CREATIVE AND PERFORMATIVE STRATEGIES

With decades of creating, Ricketts brings a generosity of spirit in her offerings of a wide range of principles, concepts and strategies towards creative processes. Ricketts likens this to an hour glass in that she takes the breadth and scope of her dance practices and filters it through the centre part of the hour glass where a distillation results, offering fundamental strategies that can then fan out to each individual participant who then experiments and implements according to personal context and conditions.

 

The work of a professional artist intertwines life experiences and creation and this workshop recognizes this in embracing lived experiences with goals and aspirations in both creating and performing. We will attend to this by addressing the skills entailed in all aspects of a creative process from cultivating a community to explicit communication, generating dynamic material to fostering creative voice and a deep sensitivity with the creative participants of any process.

 

These skills will transfer from how to work with dancers as well as others in a creative team such as designers, technicians and administrators. We are in a time where entrepreneurial skills are paramount in complimenting the practice of an artist and these skills do not need to compromise a radical creative process but rather augment it for optimal effectiveness. I am passionate about the synergy between these skill bases and will delight in the teaching process highlighting this integration.

 

Below are descriptions of the advanced technique class as well as an overview of the components and modules we will be exploring over the week.

The class begins with identifying physical pathways and initiators of movement in the body. The focus is on strengthening core, lengthening muscles from core to extremity and understanding the relationship between bone, muscle and energy impulses.  The class develops with a focus on harnessing a range of techniques, working athletically with changing levels and notions of the floor as a partner. The class continues with alignment focus and elongating large muscle groups and develops in to joint mobilization and weight shifts and continues to more complex movement sequences involving rhythm, levels, room orientation and both flow and punctuation in quality of movement. The class ends with jumps across the floor and concludes with a warm down combining long slow stretches with sustained positions encouraging both length and strength in muscles and open release in joints.

Relationships, Generating Material, Personal Narratives from Prompters, Sound, Voice, Character, Critical Conversations, Drawings and Charting, Working from Visual Art, Place Based and Site specific. 

Working with props, working with music and sound, working with images, working with dance elements, working with imposed structures and strategies for generating movement.

 

The workshop will be divided into parts of thorough explanations with examples of philosophies, techniques and methods, to experimentations and implementations, to reflections and constructive feedback.

Kathryn Ricketts - has been working for the past 45 years in the field of dance, theatre and visual arts, performing and teaching throughout Europe, South America, Africa, Australia and Canada. Her work in studios, galleries, theatres and environmental sites focuses on social /political issues with dance, theatre, text and visual art as the languages. Her Doctoral research furthered this into areas of literacy, embodiment and cultural studies with a method she has coined Embodied Poetic Narrative.  She is a Full Professor in the Faculty of Education in the University of Regina as the chair of the Dance area. She runs The Listening Lab, a visual and performing arts ‘incubator’ and presents exhibitions and performances in her loft in the John Deere Tractor Building. Since her arrival in Regina, 2014, she has been active on community boards and actively taught and created through several studios in the city, across the country and in Europe. Her, research, teaching and service continues to thrive within dance/theatre performative scholarship and she continues to be active in her collaborations globally with her multi-media and interdisciplinary performances.