Workshop in Vancouver

[Adrienne Wong]

Hello everyone. I thought I would let you know about an exciting workshop
that Rumble Productions is hosting in March. We are proud to bring
Newfoundland theatre artist Jillian Keiley to Vancouver to conduct a
five-day workshop on her creative process, kaleidography.

Ms. Keiley is a director, writer and composer who graduated from York
University (Toronto) with a BFA, specializing in directing. She is the
winner of the Canada Council's 1998 John Hirsch Prize, and the 1996
Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council Emerging Artist of the Year Award.
She is founding director of Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland and Artistic
Associated of the Resource Centre for the Arts Theatre Company.

In her artistic statement, Ms. Keiley describes her process, saying: "The
central element controlling all that happens on stage is time... every
second is contained and measured using music notation. Using our system of
music notation and grid placement we are able to create visually complex
scenes through relatively simple choreography. The term we use for this is
kaleidography: synchronized movement harmonics. This works both in movement
and aural aspects of performance; an actor has his monologue anticipated
and reverberated by a twenty-person chorus through an underscored whispered
fugue, with key phrases perfectly falling on the whispered echoes of the
full group."

COURSE OUTLINE FOR THE FIVE-EVENING WORKSHOP
Day 1: Synchronicity
This session will be devoted to getting the group to work on complete
synchronicity. Using both composed material and organic synchronicity the
group will work on identifying a leader and then move on to consecutive
synchronicity where each person responsible for their own thing but
completely interdependent. The session will investigate synchronicity in
music, especially symphonic music, how this obvious musical tool can
translate into theatre.

Day 2: Aural 'Kaleidography' Acting within a score
Participants will learn songs sung in rounds and with complex harmonies,
and then use percussive accents within a 'soundscape.' They will touch back
on Synchronicity and design harmonies. Then the focus will be on
acting-mixing 'soundscape' and text, and lining up acting to fit a musical
'score.'

Day 3: Physical 'Kaleidography'-Chorus as set/light/costume/sound
The next step is to get the group to work on the grids using the
'Kaleidography' score. That's using grids and scores that Ms. Keiley has
from previous productions.

Day 4: Pre-Directing a production
This session will concentrate on turning physical and aural 'Kaleidography'
into acting and blocking and the notion of Pre-Directing a production.
We'll talk about the actor's role in this and the differing approaches to
text and development that this process calls for.

Day 5: Right back to synchronicity.
This is the session where participants will pull the works together.

DETAILS
The workshop takes place Monday, March 1 to Friday, March 5 from 6:30 pm to
10:00 pm at the Touchstone Theatre Rehearsal Space. Registration fees are
$200 (+gst) for non-members after February 19th and $175 (+gst) for members
of Rumble Productions. For more information, check out the Rumble website
at www.rumble.org or contact Adrienne Wong (604) 662-3395, awong at rumble.org.