Invitation to Kinitiras Composers and Choreographers Residency
Facilitated by Joe Tornabene and Thalia Ditsa
A total of 6 weeks (29 hours) of common exploration and collaboration time, and 3 final performance days
In this prototype residency choreographers and composers are invited to work closely together to devise new performance. The residency is designed for composers and choreographers who want to experience new ways of creating, exploring and collaborating. It leaves the hierarchic questions of which comes first- the choreography or the music- outside of our working frame, and invites participants into a pairing relationship, where they will work from a soma-generated process. This process requires openess to exploring, sensing and sharing new- out of the box- ways of making work. The residency begins in November 2017 and completes with performances on 9-10-11/12/2017. It consists of 7 meetings of shared explorations.
In more detail:
- 3 choreographers will be pairing with 3 composers in this laboratory and their common explorations will be culminating in performance, at the end of the residency, at the Kinitiras venue. Through this, composers interested in dance and choreographers will have the opportunity to work, explore, experiment and play while getting to know each other,with the possibility of these collaborations continuing to evolve after the Residency.
- The participants will share 29 hours of common exploration and follow a common creative process built from this experience. The exploration will be based in soma-generated experiencing.
- Body, space and energy will be the common base for these explorations.
- Topics of the explorations include experiential anatomy; sensing and bringing the full body awareness into the creation process (embodiment); sensing the kinesthetic and sound dynamics into space and time; expanding expressive range through the above processes; focusing on energetic transformation as a key element of kinesthetic experience and communication; working with (energized) space. All the above will be applied to the sound/movement relationship.
- Choreographers are expected to find their own performers and composers their own musicians and deal with the extra rehearsal-making time practicalities with some facilitation from the Residency.
- During this process participants are expected to try new ways of creating/ collaborating-experimenting with their creation processes.
- Scheduled group meetings:
Monday 6, 13, 27/11/2017 13.00-17.00
Monday 20/11/2017 19.30-22.30
Weekend 2-3/12/2017 18.00-23.00
Monday 4/12/2017 13.00-17.00, plus 19.30-22.30 technical rehearsal
Friday 8/12/2017 20.30-13.00 dress rehearsal
Performances 9,10,11/12/2017 (Saturday-Sunday-Monday) at 21.15 at Kinitiras
Participation Fee Sliding Scale* (to cover some of the costs): 50-80 €
* Sliding scale: I pay the best I can between the suggested prices
Contact: If you want to participate as a composer/ choreographer in this Residency, please send a cv and a letter of interest, highlighting your motivation for taking part in this project. For choreographers, experience in somatics is desirable. Application deadline: 15/10/2017. Full availability for the shared meetings, rehearsals and performances is required. If you are a choreographer please contact Thalia (thaliaditsa@yahoo.gr), if you are a composer please contact with Joe (tornabene3@gmail.com).
Cvs of facilitators:
Joe Tornabene
contact: tornabene3@gmail.com, fb: Joe Tornabene
Award winning multimedia musician, stage and film actor and sound designer, Joe Tornabene has been sound designing, performing, composing, and exploring performance practice for music, dance and theatre for over 40 years. He has been researching the dynamics and creative possibilities of improvisation and embodied performance practice in multimedia contexts in the USA and Europe. He has taught experiential workshops concerned with the relationships of Performance, embodiment, movement, music, sound, and improvisation in major dance, theatre and music academies in 10 countries.
Experience in the Dance/ Music Relationship
- Former Music Director and Professor of Music for Dance, resident composer for dance, for the Department of Dance and Choreography of Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond ,VA, USA.
- School for New Dance Development, SNDO, Amsterdam. Faculty, taught Experiential Listening
- Music Director/Composer, RoseAnne Spradlin & Dancers, New York City
- Studied Sound Sources for Dance with John Hurbert MacDowell, Paul Taylor’s music director, at The New School, New York
- Performer, Lathos Kinisi Dance, Athens, in 6 major works including The Last Empty Man, Choreography of the Year Award, 2000.
- Performer, Dagipolis Dance Company, Athens
- Dance Accompaniment – studied with Lynn Stanford at the American Ballet Theatre, New York. Accompanied some of America’s finest choreographers including Molissa Fenley, Doug Varone, Dan Wagoner, Diane McIntyre, Bill Evans and Ron Brown, as well as members of the Bill T. Jones Company and the Alvin Ailey Company.
- Former officer of the International Guild of Musicians in Dance
- Dance Festivals, workshops presented: The American Dance Festival, The Bates Dance Festival, Akropoditi Dancefest, Syros, July, 2017, with Thalia Ditsa
- Published interviews and articles in international journals include: Contact Quarterly, USA, Xopos (Horos), Athens, Nouvelles de Danse, Brussels, Journal of the International Guild of Musicians in Dance, USA, Dancewriting, USA, Improfil, Berlin
- Two of his sound designs have been placed in the permanent collection of the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts in New York.
- His music composition for the choreographic piece “To Bleed Willingly and Joyfully”, choreographed by Chris Burnside in 1992, has been added to the Permanent Special Collections of the Virginia Commonwealth University Library, Richmond, VA, USA, 2017
- Grant Awards include those from the Vogelstein Foundation (New York), the City of St. Paul, the Minnesota Independent Choreographers Alliance, The Virginia Arts Council, the Netherland-America Foundation and the School for New Dance Development (SNDO), Amsterdam
In Greece, he has taught in schools and studios including Nellie Karra’s Advanced School of Dramatic Arts, APXH, Deree College, Kinitiras Dance Theatre, Synergio Technon, Kodo Stage and Sinergatiko Studio, with Thalia Ditsa. He was an actor with Theatro Technis (The Art Theatre of Greece). He was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Award at the 46th Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Greece) 2005 for his role in Kyriakos Katzourakis’ film, Sweet Memory.
Joe Tornabene currently lives in Greece, continuing his performing and teaching in various venues.
Site:http://joetmusic.wix.com/joe-tornabene
Blog: http://joetmusic.wix.com/awarenessperformance
Thalia Ditsa:
contact:thaliaditsa@yahoo.gr, fb: Thalia Ditsa
Thalia was born in the U.K in 1978. She grew up in Crete, Greece. Dance has been a decisive experience through her early years, affecting her thoughts and imagination. She originated her studies in the field of Physics Science and then moved on to work/study into the field of body-based performance practices. She holds an MA in Choreography from Dartington College for the Arts -an institution whose openess and exploratory tradition she found quite inspiring for her ongoing research and practice.She has trained as a Pilates and Yoga instructor in Athens.She has collaborated as a performer with several choreographers in dance theater and butoh performances (Maria Aggelou, Emilia Bouriti, Afroditi Vervenioti, Sumako Koseki). She has choreographed short dance pieces ( A road to the world, Long Roads, Beyond the movement) and she has worked as a movement director in several theater and performance pieces (Erotokritos, A crazy day, Topos H2O, Love letters to Stalin, Birthday Party,Pic-Nic, Rozengratz and Gilldestern are dead ). Recently she completed postgraduate studies in Political Science and Sociology at University of Athens. She then participated in an educational project named ‘ Democratic Education’ promoting values and praxis of democracy through Greek schools (http://www.demopaideia.gr).
The experience of Butoh has been a strong influence to her. She has studied for many years with dancer and choreographer Sumako Koseki -with which she has also performed in a number of occasions and managed the productions of several performances and workshops in Athens.
Thalia has trained in Body-Mind Centering, and other embodied practices such as Feldenkrais, Klein technique, Butoh, Franklin Method, Sound Balancing, improvisation and physical theater.
She has been collaborating with musician- performer Joe Tornabene for the past two years into researching embodied performance practices crossing the field of dance, theater and sound.
She is seeking to create spaces where experience becomes the raw material for rethinking and evolving, in educational, artistic and personal growth directions. She has been teaching workshops and classes of creative movement, improvisation,embodied performance, meditation and movement for more than 10 years in Athens, in Crete and festivals for the performing arts (C.I. Crete, Chimeres-Athens, Akropoditi- Syros).