Advisor Meeting Report 1 - Autumn Semester

Studio Advisor - Laura Gonzales
Meeting date & time - Wednesday Sept 24 2014. 10am EST (3pm GMT) - 11am EST
Method - Skype


I found this initial meeting with Laura to be very positive and stimulating.
It helped me to focus my thoughts and ideas going into the beginning of the semester and to confirm the plans I had as being appropriate for accomplishing my goals during this period.

Laura's initial concerns were in regards to the planning of my workshop series.
Firstly, that I had been able to secure a venue and a group of "guinea pig" students.
Fortunately I was able to confirm this as positive. Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre company have very kindly volunteered themselves to go through this process with me as their company project this season. I have them for eight weekly workshop sessions during their company rehearsal time on Sundays at 4.30 - 7pm.
Laura's next question was in regards to what I was going to do with them.
I have a series of Physical Exercises, Creative Exercises and Work-development Assignments planned, as well as journaling and discussion time during the workshops for students to articulate their experiences and give feedback with their opinions as to the effectiveness of the exercises.

Laura suggested I begin to formulate a written Syllabus. She advised researching other well-established performance-based syllabi of a wide variety (for example Suzuki Method). Also those of University performance programs (Dance and Theater departments), teachers who already have created a syllabus for Performance Art and any other performance-based programs that look interesting to me.

She also suggested some specific reading: 
Nancy Stark-Smith and her "Global Underscore" - an improvisational dancer who has developed and written about methods of in-depth exploration of the body in movement.
Natalie Goldberg "The True Secret of Writing" and "Writing Down the Bones" - for her process of writing and journaling about experiences.
And John Cage's list of "10 Rules for Students and Teachers".

We also discussed how a pedagogical method might be possible to be communicated remotely. Would it be possible to learn these methods via video? for example - or even just through written instruction. 
I will be creating an accompanying blog series of solo video demonstrations and written descriptions of the exercises.

A point that Laura made that was extremely pertinent was to pick up on the fact that the title of my project is "The Process and Praxis of Constructing the SELF as Medium".
Emphasizing the fact that I had chosen the total idea of "self" - rather than just the "body".
This brought to my attention many issues and ideas that I now want to explore and define more deeply.