Wellarts Institue

Happy New Year!  As we at the Well Arts Institute forge ahead into 2011, continuing to serve our mission of exploring, developing and practicing creativity as a means to wellness, there are many exciting projects in which to become involved.
Our 2010 Actors {lab style} Workshops were a wonderful success.  From exploring the nuanced treatment of non-professional text as an actor, to grappling with the physicality of our characters relating to illness and wellness, the team of Well Arts directors thoroughly enjoyed offering the workshops to the acting community.  Speaking as a director, I can say it was very rewarding to explore some of the rich WAI archives, while also getting to know some of the artists interested in performing this work.  I look forward to building upon what we discovered in the initial Text in the Body lab when I head up our February workshop.

But first!  Coming up this month, our Acting {lab style} workshop will be held by our esteemed Artistic Director Katy Lijeholm.

Objective: To begin to acquaint actors with deep, detailed reading of non-professional writing.

Writers for Well Arts come with a variety of abilities, however all have a deep, passionate need to tell their     own unique stories.  This class will show you how to seek out the needs of the writer in the piece, and read closely for the tiny, important details that make the writing shine.  There will be warm up physical and vocal exercises.  Then each actor will be given their own unique piece from a Well Arts workshop.  These writings come from our workshops and performances with veterans, people in drug addiction recovery, people  living with multiple sclerosis, cancer, AIDS, children with diabetes and cancer, and elders.  The     facilitator will guide them through finding beats, some of which will be obvious and some of which are well “hidden”.  Then the facilitator will work with the actors to create strong visual and vocal choices to allow the audience to access the mind of the writer.

Our ongoing workshops are held free of charge, and are open to the community.  Please wear comfortable clothing and bring water.

The workshop will take place:

11 AM to 1 PM on Saturday January 15th
at
Augustana Lutheran Church
(upstairs)

2710 NE 14th St
Portland, OR 97212

PLEASE RSVP your attendance to Katy@wellarts.org

I look forward to meeting and working with more of you as this wonderful new year unfolds.  Be well!

Blessings
Caitlin Bargenquast