The Active Noodle Bowl is coming to St. John's Shorts and We are Looking for Ensemble Members.
Active Noodle Bowl by Kevin Woolridge
The Active Noodle Bowl
At one of our ensemble rehearsals, someone described us as an Active Noodle Bowl. Everyone laughing and bubbling around together.
What a perfect description.
Thanks so much to Kevin Woolridge for creating this illustration especially for us!
I'm delighted to announce that we’ll be presenting some new ensemble/noodle bowl work at St. John's Shorts this year, using Responsive Ensemble Framework.
The piece is also part of the Present Text Project and goes hand in hand with the approach to classical text I explored in Dream Devised.
Present Text
I'm interested in how we can approach existing texts in a way that gives performers more authorship and allows the material to arrive in the present day.
Some texts resonate exactly as they are. Others have bits that feel a little ouchy in present context. I'm interested in what happens when we give artists the opportunity to decide for themselves what their relationship to the material is.
What resonates?
What creates discord?
What do you want to hold on to?
What do you want to push against?
For Shorts, we're working with John Steinbeck's letter to his son, Thom, which includes the famous line, "Nothing good gets away."
What's particularly fun for me is that I'm approaching this as a movement theatre director and choreographer rather than a traditional theatre director. We're not particularly concerned with narrative or linear structure. We're working with movement, relationships, resonance, and the choices artists make in response to source text and to one another.
I provide a framework, but I'm not particularly interested in prescribing what the work has to become. That's something we discover together.
Expanding the Ensemble
I'm looking for folks with strong movement and performance backgrounds to join us!
You may have worked with me before, or you may just be interested in doing so.
A big part of my work is creating the room. Ensemble work asks a lot of the people in it. You need to be able to focus, offer grace to the people around you, and be willing to dive into something without necessarily knowing where it's going.
Immaculate vibes only, obviously.
Practicalities
Rehearsals
Sunday, November 1, 2–5 PM
Sunday, November 8, 2–5 PM
Tuesday, November 10, technical rehearsal (we can work around availability)
Performances
Tuesday, November 10
Thursday, November 12
Sunday, November 15
There's an artist honorarium of $150 per person, and I'm happy to profit-share anything we make above and beyond that through Shorts.
The piece is 7 minutes and no line memorization is required.
If this sounds like something you'd like to be part of, reach out!