Katie Duck workshop︎︎︎
Below is a description by Katie Duck on how she approaches working with an interdisciplinary group on real-time improvisation in performance.
I guide performers through physical exercises that highlight how the eyes and ears affect movement choices. I set up exercises for the musicians, text artists and vocalist during the physical work to challenge their ability to create “a band” while being aware that space is shifting with bodies involved. Musicians and performers can choose to change roles in these exercises at any given time. I extend the workshop towards improvisation sessions by setting a fictional front in the studio space and then declare this as a platform to choose pause, flow or exit. I highlight how the limit of these three choices can already provide the frame for a composition to take place, and that misunderstanding, coincidence, real time, interactivity, messiness, emotions, intuition, impulse and inspiration are basic in a creative process. These raw materials are integrated with the combined fact that everyone in the workshop group can make a choice. The improvisation sessions are given a delegated time frame with an option for the workshop group to shift, drop or lift the space at will. The practice of an individuals development of presence is a critical process in the workshop be it in music, text, movement, figure-object or vocals. I use games to set an example for building and dropping the tension in the music theater space by way of an individuals presence with an emphasis on states of mind in performance, such as vulnerability and expressionism. Choice is introduced to the workshop group as a composition reality but also how it allows for individuals to elect to participate in the performative or as a viewer and yet remain involved in the process. The aim is to gather the workshop group to recognize that, in a creative composition process, time is passing in different perceived speeds and that space is shifting in several dimensions at once. This awake fullness can promote individual performance presence, composition alertness and an appetite for creativity.
I guide performers through physical exercises that highlight how the eyes and ears affect movement choices. I set up exercises for the musicians, text artists and vocalist during the physical work to challenge their ability to create “a band” while being aware that space is shifting with bodies involved. Musicians and performers can choose to change roles in these exercises at any given time. I extend the workshop towards improvisation sessions by setting a fictional front in the studio space and then declare this as a platform to choose pause, flow or exit. I highlight how the limit of these three choices can already provide the frame for a composition to take place, and that misunderstanding, coincidence, real time, interactivity, messiness, emotions, intuition, impulse and inspiration are basic in a creative process. These raw materials are integrated with the combined fact that everyone in the workshop group can make a choice. The improvisation sessions are given a delegated time frame with an option for the workshop group to shift, drop or lift the space at will. The practice of an individuals development of presence is a critical process in the workshop be it in music, text, movement, figure-object or vocals. I use games to set an example for building and dropping the tension in the music theater space by way of an individuals presence with an emphasis on states of mind in performance, such as vulnerability and expressionism. Choice is introduced to the workshop group as a composition reality but also how it allows for individuals to elect to participate in the performative or as a viewer and yet remain involved in the process. The aim is to gather the workshop group to recognize that, in a creative composition process, time is passing in different perceived speeds and that space is shifting in several dimensions at once. This awake fullness can promote individual performance presence, composition alertness and an appetite for creativity.
︎︎︎from Katie Duck
Welcome to mapping collaboration, a toolbox for workshopping and creating across disciplines...
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
The inspiration for this project came from faculty and students at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts where BFA, MFA and PhD programs in Dance, Theatre Production and Design, Visual Art, Film, and Music and Sound all work together in studio settings and playfully experiment with processes of art-making.
We wanted to create a database of projects, assignments and theory that we collect inside the studio and from research happening in other places. We are curious about how we collaborate and how structures reoccur, translate and deviate from one discipline to another.
Composition is central to these processes and offers a base for our approaches and experiments. We are excited about what our students are doing and inspired by the new languages in contemporary art and performance we continue to see develop.
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
