Workshops
This blog post is part of a series called Who Are They? where information is provided for the Maine Arts Ed blog readers to learn about community organizations and institutions that provide educational opportunities in the arts. You will learn that they are partnering with other organizations and schools to extend learning opportunities, not supplant. Please consider ways in which you can collaborate to provide excellent arts education for all learners.
This is the second of 5 blog posts about Celebration Barn which is located at 190 Stock Farm Rd, South Paris, ME. Thanks to Ian Bannon for providing the posts.
Celebration Barn is an immersive physical theater school where students develop their own works. Summer workshops are offered in a restored horse barn in rural Maine – a picturesque place that’s only a one-hour flight from New York City. This beautiful setting – away from distractions and obligations – allows performers to fully focus on their craft and develop their work in a supportive atmosphere where creativity and experimentation are encouraged. The Barn attracts today’s most sought-after physical theater instructors and performers who grow and refine artists’ ideas through a uniquely rigorous and collaborative process.
Students perform as part of Dodi Disanto’s 2015 Body-Motion-Gesture Workshop
Photo by Davin Currie
Depending on the instructor, the one- and two-week-long intensive workshops can consume between 6-12 hours a day. Further, intimate class sizes ensure each student gets adequate attention during their stay. This professional training is open to students (ages 18+) of all experience levels.
Each year brings a different set of workshops. In 2015 the Barn is offering 7 workshops taught by artists from around the world. Natsuko Ohama encourages students to, “Free your voice! Free yourself!” through The Voice and The Performer. Aitor Bassauri from London’s Spymonkey Theater will teach a workshop on Creating Clown Material. Giovanni Fusetti will lead an exploration into a grotesque of humanity with Bouffon and The Ecstasy of Mocking. Lastly, Jeff Wirth will train an ensemble of cutting-edge, interactive performers during his StoryBox: Interactive Performance Intensive.
Then there are the perennial favorites:
Avner the Eccentric and Julie Goell have been mainstays of the program for many years with two week-long courses on their Eccentric Principles of clowning. The Barn’s most popular workshops, Intro to Eccentric Performing and Advanced Eccentric Performing draw many participants back time and time again.
Davis Robinson and Karen Montanaro, along with guest instructors, lead the Celebration Barn Devising Intensive each summer. This workshop is designed for directors, teachers, and performers interested in devising their own theater pieces. Students learn several methods for imaginative theater problem-solving by spending two intensive weeks devising solo, duet, and ensemble pieces. Students participate in daily classes in movement dynamics, improvisation, partnering, premise work, graphics, and scripting. In the afternoon, world-class artists provide them with a range of approaches. Evenings are spent working on assignments and sharing devised material.
For more information about Celebration Barn Theater workshops, visit their by CLICKING HERE.
In the upcoming weeks, nearly 3000 Maine high school students from 81 high schools will compete in the 85th annual Maine Drama Festival. The event is sponsored by the Maine Principals’ Association and the Maine Drama Council. March 4-5, at nine regional sites, schools from Class A (at least 525 students) and Class B (524 or less students) will present plays ranging from the classics to original student-written plays. Winners from each regional will be selected by a panel of judges to advance to the State Finals on March 18-19. The Class A Finals will be at Camden Hills Regional HS and Class B at Stearns HS. One school from each State Final will be selected to advance to the New England Drama Festival April 21-23 in Old Saybrook, CT.
Bossov Ballet Theatre (BBT) was founded on February 23, 1996 by Col. Michael D. Wyly and Andrei Bossov, a former principal dancer with St. Petersburg’s Kirov Ballet. Initially an independent corporation, Bossov Ballet Theatre was housed on the campus of Maine Central Institute (MCI) in Pittsfield, Maine. In 2013, BBT officially became a part of MCI.
In addition to ballet, students take a full college preparatory high school curriculum, grades 9 through 12. The ballet course counts for 2 credits each year and is continuous all four years. Students can matriculate as freshmen, sophomores, juniors, or seniors, depending on their previous credits earned at other institutions. Ballet and other academics are all on MCI’s campus along with dormitories and dining. Classes are small; the year-round ballet class includes 15 select students.
she was a gymnastics champion by the age of ten. She studied dance at the Leningrad Academy Choreographic School (Kirov Theater) and graduated with honors from the Uzbek Choreographic School. Upon graduation from the Uzbek School, she joined the Turkmenistan State Theater of Ballet and Opera. In 1995, Getman joined the Moscow Ballet and began touring with them to countries such as Turkey, Spain, Israel, and China. In 1999 she came to the United States with the Moscow Ballet to dance and teach choreography to local children to allow them to dance in the children’s roles with the visiting company when they traveled with The Nutcracker to their city. Getman joined Bossov Ballet Theatre in 2001 as an instructor and became Artistic Director in 2013.
weeks. The five-week intensive program will culminate with a full performance of Don Quixote on Friday July 29 and Saturday July 30 at the Williamson Center for Performing Arts in Fairfield. In addition to Getman, the summer faculty includes Elena Petrichenko and Sergey Chumakov, soloists with the Moscow Ballet. Petrichenko and Chumakov perform both in the US and internationally and come to MCI each summer directly from Moscow.
school.org/ballet
classical ballet, the program teaches students key skills including memorization, time management and discipline, which can aid students in all aspects of their lives. It also instills a deep love and appreciation for dance, music and the visual arts while allowing students to investigate their varying interests. The high school students are encouraged to join other student clubs and co-curricular activities while at MCI and have a “normal” high school career. Many of the students who choose to not pursue ballet professionally have gone on to very successful careers in medicine, communications, business and other areas.
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