Workshops – Interdisciplinary Arts Lab 2024

Esther Baker-Tarpaga (Philadelphia, PA)
Nicholson Billey (New York, NY)
Pascal Buyse (Brussels, Belgium)
Neva Cockrell (Wallkill, New York)
Lacina Coulibaly (New Haven, CT/Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso)
Martín Lanz Landázuri (Mexico City, Mexico)
Arely Landeros (Mexico City, Mexico)
Paulina Ruiz-Carballido (Paris, France/Oaxaca, Mexico)
Raphael Sacks (Wallkill, New York)
Zornitsa Stoyanova (Sofia, Bulgaria)

Friday, August 9th

2-4pm
• Naturing Improvising with Esther Baker-Tarpaga
• Society-Critical Performance Through Reenactment with Pascal Buyse

4:30-6:30pm  
• Thinking Body, Dancing Mind: an embodied approach to dance and voice in improvisation with Zornitsa Stoyanova
• Resonancia with Martín Lanz Landázuri

7-8:30pm  
Roundtable Discussion  RSVP Here!>>> 

Saturday, August 10th

10am-12pm
• I N I O (Heart): a choreographic and somatic workshop with Paulina Ruiz Carballido
• Honesty and Confusion in the Body with Raphael Sacks

1:30-3:30pm
• Spontaneously Creating through Movement and Voice with Neva Cockrell
• Imperfect Relationality with Nicholson Billey

4-6pm
• A Love Letter to Self and Place with Arely Landeros
• In Search of the Subtle Body with Lacina Coulibaly

DAY 1:

Naturing Improvising with Esther Baker-Tarpaga
Friday, August 9, 2:00-4:00pm

A physical warm up with music
Connecting with the others and the space, land, inside and outside
Archives in our body
Memories of movement while listening in the present
You can dance You can draw
Holding/flowing with our created community container
Material making

​This workshop will take place both indoors and outdoors.

Esther Baker-Tarpaga (MA, MFA UCLA) is a choreographer, interdisciplinary artist, parent, educator, and massage therapist. She co-organizes projects that are multidisciplinary, site-responsive, and collectively derived. She recently performed at NJafane Festival and La Ville En Mouv’ement in Dakar, Senegal. She organized an Earthday event in West Philly with Painted Bride with dance, line drumming, storytelling, free massages, and a litter pick-up. She is co-founder of Propelled Animals, an interdisciplinary arts collective and recipients of a MAP Grant and USAI Fund. She is an incubated artist at Headlong Philadelphia and currently an Adjunct Faculty at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance.
www.propelledanimals.org | Instagram | www.madronemassage.com | Instagram | www.thinkingdance.net | www.inquirer.com

Society-Critical Performance Through Reenactment with Pascal Buyse​​
Friday, August 9, 2:00pm-4:00pm

​During this workshop we will explore ways to convert real (political) events and the thoughts and feelings they evoke into movement and how they manifest in the body. We will start with exercises to loosen the body and build confidence within the group. How can we visualize personal emotions and thoughts through the body? We do this with attention to subtlety and nuance. From this exploration we will develop movement patterns and analyze the temporal and spatial choices. By meeting through touch, shared fictions and energetic exchanges, the goal is to playfully embrace risk and discover the bliss of vulnerability.

Pascal Buyse is a Belgian theater artist who identifies as queer and works at BRONKS in Brussels, dedicated to young audiences. With a belief in the importance of creativity and inclusivity, Pascal views theater as a platform for conversations and self expression. By engaging with children, teenagers and adults in Brussels he encourages them to share their stories and make their voices heard. Beyond the stage he advocates for LGBTQ+ rights using art to promote equality and diversity. Through experimental approaches to physical theater Pascal challenges traditional forms of communication by focusing on body language and visual impact. His work blends dance, theater and social issues while addressing emotions and social justice themes. Pascal’s creative process often delves into identity struggles, assimilation dilemmas and the essence of individuality—prompting his audience to reflect on our society.
www.pascalbuyse.com

Thinking Body, Dancing Mind: an embodied approach to dance and voice in improvisation with Zornitsa Stoyanova​​
Friday, August 9, 4:30pm-6:30pm

Resonancia with Martín Lanz Landázuri
Friday, August 9, 4:30pm-6:30pm

We will address the experience of inhabiting a space by creating interaction dynamics through movement, listening and architecture. These practices will help us transfer and transform information from one form to another, generating materials to discover a different space that allows us to have a new experience of both the body and the environment. Participants will be in contact with various surfaces and materials, please bring appropriate clothing and footwear for this. (see this link). This workshop will take place outdoors.

Interdisciplinary performance artist and arts manager Martín Lanz Landázuri‘s work has been developed either through creating pieces or organizing events, thought collaborations, and exchanges. A combination and approach to the body and movement via sound, color, architecture, or science. A.I.R of Movement Research 2009, with a journey permeated by many different cultural engagements and interactions that create emergencies that get embodied in his identity and sometimes in others. Martín’s work and laboratory experiences have taken him to NYC, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Uruguay…and back to Mexico. YouTube

DAY 2:

I N I O (Heart): a choreographic and somatic workshop with Paulina Ruiz Carballido
Saturday, August 10, 10:00am-12:00pm

I N I O is a word in Tnu’u Dau (a variant of Mixtec, a language spoken in the Mixteca alta in the state of Oaxaca in southern México) that means “heart”. This workshop is an open space to dive into our body-sound-landscape based on somatic work inspired by Body Mind Centering®. I N I O invites participants to move and express themselves to experiment with our dynamic embodied anatomy and body systems through sensory and sensitive experiences. We will be working with eyes closed, eyes opened, moving from the pericardium and heart, breath and voice, using touch and different types of listening.

I N I O propose a time and space to dance and sing in interdependence with the rivers and oceans dancing inside and surrounding our bodies, between our bones, our organs, our membranes, inside our cells and our joints. At the end of the workshop, we will have an open studio, a polyphonic and poetic performance with choreographic and somatic scores trying to answer the question: How can we create community together?

Paulina Ruiz Carballido is a dancer and choreographer interested in creating spaces of experimentation to reveal the interactions, confrontations and resonances of a body-voice in becoming, of a becoming world. She creates choreographic projects in which she weaves connections based on ancestry and mythology, attempting to decolonize knowledge from the body in resonance with community, the dancing voice, landscape, poetry and nature. She collaborates, resonates and intervenes as a choreographic artist, dancer and teacher in different projects, contexts and constellations of artists to sow other possibilities of cohabitation, peace, support and trust. Her choreographic, transmission, research and screendance work has been presented in festivals in Latin America, USA, Canada and Europe. Since July 2024, Paulina is a certified BMC Somatic Movement Educator® from the School SOMA (FR). www.paulinaruizcarballido.com | www.collectifvidda.com

Honesty and Confusion in the Body with Raphael Sacks​​
Saturday, August 10, 10:00am-12:00pm

This approach to the creative process uplifts Confusion as a source of honesty, humility and humanity, and a wellspring for creating new performances. Instead of inflated ego and polarized righteousness, Raphael (Raffles) Sacks will create space for not knowing, bewilderment, and also the silliness that comes from straight up confusion. We will be moving, writing, and sounding, to sketch new choreographies, characters, stories and songs. Raffles’ approach to the creative process leaves you self-directed, non-prescriptive, exploring movement in a way that makes use of all the technique you’ve got, and stays fully accessible for all bodies.​

Raphael (Raffles) Sacks is a singer, dancer and theatermaker, born and raised in NYC.
Co-Director of www.LoomEnsemble.com (2010) Co-Founder of www.WildHeartCenter.art (2022)
Internationally, they’ve performed with the English National Opera in London; Loom Ensemble’s annual performance season in Dubai, three summers with Theater Slava in Stockholm, and with the Art Monastery Project at dozens of venues in Italy, Belgium, Sweden and Berlin. NYC highlights include Lincoln Center with Urban Research Theatre, New York Philharmonic with Constellation Chor, BAM with Meredith Monk, and La MaMa with Loom.
www.raphaelsacks.com | Facebook

Spontaneously Creating through Movement and Voice with Neva Cockrell
Saturday, August 10, 1:30-3:30pm

We will explore what happens when we allow authentic expression out as movement and voice. We will start moving and sounding from our personal experience of what’s alive in the moment. Then we will share improvised movement / sound solos building on the warm-up. This will lead us into ensemble work – first through guided exercises and then into structured improvisation. We will conclude by creating a semi-structured group movement and sound piece composed of solos and group work. All experiences with movement and voice are welcome, there will be options to modify any movement or sound to fit your body.

Neva Cockrell (she/her) is a professional dancer and interdisciplinary artist. She danced with Pilobolus from 2016-2019 and as Dance Captain 2017-2019, touring to Germany, Switzerland, Austria, China, Mexico, Israel, Dubai, and the U.S. She is also a writer/director/choreographer who uses dance-theater as a tool for social change. In 2010 she co-founded Loom Ensemble, which has toured across the US, Europe, and the United Arab Emirates for 14 years. She is the co-founder and co-director of WildHeart: Center for Performance and Embodiment practice, where she now lives and works in the Hudson Valley, NY. www.loomensemble.com | www.wildheartcenter.art | Facebook | Instagram

Imperfect Relationality with Nicholson Billey
Saturday, August 10, 1:30pm-3:30pm
​
The context of this workshop is an exploratory offering to (re)engage in an imperfect, simple, and less linear connectivity toward and for the self and what surrounds the self. This workshop aspires to gently (re)call our underlying ability and capacity to be with our Selves and others within a social engagement system where we might (re)generate an elemental, supportive, and imperfect remembrance for the self, others, the collective, and our creative making. We’ll access our imperfect connectivity from our interior to the exterior and from the exterior to our interior through simple breathing, sound and movement, improvisation, imagery sketching, witnessing, and improvised presentations.

​Nicholson (Nic) Billey is of the Chahta and Mvskoke People of Oklahoma and is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. While obtaining a MFA in performance studies, Nic began to present his solo performance work that utilizes various poly-focal fundamentals from everydayness Native American experiences with aspects from drama therapy. Nic also holds an MA in drama therapy. www.nicholsonbilley.com | Instagram

A Love Letter to Self and Place with Arely Landeros
Saturday, August 10, 4:00pm-6:00pm

From a sensorial experience in the studio we sway to an urban exploration walking through the East Village neighborhood, wandering and feeling the connections between ourselves and the atmosphere of the space. To research the performative possibilities of the intimate self, emotions and the public sphere, we will compose an embodied letter to self and place.

All bodies are welcome. Bring your cellphone with enough memory space and full battery- it’s needed for the practice. Also bring what you may need to explore the outdoors by foot (sportswear and a small back pack with water, sunscreen, sunglasses, a snack, etc).

​Arely Landeros (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist. Her work explores the experience of communality through participative art and collaborative situations. Arely holds a degree in Social Psychology with experience in field work with vulnerable populations in the north border of México. She is currently working as cultural promoter and art mediator for museums and organizations in Mexico City, and Academic Curator of Laboratorio: Condensación, an encounter for artistic interdisciplinary experimentation and its relational context. Her current project, Micrópolis, a nomadic laboratory for psyco-geography and performative arts, is supported by the Secretariat of Culture of México. She has been a member of the International Interdisciplinary Artist Consortium since 2017. Vimeo | Instagram

In Search of the Subtle Body with Lacina Coulibaly
​Saturday, August 10, 4:00pm-6:00pm

In this immersive experience, we will explore the vibrant cultural heritage of West African Dance, delving into its underlying principles, profound philosophy, and the transformative power it exudes. Led by experienced instructor, Lacina Coulibaly, this session will focus on his ongoing research known as Sigini. Sigini is a comprehensive approach rooted in the fundamental principles of dance in Sub-Saharan Africa, encompassing the semantic, somatic, and pedagogical aspects of dance creation. By embracing sensations and allowing oneself to simply be, we are reminded of the importance of developing a delicate awareness of our bodies and movements. This process of self-discovery remains continuous, requiring consistency, patience, and an unwavering willingness to explore and experiment. These elements are pivotal in cultivating deeper body awareness and connection as a mover…

Lacina Coulibaly‘s career as a professional dancer is deeply rooted in traditional African dances, which he has merged with contemporary influences to create a unique choreographic expression. Originally from Bukina Faso, Lacina was a member of urban Dodo groups and later joined Les Bourgeons. In 1990, he became part of the traditional dance company Kongo Bâ, and three years later, began studying contemporary dance with choreographer Lassann Congo. In 1995, Lacina co-founded Cie Kongo Bâ Teria with Souleymane Badolo and Ousseni Sako. Their creations have toured the world and won international awards. Since 2007, Lacina has conducted performance projects and taught at several universities, including Brown, Sarah Lawrence, and Barnard College. He has danced with international dance companies such as Salia ni Seydou, Faso Danse Theatre, and Urban Bush Women. He has also collaborated with Emily Coates, Kota Yamakazi, Daria Fain and Nora Chipaumire (as assistant choreographer for Dark Swan). Lacina’s work, Until the Lion Tells the Story, premiered at NY LiveArts in Spring 2024. “Riveting presence in quiet command of the space” – New York Times. Currently, Lacina is the artistic director of Hakili Sigi and on the faculty at Yale University. Instagram