MFA Theatre-Performance Making

Transcription

1 MFA Theatre-Performance Making San Francisco arguably one of the more exciting things to happen in a local theater for a long time " Robert Avila, San Francisco Bay Guardian

2 2

3 Welcome! For the past three years, Chichester s Theatre faculty has been making friends, presenting work, exchanging ideas, throwing parties and having fun in the Bay Area. In the process we have brought a whole range of exciting artists from the UK and SF together with the shared commitment to exploring and empowering radical art through cross-communities. The Department of Theatre at the University of Chichester (UK) is continuing its San Francisco adventure with the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). What our two small, adventurous universities share is a passion for rigorous creative inquiry, radical interdisciplinarity, social engagement and an understanding of the power of artists as makers and leaders. Our goal is to create an international community of performance artists committed to breaking down old hierarchies and building more informal, more flexible, interactions. As we move toward our joint San Francisco Summer Intensive in 2014 and beyond towards establishing an international joint degree in Theatre-Performance Making within the fully-accredited two-year Master of Fine Arts (MFA) at CIIS we ll encourage bold new work, build upon the appetite for experimental performance in San Francisco, and seize upon opportunities for creative exchange in the UK. We invite you to join us for performances, workshops, symposia, and associated conversations and gatherings, starting this October with the arrival of our London-based creative production partners, Forest Fringe at our SF core collaborators, CounterPULSE, and onward: into 2014, through a series of workshops and performances and intensive programmes, which will be announced in due course. We are sure you will share our excitement and we look forward to meeting you! For more information or to join our mailing list, please contact us at [email protected] Visit: Follow us: Ben Francombe Head of Theatre University of Chichester UK Carolyn Cooke Chair, MFA Programs California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) San Francisco 3

4 Why choose to work with us? 6things that make us stand out Chichester has long been seen in the UK as a radical producing house for contemporary performance students: we pride ourself on a difference of approach. 1. Satisfied Students According to the UK National Student Survey, we have had, consistently, the most satisfied graduating drama students in the country. 2. Supported Artists We support more performance artists financially, intellectually and technically than any other UK Theatre department. Checkout the work of our main theatre, the ShowRoom, as a home for a community of artists. 3. Leading Artists (Artists Leading!) Our Department is driven by full-time faculty, who are leading artists in their own right. 4. Industry Partners We work with professional partners with the shared commitment to making innovation and radical experimentation economically sustainable. 5. New work: lots of new work! The sheer range, quality and quantity of performances our students produce: every year well over 200 original theatre pieces are made. 6. Responsibility Our passion for making theatre is predicated on a mission of inclusion and empowerment. Theatre should never exclude! 4

5 10things that make us tick. At the heart of the Chichester Theatre s mission are ten core and defining principles that are designed to empower the student/artist in theatreperformance making: 1. Theatre-performance making is artist-led At all stages of career development, the artist making the work dictates the process: he/she is his/her own leader working in a non-hierarchical context. Similarly, theatre-making should be accessible to all, irrespective of background, class, gender, orientation, or disability. 2. Universities should not prescribe an artists experience Training programmes should not be a series of isolated, time-based classes, but fluid and interactive sharing. 3. Critical ideas and cultural positions help to make the work as much as read the work The distinction often made between the practice of the artist and the theories of the academic is a false distinction artists need to be the leading thinkers in our discipline if it is to progress as an art-form. 4. Theatre-performance making blurs the roles and methodologies of traditional theatre making In our students work, the performance, direction, text and scenography of the work are the responsibility of the lead artist. 5. The process demands a respectful yet rigorous shared critical agenda The student-artist has a responsibility to check, question and criticise the work of fellow student-artists (and to encourage the same process upon his/her own work). This process is not framed in any cautious methodology, but embraced with a rhythm that has emerged naturally. 6. The process encourages a reassessment of interactivity with the audience Each piece of new work will have it s own original understanding of audience and reception. The show does not need to go on in any predetermined fashion or timescale. 7. Quantity and quality are not mutually exclusive Student-artists are encouraged to make a lot of work and each piece of work is considered on its own terms rather than with predefined status. 8. Art is made in-town Universities can no longer be isolated ivory towers ; similarly, Artists have to work in the same world as their work reflects. 9. Cultural (and geographical) exchange should inform emergent practice rather than established practice Our interest in other practices starts with what is happening at the grassroots of other communities: we are less concerned with trophy gigs by leading artists. 10. Universities can be funding bodies and should support emergent artists in as many ways as they can Money matters. 5

6 What are our plans? MFA Theatre-Performance Making * The MFA Theatre-Performance Making is being developed for launch in As a professional masters programme, the MFA would provide an unparalleled opportunity for emergent and established theatre makers, based in the Bay Area, who want time and space to make high-quality theatre work and establish or refine their creative and professional identity. Key Features: Development of individual professional practice in an artist-led community at the heart of San Francisco; Constant opportunities to share work; Intensive mentoring from established professional artists; Internship associations with partner venues in San Francisco; A wide range of showcasing opportunities; Diverse and radical modes of learning and teaching; UK exchange period as integral to the programme. The second annual Z Space Summer Intensive, June/July 2014 Following on from the highly successful first Z Space Summer Intensive, run by Louie Jenkins and Mark Jackson in 2013, we are already planning next year (dates to be confirmed soon!). The Intensive is designed to explore devising techniques, which place the artist-maker at the centre of the process, leading to exciting sharing opportunities at Z Space, our Intensive Partner. For insight into last years experience, read Rob Avila s review at The CIIS Public Programs We are delighted to be working alongside the renowned public-engagement activities at CIIS, who are allies in the drive for accessible and shared artistic engagement within the San Francisco cultural community. We are planning a range of workshops, talks and micro-performance, based in CIIS over the coming year, designed to keep performance-making at the heart of Bay Area creative debate. Keep in touch with this vibrant program by visiting: *subject to approval 6

7 7

8 What some of our colleagues, artists and partners say about working with Chichester in the UK and San Francisco Brian Lobel (Senior Lecturer and inernationally-renowned Artist: Chichester is an inspiring community of artists and thinkers. Since joining the faculty in 2012 I have been astounded by the energy for, and commitment to, making new theatre and performance. And it s not just me who notices: every one of the artists who connects with us tells me that Chichester is rare and incredibly special. I find the environment supportive but rigorous, thoughtful but not pretentious, daring but considered. Pete Phillips (Senior Lecturer and one-half of performance duo Search Party: org.uk) The relationship between staff and students at Chichester feels more like a vibrant community of artists than an institution. The informal dialogues that are prevalent in the place contribute to this dynamic: supporting, developing and nurturing good ideas whenever and wherever they occur. We re a small community of makers, making together, curious and inspired by each other. Rob Jude Daniels (Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of Bootworks: Chichester is an exciting place to work and teach. Always moving and evolving with the industry and world around it, and always centred on empowering and equipping students (and professional artists) with the skills and resources they need to make original and new work. Louie Jenkins (Senior Lecturer, artist and writer; director of the Chichester/Z Space Summer Intensive, SF July 2013) As an artist/academic in Chichester, it was a privilege to work with such an inspiring team at Z Space in San Francisco. The summer intensive proved a strong collaborative process based around a shared vision of making dynamic and engaging theatre and fostering artistic communities: here s to a shared future!. Mark Jackson (Bay Area-based Director, Writer and Performer and Chichester Associate Artist/Lecturer) My experiences with the University of Chichester and its artists their rigor, flexibility, innovation, ethics, and generosity have been eye-opening. Their ongoing projects in San Francisco, and especially the MFA, mean great things for the Bay Area arts scene. Read more on the Chichester/SF Project from Mark by visiting: International-MFA-in-Theatre-Performance- Making.cfm Erika Chong Shuch (Leading Bay Area-based Artist and project consultant: I have no doubt that a community of artists pursuing their MFA in the new Chichester + CIIS collaboration will affect the ecology of the Bay Area performance scene in energizing and necessary ways. Every interaction I ve had with the Chichester folks has left me questioning the priorities within my own work, which has been unsettling, invigorating, and very, very, exciting" 8

9 9

10 10

11 Gemma Paintin (from Action Hero: celebrated international artists and Forest Fringe/Chichester Associates Artists/Lecturers: It's such a pleasure to work with an institution as progressive and forward thinking as University of Chichester, they always have the creative process at the heart of everything they do. Jemma MacDonnell Artistic Director, The Paper Birds: Award-winning, Leeds-based Theatre Collective and Chichester Associate Artists: As a graduate of the Masters programme, supported artist and associate lecturer, I feel wellplaced to attest to Chichester s continued support for artists: a community that has given us breathing space to develop our artistic identity and creative politic. I am delighted by their ambition and have felt excited to be part of their project. Susanne Andrade (Artistic Director of 1927: international superstars, whose hit show The Animals and Children took to the Street was commissioned and supported by Chichester: The University of Chichester has been enormously supportive of Providing space, invaluable technical advice and constructive criticism: Chichester has been a fantastic stimulant to our work. Few other Universities understand the needs of artists and their work quite like Chichester does. Lisa Steindler (Artistic Director, Z Space, SF Venue Partner and Collaborator: Working with the artists from Chichester was not only invigorating and inspiring, it made me look at everything we do at Z Space in a new way. How we make art, who we make it for and what we make. These are wild times and we want to play in the arena with the best and innovative theatre makers. Chichester is bringing that to Z Space and San Francisco. Andy Field (Co-director, Forest Fringe: Leading UK creativeproducing company and Chichester professional partners: In our experience there are very few places in the UK that provide such a generously trusting environment for artists as Chichester. They implicitly understand that what an artist needs most is the space to figure out their own process, to work out for themselves what they are doing and how they are doing it. What we get from Chichester is a degree of responsibility and a sensitivity to the peculiarities of trying to make theatre happen that we would struggle to find anywhere else. Image credits: Suzanne Andrade, The Paper Birds, Bootworks, Bryony Campbell, James Faerron, Louie Jenkins, Gemma Paintin, Aaron Reeves, Lisa Steindler, Box Tracy, Jemima Yong. 11

12 Further Information: The University of Chichester Department of Theatre Programmes: BA (Hons) Theatre MA Performance (Theatre) (Theatre Collectives) PhD/MPhil Dance/Theatre MFA Theatre-Performance Making (San Francisco 2015)* MA Theatre, Education and Youth (2015)* Visit our Websites: Follow us on Twitter: Contact us direct: California Institute of Integral Studies Department of Writing, Consciousness and Creative Inquiry Programs: Visit our Website: Contact us direct: MFA Writing and Consciousness MFA Creative Inquiry Interdisciplinary Arts *subject to approval Our partners: