COMPANY LINK: Alternative Classes
Company Link is an organization dedicated to the Experimental Theatre and Dance artist living and working in Winnipeg. Through training, presentation, and forums we support the development of work that is driven by artistic vision and work that resists definition within traditional categories.
COMPANY LINK is offering Alternative Classes every Sunday from
October 4th to December 6th, 2015.
CLASS #1
Contact Improvisation with Ali Robson
11:30am – 1:30 pm ($100 for 10 Weeks)
Contact Improvisation is a partner dance form based on the physical principles of touch, momentum, shared weight, and most quintessentially – following a shared point of contact. Through an honoring of every moment one learns to recognize and differentiate subtle impulses in our movement choices and our partner’s choices. We begin to decipher the cues that we give and receive which tell us when to lead or follow, when to go up, when to go down, where to touch, how to lift, when to slow down, and when to be still. In this form one learns to stay in integrity with each choice, never forcing, never rushing.
Who Should Take The Class? Actors, dancers, and/or anyone interested in expanding physical range and skill. All levels are welcome.
CLASS #2
Crossing Boundaries: Image Based Improvisation with Tom Stroud
Level I – 2:00pm-4:00pm ($ 40 for 4 Weeks, Oct 4 – 25)
Level II – 2:00pm-4:00pm ($ 60 for 6 Weeks, Nov 1 – Dec 6)
Today performers are expected to participate in the creation of work that crosses the boundaries of theatre and dance. Yet the performers may not have the necessary training to contribute to their full potential. Through understanding the principles of performance, the development of shared language, vocal and physical exercise and improvised scores participants in this class will explore the potential of the intuitive impulse within spontaneous collective creation.
Level I will focus on remedial exercises to develop skills and to familiarize participants with the approach to improvisation. It is designed for those participants who have no experience in working with Tom or those who may wish to review and strengthen basic skills.
Level II is for those participants who have experience with Tom and wish to practice their improvisational skills or for those participants who have completed Level I.
A special discount is available for those who have experience working with Tom in the past.
Please contact Brittany for details.
Who Should Take This Class? Actors and dancers, performers who have completed their basic training and are interested in interdisciplinary creation, devised theatre, and/or expanding their expressive range.
PACKAGE DEAL (Contact & Crossing Boundaries): $175
Classes will be held at The University of Winnipeg’s Asper Centre for
Theatre & Film, studio 2T15.
PLEASE BE ADVISED: CLASS SIZES ARE LIMITED
TO REGISTER
Please contact Brittany Thiessen at thiessen.brittanym@gmail.com
by September 15th, 2015.
Bios
Tom Stroud
Tom Stroud has been working with text-based creation for over 30 years. He is currently the Artistic Director of Company Link and an Associate Professor at the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of Winnipeg where he teaches movement and acting in the Honours BA and General BA Program.
He has an extensive background in Dance and has performed and choreographed for major companies and festivals across Canada. As an Actor he has trained in Meisner Technique, and studied at the Strasberg Institute in New York. He has also trained in Linklater Voice Technique, Roy Hart Vocal Technique, The Alba Method, and Viewpoints.
In 1986 Tom was the resident choreographer at Le Groupe de la Place Royale, the first company in Canada to structure itself as a choreographic laboratory. Tom also was the Artistic Director of the Dance Umbrella of Ontario’s Choreographic Lab which ran in Toronto from 1989 -1991.
In 1991 he was appointed as the Artistic Director of Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers. During his fourteen-year tenure he created numerous full-evening works and initiated a number of significant and innovative co-productions for the company. In 2001 Tom was awarded the prestigious Choo-San Goh Award for Choreography.
Since joining the Faculty at the U of W in 2005 his creation and performance credits include Othello (2005), The Glass Menagerie, (2006), Jealous/Pervert (2006), Witches, (2007), Picnic (2008), Obscene, (2008), Duck Variation (2008), The God Box (2008), A Doll’s House (2009), Juliet and Romeo, (2010) and The Rite, (2010).
In 2014 Tom was awarded a Major Arts Grant from the Manitoba Arts Council for the creation of a full-evening work based on Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, which was presented as a work-in progress September 6, 2014 at the Asper Centre for Theatre and Film at the University of Winnipeg.
Ali Robson
Ali Robson is a dancer, choreographer and teacher based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Since graduating from the School of Contemporary Dancers in 2004 she has worked in both Vancouver and Winnipeg. In Vancouver she studied and performed contact improvisation with EDAM under the direction of Peter Bingham and in 2012 performed in Serge Bennathanʼs Elles. Ali worked for three seasons with Winnipegʼs TRIP Dance Company under the artistic direction of Karen Kuzak performing in Herding Instinct and The Art of Displacement. In early 2013, she performed with Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers in Toward Light: A Tribute to Rachel Browne and continues to work with the company.
Ali has worked as a dancer, rehearsal director, and movement coach with many artists including Tom Stroud (Company Link), Natasha Torres-Garner, Treasure Waddell, Alexandra Elliott, Claire Marshall, Coral Aiken, Delia Brett (MACHiNENOiSY), Melanie Kuxdorf, Susie Burpee, and Debbie Patterson. Her own choreographic work has been presented by Young Lungs Dance Exchange and at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival.
Ali holds a BA Honours in Theatre majoring in dance from the University of Winnipeg. She teaches creative movement and modern dance to children and adults and has taught contact improvisation and modern technique to students at the University of Winnipeg, to the public through community classes and to the professional dance communities in Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Regina.