PEP | Performers Exchange Project

The performers started by their usual warm-ups, and then reviewed the dances. Lest rehearsal grind to a halt so early, Martha named Doreen as Dance Captain since Katharine was not here to lead them and my videos from last rehearsal weren’t working and certain areas were, um, spotty.

Martha combined the performers’ individual chair etudes into one, putting them all on the floor together, with Kay as teacher and the others as students in their chairs.  This work continued throughout the weekend, with Martha introducing different dynamics and the performers working on their own material but sharing the space with the others and letting that information influence them. I do believe a scene is forming…

Doreen played on the swing but isn’t content with the rigging yet and her grip yet; Kay creeped us out wonderfully with her Big Bad Wolf/Mother material; Sian and Jennifer worked on combining Sian’s fan material with Jennifer’s striptease etude. I am finding us the right shoes.

The group did table work where we reviewed the structure of the piece and ideas for what text we are using where.

And finally, note to self: never send funny YouTube videos to Martha if you don’t want to see them in our play!  Martha had them choose and learn a few steps from the groovy Gwen Verdon number “Mexican Breakfast” and from the contortionist trio The Ross Sisters (“Solid Potato Salad”). Genius, is the group consensus.

-Kara

In April, the Ann Sisters gang continued their work refining the dances that Katharine taught them (upper left photo). Currently there are 3 dances: one square dance-like number, one ballet-like number and one that involves marching. The square dance is very fast, but the gals kept at it until they had it cold. As with all the material created at this point in the process, we have no idea exactly how it will be used in the piece. (well, Martha might but she’s not telling).

The performers also worked on their individual etudes, exploring opposing dynamics suggested by Martha.(lower left photo)

See our Media page for video samples of this work.

Kara

 All the PEPsters were together again for our March working weekend. Martha joined us from down South and we spent all day Saturday and Sunday together (like we do) working on our show.  We made some headway on some of the administrative aspects of making theatre and had a good table work session on Sunday, and spent some time revisiting the material we have made so far, but the majority of our time was spent with the fabulous Katharine Birdsall. She is helping us with some dance aspects for the show. We spent most of Sat and Sun counting “one and two and three and…” and trying not to drive Katharine crazy. We did a little folk dancing and we did a little ballet and much like our 4 year old ballet counterparts spent more time than we should plotting our future ballet outfits! Let’s learn the stuff first, shall we?

All in all a good couple of days and a very interesting and educational experience. It is fascinating to navigate collaboration and communication with someone whose vocabulary is similar but just a bit different and we are looking forward to the rest of our work together with Katharine. We will be getting some Alexander schooling from her as well.

Sian

PEPster Jennifer Hoyt Tidwell will participate on the panel of the upcoming Charlottesville-Albemarle Community Foundation (CACF) Donors Roundtable on March 12th. This focus of this Roundtable will be a panel discussion titled, “Perspectives on the Charlottesville Area Nonprofit Arts Sector: Challenges, Needs, and Opportunities” and will include the following panelists:

· Maggie Guggenheimer, Director of Piedmont Council of the Arts

· George Sampson, UVa Lecturer in Arts Administration

· Jennifer Tidwell, co-founder of the Performers Exchange Project

· John Gibson, Director of Live Arts

We are proud to announce that Performers Exchange Project was just selected as a major recipient of the 2009 SHEA Collaborative grant funds for our project Our American Ann Sisters.

The SHEA Collaborative promotes innovative collaboration in the Charlottesville area among groups, organizations and individuals active in the areas of Service, Humanities, Education and the Arts and encourages the development of events and programs that engage underserved communities.

Hey there, blog readers. Jennifer here. Our most recent rehearsal took place without our director, the evil genius Martha “The Baroness” Mendenhall. A few weeks ago, Sian, Kara, Doreen, Kay and I gathered at our rehearsal space with the task of creating a group etude (our term for a repeatable sequence of physical actions) based on and including the text written by our guest performer Kay Ferguson. The scene Kay wrote was inspired by an incident in Eliza Peabody’s life, where America’s first playwright Royall Tyler (The Contrast) comes for a visit and the room is clearly charged with tension. It is clear that Royall has had dalliances with at least 2 members of the family. Martha had hilariously suggested that 30 minutes might be enough to come up with the etude. Hahahahaha!!!

As it turned out, after warmup (Mao exercises, vocal, singing I Hunger & Thirst) we needed to hash out in a discussion which parts of the scene we all deemed essentially and necessary for our etude. We also had to figure out who would be playing which role and which roles could be cut out. Even though it took awhile, it was still pretty amazing how smoothly we worked out some sort of scheme to base our etude on. We decided that aside from Kay (who would play the Royall Tyler
role) the rest of us should play a character closest to the Peabody Sister we were already researching for Transcendental America, the working title of our performance. Sian is Sophia, Doreen is Mary, and I’m Elizabeth.

Thanks to Darren Hoyt and Category 4, PEP has a new bloggy website site. Please tell us what you think.