Showing with Iréne Hultman and Eva Karczag
Session II // 2-5pm
*Composition & Improvisation with Eva Karczag
JULY 22-26
Session III // 10am-1pm Technique & Repertory with Carolyn Lucas and Laurel Tentindo
Lunch Break // 1:30-2pm Lecture & Video Showing with Carolyn Lucas and Laurel Tentindo
Session IV // 2-5pm
*Composition & Improvisation with Carolyn Lucas & Laurel Tentindo
STUDENT SHOWING: July 19 & 26 at 5pm
All registered students are welcome to attend the Lunch Break Lecture & Video Showing
*Students who register for Sessions II and IV must also participate the morning session(s)
Price: $180 Per Session
New York City Center-- 130 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10001
WEEK 1 // JULY 15-19
SESSION I // TECHNIQUE & REPERTORY with IRÉNE HULTMAN
This somatic based technique/repertory class provides an environment for participants to deepen their daily
practice as they learn from the body: expanding range and diversity of motion. Each class will explore
fundamentals that are integral to understanding the scope and detail of Trisha Brown's choreographic language.
Participants will develop an active awareness of gravity, weight and poly directionality, sensing as they access
content, alignment, internal space and external spatial intent, movement initiations, and ease and stability in the
body. The warm up will give tools to fully dance Trisha Browns choreography and in particular Son of Gone
Fishin' (1981). This repertory material will support and interplay with Eva Karczag's (original dancer in Son of
Gone Fishin') class in the afternoon.
Iréne Hultman is a native of Sweden and a New York based dance artist. From 1983-1988,
Hultman was a member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company where she also worked as
rehearsal director 2006-2009. She was the Artistic Director of Iréne Hultman Dance between
1988 - 2001. She has worked on several Opera Productions and received numerous
commissions. Iréne Hultman is the co-Founder of Järna-Brooklyn, a Swedish-American
cultural entity that encourages artistic experimentation. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim
Fellowship in Choreography and a Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts Award
among others. Ms. Hultman served on The Bessie Committee and is serving on Danspace
Project's Artist Advisory Board in NYC. She is also a guest lecturer at Yale University.
Lunch Break // LECTURE & VIDEO SHOWING with IRÉNE HULTMAN & EVA KARCZAG
These casual lunchtime talks will offer workshop participants a unique opportunity to view and discuss a broad
sampling of Brown's work. Looking at the scope and trajectory of Brown's choreographic interests and tactics through brief histories, screenings, and discussions - we will seek to pinpoint and enlarge an understanding of a
distinctively "Brownian" approach to creative practice that playfully stretches the boundaries of form and
convention. Particular attention will be paid to the works being studied during the Intensive and to how Brown's
visionary work can serve as inspiration for future generations of art-makers.
SESSION II // COMPOSITION & IMPROVISATION with EVA KARCZAG
During the afternoon sessions, we will examine Trisha's directions and methods for making Son of Gone Fishin'
(1981) and play with strategies she used to create this complex and rigorous piece. We will improvise to develop
movement ideas, set material that we can then manipulate, explore activities such as transferring material from
one side to the other and reversing, and eventually build sequences within the kind of improvised ensemble
process used by the company during the making of this work.
For the past four decades Eva Karczag has practiced, taught, and
advocated explorative methods of dance making. She danced with Trisha
Brown Dance Company (1979-85), creating original roles in Opal Loop,
Son of Gone Fishin' and Set and Reset. Eva has a Master of Fine Arts
degree (Dance Research Fellow) from Bennington College, VT, and is a
certified teacher of the Alexander Technique. Her performance work and
her teaching are informed by dance improvisation and mindful body
practices that engender trust in the body's innate capacity for ease and
efficiency and create integrated openness and buoyant suppleness, characteristic of Trisha Brown's fluid,
easeful style of dancing. Eva performs solo and collaborative work internationally. Recent performances include
Red Thread, a long-term collaborative performance project with Lisa Kraus and Vicky Shick; and Promenade, a
series of improvised durational performance/installations with visual artist Chris Crickmay and composer Sylvia
Hallett.
WEEK 2 // JULY 22-26
SESION III // TECHNIQUE & REPERTORY CAROLYN LUCAS and LAUREL TENTINDO
This class is designed to support the internal process of the dancer as we prepare for precise and full technical
dancing. Our morning session will draw from the Skinner Releasing Technique and the Alexander Technique,
and will center around the simple principle that when we are releasing tension and habitual holding patterns, we
can move more freely, powerfully, and articulately. By letting go of tension and accessing multi-directional
alignment, dancers make subtle shifts that reverberate through the whole self. With imagery and hands-on
partner studies, students gain an understanding of releasing into motion. As we access an effortless approach
to movement, we will move into practicing Trisha Brown's phrase material from Foray Forêt (1990) with an
attention to initiation and follow-through, weight and buoyancy, and geometry in space. This class technically
prepares the dancer to work with both the simplicity and wildness present in Trisha Brown's choreography.
LUNCH BREAK // LECTURE/VIDEO SHOWING with CAROLYN LUCAS and LAUREL TENTINDO
SESSION IV // COMPOSITION & IMPROVISATION with CAROLYN LUCAS and LAUREL TENTINDO
By dancing Brown's scores and applying compositional structures to phrase material learned in Session III,
students will gain a deepened understanding of how Brown utilizes specific parameters and 'rule games' to
develop choreography. We will focus on the underlying choreographic structures within Foray Forêt to uncover
unique ways that Brown approaches space, partnering and time. While focusing on kinesthetically dynamic
dancing, we will improvise and compose with Brown's choreographic principles and seek to discover new
approaches to this rich material.
Carolyn Lucas has been a member of the Company since 1984. In 1993, she was
appointed Choreographic Assistant and since then has played an integral role in the
creation process of Brown's works in dance and opera. Additionally, Carolyn directs
company rehearsals for new work and restaging projects for both TBDC as well as
companies and institutions around the world, including P.A.R.T.S. and Paris Opera Ballet.
She is also currently sharing her firsthand knowledge of nearly two decades of documenting
Brown's work for the digital Trisha Brown Archive. Carolyn attended the North Carolina
School of the Arts and received a BFA from SUNY Purchase in 1984. She studies Tai
Chi with Maggie Newman and Alexander Technique with June Ekman.
Laurel Jenkins Tentindo's choreographic and dancing practices are deeply influenced by
the Skinner Releasing Technique, Improvisation, and Trisha Brown's movement
vocabulary. As an acclaimed member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company from 20072012, she performed repertory spanning Ms. Brown's 40-year career, and developed
original roles in Brown's four most recent pieces: L'Amour au theater, Pygmanion, Les Yeux
et l'âme,and I'm going to toss my arms-if you catch them they're yours. Laurel has also
danced with Vicky Shick and Sara Rudner. Her choreography has been presented at
Danspace, Judson Church, and Joyce SoHo in NYC and at Highways and the Fowler
Museum in Los Angeles. Laurel collaboratively creates movement and object/puppet
theater with Luis Tentindo. She was a guest faculty member at The New School for the
Trisha Brown Dance Company. Laurel is a certified Skinner Releasing Teacher, a graduate
of Sarah Lawrence College, and currently, an MFA candidate at UCLA's World Arts and
Cultures/Dance department. www.laureltentindo.com