DiGiTAL
DRAMATURGY LAB
Making ideas/Playing together:
Zuni Icosahedron (Hong Kong) and the Digital Dramaturgy Lab (Toronto) in exchange - A workshop of collaborative learning
April 6, 2017
Leonard Common Room (LCR)
(Morrison Hall 100B, 75 St. George Street, Basement)
6pm - 10pm
Two experimental collectives will meet and learn from each other. We are interested in the modes of making and sharing artistic experiments, how those are informed by specific cultural and social contexts and what we can learn in a cross-cultural setting. Zuni Icosahedron (Hong Kong), under the leadership of Danny Yung will share their insights in contemporary approaches to Chinese theatre practices of Jingju (Beijing Opera) and Kunqu (Kunqu Opera) while the Digital Dramaturgy Lab (Toronto) will contribute latest experiments that are often informed by cross-cultural knowledges, including inspirations from Chinese theatre. We anticipate a lively encounter of artists, scholars and students based on mutual respect and appreciation.
About Zuni Icosahedron
Yeung, Jessica. "Danny Yung in Search of Hybrid Matter and Mind: His Experimental Xiqu for Zuni Icosahedron." Visual Anthropology 24.1-2 (2010): 124-38. Web. 13 Mar. 2017
Ferrari, Rossella. "Architecture and/in Theatre from the Bauhaus to Hong Kong: Mathias Woo's Looking for Mies." New Theatre Quarterly 28.1 (2012): 3-19. Web. 13 Mar. 2017
Facebook event
Event plan
6pm-6.20pm Chromesthesia reversed - composing music with paint (related to our research inspired by Gao Xingjian’s play “Between Life and Death” 高行健 “生死界“) a live video feed will project the painting process and our DDL cello player Amina Holloway will translate the images into music based on her synesthesia condition.
6.20pm-6.30pm
Welcome participants: Antje Budde (DDL) and Danny Yung (Zuni)
6.30-7.30pm
participatory interaction and communication while exploring intermedial pieces that the DDL had used in previous artistic productions including "Jing@Ju Karaoke Intermedial queering of Beijing Opera" and “From my (global) village I see as much. Pessoa”. Monty Martin, Richard Windeyer, and Antje will together with other DDL collaborators explain briefly as we go.
7.30-7.45pm coffee/tea break
7.45-8.15 Danny and colleagues present and comment on Zuni work/videos
8.15-9pm idea exchange/ ALL
Collaborators Zuni Danny Yung, Yang Yang, YueWai, Cedric and David
Collaborators DDL Antje Budde, Nazli Akhtari, Berna Celikkaya, Amina Holloway, Riaz Mahmood, Monty Martin, Sanja Vodovnik, Richard Windeyer
Photo: Sharlene Bamboat
We are Defectors of History. - 'The Wind Sleeps Standing Up'"
March 10, 2017
Time: 12pm-4pm
Venue: Luella Massey Studio Theatre, 4 Glen Morris Avenue, Toronto
Developmental workshop with visual artist Sharlene Bamboat
This workshop is organized by our DDL collaborators Sanja Vodovnik and Antje Budde
With the friendly support of Dr. Paul Stoesser, Technical Director and Prof. Lawrence Switzky
Collaborators: Monty Martin, Nazli Akhtari, Berna Çelikkaya, Antje Budde, Richard Windeyer, Karyn McCallum, Riaz Mahmood, and Sanja Vodovnik. We support the workshopping of Sharlene's upcoming project in preparation of her presentation at Toronto's Aga Khan Museum this Summer.
Two sets of four people read Sharlene's texts in negotiation with projected images. This can be emerging actors but also participants with no acting background. More people can participate as observers and critics.
12pm-1pm - 1st reading
1pm-2pm - discussion and pizza lunch
2pm-3pm - 2nd reading
3pm - 4pm - discussion and coffee
Project description by Sharlene Bamboat
Absurdist theatre, coming out of a post WWII, European context that questioned fundamental social values as a way of beginning to come to terms with deep trauma, is a process that emerged out of a period not unlike our contemporary moment. Using the formal devices of the Theatre of the Absurd I have created the video “The Wind Sleeps Standing Up” and the absurdist play “the scenes that become what they are, and they pull away from us, only to become what they are”. Embarking on a journey examining degradation – of language, image, biography and logic, both the play and video create and explore the connections between memory and absurdism- to narrate an autobiography that is intrinsically multiplicitous.
“The Wind Sleeps Standing Up” is a video that visualizes the degradation of memory through the degradation of the digital image. Using footage I shot in Pakistan in 2008 and 2013, I employ various narrative devices to present a disjointed autobiography. All of my work to date has dealt with variations of memory and remembering, and with this video instead of attempting to preserve a 'true' memory or 'true' image, I question its authenticity, play with its purity, re-narrate and fictionalize it’s ‘reality’ to tell layered stories: stories that are true, fictional, pure, sullied, authentic and not so all at once.
The accompanying play “the scenes that become what they are, and they pull away from us, only to become what they are” uses memories similar to those in the video, to create a world of nonsense and degradation. This world gleefully calls into question the breakdown of the English language, questions the validity of memory, story-telling and autobiography. Using layered histories the play simultaneously constructs in its absurdity all that it questions.
Performing Software
Nov. 2015, ongoing
Facilitated by Monty Martin
Performing Software Lab
Open to undergrad/grad students.
Exploring Isadora Software
Jan. 2014, Feb. and Oct. 2015
Facilitated by Monty Martin
Performing Software Lab
Open to undergrad/grad students.
Sounding Bodies
Sept.21, 22, 2015
Facilitated by Jean-Jacques Lemêtre (Paris, Théâtre du Soleil) and Antje Budde/Pia Kleber (U of T)
Interpreter: Sebastian Samur, Voice Exchange Lab
Open to undergrad/grad students.
Funded by the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, U of T.
Connectivity/Interactivity: Inside Stare.Print.Blue
an Open Door event with the Digital Dramaturgy Lab
August 30, 2014. Theaterhaus Mitte (thm), Berlin
Presented by the Digital Dramaturgy Lab with Theaterhaus Mitte, Berlin and the international performing arts festival "Survival", Open Space Berlin.
Location: Theaterhaus Mitte (thm), Berlin
Time: 6:30 and 7:30pm
More info here
The DDL presented an overview of its projects and working methods at the THM Open Door event. We invited participants inside our rehearsal lab for our project "Stare. Print. Blue. - Voyeuring the Apparatus", where audiences had the opportunity to explore the playful, performative and interactive side of digital technology in live performance. This was followed by an open forum on the topic of digital performance.
Presenters: Nazli Ahktari, Antje Budde, Karyn McCallum, Gwenyth Dobie, Myrto Koumarianos, William J. Mackwood, Michael Reinhart, Don Sinclair.
An event in collaboration with Theaterhaus Mitte, Berlin and the international performing arts festival "Survival", Open Space Berlin.
Supported by:
German/Europe Study and Research Fund of the Faculty of Arts and Science, University of Toronto (http://www.artsci.utoronto.ca)
Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Toronto (http://dramacentre.utoronto.ca)
Digital Media Program, York University, Toronto (http://digital-media.finearts.yorku.ca)
(pre)Connecting Circles.
Light BLUE your heart, mind and body.
An event in celebration and exploration of creativity facilitated by autism and art
April 24, 2014. 6:30-8:30pm (Holy Trinity Church)
Not a sit-down-and-watch performance, not a festival, not a conventional workshop. This event explored the notion of a creative community gathering, a roundtable brainstorm, an inclusive, interactive space where participant were encouraged to wander through the installations – view art, make art, explore their senses and sensitivities…
"We will embrace our multiple ways of being, autistic or not or somewhat, in unique ways. Circling, looping, repeating the rhythms of life."
WHY: Autism impacts the typical development of the brain in the areas of social interaction and communication skills. Children and adults with autism typically have difficulties in verbal and non-verbal communication, social interactions, and leisure or play activities. They find it hard to communicate with others and relate to the outside world. And who has not experienced difficulties like that now and then? Persons with autism may exhibit repeated body movements, unusual responses to people or attachments to objects and resistance to sudden changes in routines. Individuals may also experience sensitivities in sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Autistic people need time to adjust to new situations and environments in times where people have less and less time. This rings a bell?
On the other hand, autistic people are very sensitive, and through their acute sensitivities may display higher than average artist talents. There are many ways to communicate. It just requires creativity to find those ways. This is something we can all do.
animating/animated bodies.
Participatory workshop playing with motion-tracking technology in performance
Jan.26-27, 2013. 1-5pm
This workshop was conceptualized and conducted by Antje Budde (University of Toronto) and Don Sinclair (York University), assisted by Assaf Gadot, student at York U for the 2013 graduate conference Festival of Original Theatre (F.O.O.T.) on "Theatre and Technology" at the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Toronto.
This was a two-day workshop. Each day provided four-hour sessions of discussion, learning and hands-on creation. Participants came from universities and local theatre companies.
The workshop process and creative projects were shared and discussed in the Performance-as-Research session of the conference on Feb.3, 2013.
F.O.O.T. conference website
Homo Ludens. - The Playing Body.
A participatory workshop playing with bodies, technology and collective creation
Oct.10, 2012. 7-10 pm
Presented at the OCAD series "Design with Dialogue".
The workshop was collaboratively created by networkers of Digital Dramaturgy Lab in association with SLICE.
Creators: Antje Budde with Art Babayants, Aidan Dahlin Nolan, Douglas Hamilton, Myrto Komarianous, Kat Letwin, Montgomery Martin, Tara Ostiguy, and Michael Reinhart.
Concept:
Digital technology has a drastic impact on our lives and the way we communicate with each other. This has strong implications for how we engage our bodies in our communication, especially now that we are in constant contact with mobile computing devices. Through a series of live and mediatized physical exercises facilitated by theatre performers, this workshop will explore the role that our physical bodies play in this shifting technological context.
Do we have to fear new developments or can we courageously embrace them? How can we maintain control over our bodies and body images? Playfulness and a healthy dose of doubt are a perfect mix to keep an empowering distance between us and the at times overwhelming demands of the multitude of devices now attached to our bodies and minds.
Audience response to our workshop written on a blackboard.
Hungry for the not yet discovered gesture
Sept. 29,30, 2012
Leonhard Commons Room, U of T
Participartory biomechanics workshop with Philip Brehse and Michael Steger, Open Space, Berlin, Toronto, U of T
Sponsored by the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies