Summer Residency
2012 Summer Residencies
Stephan Koplowitz/John King Residency with Performance
for Performance Artists, Dancers, Choreographers, Instrumentalists and Composers
Dates: June 19 – June 30, 2012
La MaMa Umbria International, Spoleto, Italy
Click Here for Application Form
Moving the Inside Outside
Theory, Process, Creation and Performance
A ten-day residency using site-specific performance with veteran site artist Stephan Koplowitz and renowned composer John King, utilizing the La Mama/Umbria villa and the city of Spoleto as a living laboratory. Participants will immerse themselves into the process and strategies of making site specific performance work. Utilizing creative tools and techniques, this residency will immerse participants in different concepts and modalities of site-specific creation, collaboration and performance. The unique environment, history and natural beauty of the region, will serve as a catalyst for exploration and creation. Performance artists, dancers, choreographers, instrumentalists and composers with a background in dance, choreography, music and theater are welcome to apply for this intensive residency which will culminate in a public performance of a site work created under the direction of Koplowitz and King.
Participants working with Stephan Koplowitz:
Some of the areas of research during the residency will be prompted by the following questions: How do we define what is site-specific? and how does it relate to our own body and other bodies?What is the relationship between body and site image? Site design and function? How can we create movement/text and improvisational scores from these relationships. How do the practical production aspects of site work influence the creative process and product? The aim of this residency is to give each participant a new perspective on site work and on their own creative process.
Participants working with John King:
We are looking for singers, brass and percussion performer/composers interested in exploring the sonic possibilities of site-specific performance in collaboration with movers/dancers/actors. We will be collectively creating work through classes with the aim of a final performance at sites in Spoleto. Music participants will work with John King in collective composition, improvisation and chance-determined methods for engaging with the other musicians and dancers throughout the 10-day period. The work will be focused on a final performance but will also leave the participants with new ways of working collaboratively in their own individual future projects.
John King
JOHN KING is a world-renowned composer, guitarist and violist, who has worked collaboratively with many ensembles, string quartets, choreographers and directors. He has had commissions from the Kronos and Ethel string quartets that have led to an ongoing relationship of developing new works. Since 1985 he has been a composer and musician with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company working alongside John Cage and David Tudor. From 2003 until the closing of MCDC in Dec. 2011 he was a Co-Director of the Music Committee for the Company; curating, composing and performing the music for their many performances including MCDC’s final 2-year Legacy Tour. He has written 3 operas: herzstück/heartpiece, based on the text of Heiner Müller, premiered at the 1999 Warsaw Autumn Festival; la belle captive based on texts by Alain Robbe-Grillet, which premiered at Teatro Colon/CETC in Buenos Aires in 2003; and also his most recent opera, Dice Thrown, based on the Stéphane Mallarmé poem, performed in excerpt by the New York City Opera in May 2008; and in a complete staged version which was premiered at CalArts in April, 2010. It was during this working period when King first collaborated with Stephan Koplowitz in bringing movement and music together for the opera. He has 3 recent CD releases of music for string quartet; 10 Mysteries and AllSteel (Tzadik); and Ethel (Cantaloupe). And he is also the recipient of the 2009 Alpert Award in the Arts for Music. http://www.johnkingmusic.com
STEPHAN KOPLOWITZ is an award winning director/choreographer known for his work on stage, film and creating original site-specific multi-media works for architecturally significant sites. His site work aims to alter people’s perspectives of place, site, and scale, all infused with a sense of the human condition. Since 1984 he has created 62 works and has been awarded 42 commissions. He is the recipient of a 2004 Alpert Award in the Arts (Dance), a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography, a 2000 New York Dance and Performance Award, “Bessie” for “Sustained Achievement” in Choreography and six NEA Choreography Fellowships from (1988-97). His work for the stage has been produced and commissioned for eight seasons at NYC’s Dance Theater Workshop (now NY Live Arts) from 1987-2006 and has toured to several venues in the US. He has created a body of text-based work that is a true integration of dance and theater such as Thicker Than Water (featuring Stuart Hodes), War With the Newts (by Karel Copek) created in collaboration with award winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire. In addition, he has been produced by Dancing in the Streets, the American Dance Festival, “Serious Fun” at Lincoln Center, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the Bates Dance Festival, London’s Dance Umbrella Festival, Choreographic Center, Essen, Germany, Dance Place of Washington D.C., and many other venues. He recently created a site touring company, Stephan Koplowitz: TaskForce, with residencies and performances in Idyllwild and Los Angeles in 2008 and Plymouth, UK in 2009 with an upcoming residency in Houston in 2012. He is contributor and featured in the first book on site-specific choreography, Site Dance, published by Florida University Press (2009, and now in paperback 2011). His recent projects have included collaborating, as choreographer with composer John King on his new multi media opera based on Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem Un Coup de Dés Jamais N’Abolira Le Hasard (A Throw of the Dice will Never Abolish Chance), which had its premiere at the CalArts Modular Theater, 2010. After 23 years of living in NYC, and teaching at various schools and universities, Koplowitz, in 2006, moved to Los Angeles to direct as dean and teach at The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at CalArts. ( www.koplowitzprojects.com & www.youtube.com/user/lanycart )
LA MAMA UMBRIA INTERNATIONAL
Participants may reside at La MaMa Umbria, located in the Umbrian hillside just outside the town of Spoleto OR participants may reside in artist housing in the town of Spoleto. Attendees eat meals prepared on-site or at nearby restaurants.
FEE
You will notice a difference between participating as an artist in this Residency, as opposed to taking a Workshop in one of our other Programs. The Residency is not intended as a class or workshop; you will be dancing/composing and playing music as part of the creation of a new work, which will be performed at the La MaMa Spoleto Open Festival.
Participants who are selected through the Application Process have the option of taking care of housing and meals on their own, or participating in our plan. The two options are below:
OPTION ONE: Participation in the Residency: $600
OPTION TWO: Participation in the Residency plus Housing and some Meals: $1,500
Please indicate which OPTION you prefer on your Application Form.
REGISTRATION FORM AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Space is limited. Registrants will be accepted into the Program based on the Application being accepted, resume and work samples received and perhaps a telephone interview if deemed necessary. Applicants must fill out the Application Form. A deposit of $500 is due with the registration form. $100 of the deposit is a non-refundable processing fee (unless the Residency is already full or you are not accepted into the Program.)
All fees should be paid in US dollars in the form of checks or money orders payable to La MaMa ETC. In the case that a participant cannot attend the Symposium after having paid, 50% of the fee will be refunded if the participant cancels by June 1st, 2012. After this date, the fee will not be refundable.