Austin Stomps

A one-day intensive in the Suzuki Method of Acting and Viewpoints
Presented by the Generic Ensemble Company in partnership with Gale Theatre Company

When: Saturday, February 15; 10am – 6pm
Where: In a private studio in Travis Heights, Austin
What: The physical theatre strategies of Suzuki Actor Training and Viewpoints as developed by Anne Bogart and the SITI Company
Who: Ideal for actors, dancers, performance artists, movement artists, physical theatre performers, directors, and drama/dance students
Cost: $70-$250 Sliding scale; $60 early-bird special if registered by Feb 1. Please register by February 10. Registration is first-come first-registered.
Instructors: Katherine Wilkinson (Gale Theatre) and kt shorb (Generic Ensemble Company)
To Register: Email kt shorb: ktshorb at gmail dot com
 
Suzuki Method
The Suzuki method was developed by acclaimed director Tadashi Suzuki and the Suzuki Company of Toga. The training method works to build awareness of the human body - especially its core center with a focus on breath control, concentration and footwork in an effort to heighten the actor's natural expressiveness and emotional and physical commitment to the theatre. The physicality and discipline of the method is inspired by Japanese and Greek theatre, ballet and martial arts.
 
Viewpoints
The Viewpoints is an improvisational technique largely inspired by post-modern dance and was initially developed by choreographer Mary Overlie. Her approach - the Six Viewpoints - breaks down the two dominant issues performers deal with - time and space - into six categories. Artistic Director Anne Bogart and SITI Company have expanded and adapted this approach for actors. The Viewpoints maximizes the intuitive chemistry and spontaneity within a group of actors to quickly generate bold, theatrical work. Emphasis on flexibility, articulation, and strength in movement and makes ensemble playing really possible.
 
Katherine Wilkinson is Producing Artistic Director for the Gale Theatre Company. She has trained in the Suzuki Method and Viewpoints with the SITI Company and Zen Zen Zo. She was a Senior Teacher of Physical Acting at Zen Zen Zo from 2011-13.
 
kt shorb is the Producing Artistic Director for the award-winning Generic Ensemble Company. She has trained in the Suzuki Method and Viewpoints with the SITI Company and Zen Zen Zo.

This workshop and the work of the Generic Ensemble Company is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division.

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Auditions

We are seeking ensemble members for the next iteration of "What's Goin' On?'

Become a member of a GenEnCo Production!

Auditions: Sept 28 or 29, 2013 from 1-4pm. 

The Generic Ensemble Company (GenEnCo) seeks performer-collaborators interested in experimental approaches to the work of Bertolt Brecht. Investigating racial representation, the 1970s, simultaneity, joyous chaos, and various modes of story-telling, we will devise an ensemble-based theatre piece for an evening length premiere at the VORTEX in May 2014. We will build off the work we created from the May 2013 workshop version of our piece. We are looking for people who are: open to collaborative process; interested in progressive, critical, and politically-engaged conversations and actions; willing to work hard in politically, physically, and spiritually demanding ways; engaged in body-centered work; and members of communities that are historically marginalized or disenfranchised. People of color and gender queers are especially encouraged to audition. Experience in physical theatre, movement, mime, and/or ensemble-based work is a plus, but not required. 

Rehearsals begin on October 5 and will be once a week October through January, twice weekly January through March, and 3-4 times a week March-May. GenEnCo is an Austin-based theatre troupe that makes the invisible visible through bold, socially relevant, body-centered theatre. 

If you are interested, please email ktshorb [at] hotmail [dot] com for time and location. Include in your email address and date preference, if any. If you have a performance resume and headshot, please include that as well. 

Make Performance Art with Us!

Sitelines, Action II: JOIN US

We Want YOU--our audience, our extended ensemble, our supporters

As each "Sitelines" action must be in partnership, for this next action, we invite: anyone who has been or currently is affiliated with GenEnCo; anyone who wants to be affiliated with GenEnCo; anyone who supports or believes in our mission of "making the invisible visible through bold, socially relevant theatre" that centers marginalized bodies (particular queers, people of color, gender queers, immigrants and children of immigrants).

“Sitelines” is a series of short, site-specific, free and public performances devised and developed as an ensemble, which includes suggestions submitted by ensemble members and the public. Each Sitelines action will be roughly 15-30 minutes long, with 2-3 week/10-15 hour incubation/rehearsal period for each action. The core ensemble for each piece will be the Generic Ensemble Company, alongside guest performers/partners. We go to the audience, rather than waiting for the audience to come to us. The public is notified of the site and theme less than 48 hours in advance.
Requirements for participation in Sitelines, Action II:

• You believe in our mission
• You wish to perform in front of potentially countless strangers or actively support others doing so
• You attend the three rehearsals
• You like to share your ideas. You are open to listening to others. In short, you can "hold on tightly and let go lightly" and/or "move up, move back"
• You exercise respect and enthusiasm

Rehearsal Times: 
Saturday, September 7, 1pm-5pm: Bennu Coffee Shop
Sunday, September 15, 3pm-7pm: Place TBA
Sunday, September 22, 3pm-7pm: Place TBA
Performance date, time, and place will be determined at the first rehearsal and announced to the public 48 hours in advanceThis performance and the work of the Generic Ensemble Company is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division.

Sitelines Action I: Dirge for a Cup

JUST IN!

Saturday, August 10 @ 11 am
South First Street and Barton Springs Road -- Roving
In partnership with Love & Monsters Puppet Co.

“Sitelines” is a series of short, site-specific, free and public performances devised and developed as an ensemble based on suggestions we solicit from the public. Each Sitelines performance will be roughly 15-30 minutes long, with two-week incubation/rehearsal periods for each. The core ensemble for each piece will be the Generic Ensemble Company, alongside guest performers. We go to the audience, rather than waiting for the audience to come to us. The public is notified of the site and theme less than 48 hours in advance.

Action I: DIRGE FOR A CUP meditates on the text "When I am empty, please dispose of me properly."

Featuring:
Clergy--kt shorb
Pall Bearer--Camille Deprang
Mourner--Rosalyn Nguyen
Bard--Ashley Hicks
Clown--Wendy Vastine
Photographer--Kim Curette

With support from Laura J. Khalil and Merylin Castelan.

We will hold an open call for the collaborators for the next Action in early September. Please sign up for our mailing list (to the right) or follow us on Facebook or Twitter to get the deets. 

This performance and the work of the Generic Ensemble Company is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division.

What's Goin' On? (Workshop Production)

• The Generic Ensemble Company in conjunction with LuckyChaos Theatre present What’s Goin’ On? (Workshop) Friday-Saturday May 3-4; 10-11 8pm Salvage Vanguard Theatre (2803 Manor Rd, Austin, TX 78722). What’s Goin’ On is a an ensemble-based, original performance reinterpreting Bertolt Brecht’s classic play, The Good Person of Szechwan, exploring binary notions of Good/Evil, Male/Female, Wealth/Poverty, Coercion/Consent and Artifice/Authenticity. Simultaneously critiquing Brecht’s treatment of gender, sexuality and orientalism in Szechwan while also drawing inspiration from it, this show examines the question: What does it mean to be virtuous in our current historical moment, when societal pressures and inequality continue to marginalize our bodies and lives? Created from scratch by the performance ensemble, What’s Goin’ On’? employs new text created by ensemble members layered with activist aesthetics, choreographed movement, indeterminate games, quotidian rituals made extraordinary, and simultaneous conflicting actions to present a dense and complex collage. Drawing material relevant to ensemble members’ daily lives, What’s Goin’ On’? reflects the individual identities and personalities of each collaborator, while also reflecting The Generic Ensemble Company’s continued commitment to make the invisible visible through bold, socially relevant, body-centered theatre that showcases mostly-queer identified, mostly-people of color who are mostly women-identified. This piece is an in-progress performance featuring: Morgan Robyn Collado, Kimberly Curette, Kirsche Dickson, Ashley Hicks, Anna McConnell, James McMaster, Julie Moore, Julián Padilla, Saray de Jesus Rosales, Wendy Vastine, Leng Wong, and kt shorb with support from Kimberly Alidio, Margaux Binder, Paige Binder, and Laura Khalil. Tickets are sliding scale $5-10. What’s Goin’ On? is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division.

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Auditions!

Casting Call 

Auditions: Feb 2-3, 2013. Please email ktshorb[at]hotmail[dot]com for time and location. The Generic Ensemble Company (GenEnCo) seeks performer-collaborators interested in experimental approaches to the work of Bertolt Brecht. Investigating racial representation, the 1970s, and various modes of story-telling, we will devise and ensemble-based theatre piece for an in-progress showing in May 2013, which will eventually lead to a full-length production in 2013-14. We are looking for people who are: open to collaborative process; interested in progressive, critical, and politically-engaged conversations and actions; engaged in body-centered work; and members of communities that are historically marginalized or disenfranchised. People of color and gender queers are especially encouraged to audition. Experience in physical theatre, movement, mime, and ensemble-based work is a plus, but not necessary. GenEnCo is an Austin-based theatre troupe that makes the invisible visible through bold, socially relevant, body-centered theatre. 

Rehearsal, April 18, 2012.

The Experiment

The Generic Ensemble Company is thrilled to present its fifth production, The Experiment, an evening-length play asking the question, “What does it mean to be human?” Answers to this question are explored through the play’s surprising, complicated characters: a cyborg, an immortal mutant, and a singing, perverse scientist/lab assistant. The Experiment draws its structure from world’s fairs and vaudeville, creating a speculative future reminiscent of the turn of the 20th century. The play showcases performances by (queer) women of color investigating the relationship between modern human subjects-experiments, turn-of-the century freak shows, and anecdotal narratives of masculine/butch women.

Anne Bogart, Artistic Director of the SITI Company, and award-winning stage director has said, “I love what kt shorb does and how she does it, both onstage and off. Whatever she is up to is not to be missed.”

The Experiment was made possible by a generous grant from the Open Meadows Foundation and a Q Rental Subsidy Grant from the Creative Fund. This project is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division believing an investment in the Arts is an investment in Austin’s future. Visit Austin at NowPlayingAustin.com


Fri-Sun, May 4-6
Thu-Sun, May 10-13.
8pm all evenings at Blue TheatreSunday, May 6 & Thursday, May 10 – “Pay What You Can” Night

Tickets can be purchased in advance for $12 at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/239694
Or at the door for $15 (Cash, Check, Credit accepted)

The BLUE Theatre
916 Springdale Road
Austin, TX 78702


The Experiment
by Ana-Maurine Lara & kt shorb
Directed by kt shorb
Choreography by Tonya Pennie
Featuring: Saray de Jesus Rosales as Lucy, Krysta Gonzales as Dolly, and Smalls McCoy as Dora; with dancing by Kimberly Caterino, Kaitlyn Jolly, and Kirsche Dickson.
Dramaturgy by Kimberly Alidio
Stage Management by Margaux Binder
Lighting Design by Paige Binder
Set Design by Joshua Baker and Ethan Stover
Costume and Prop Design by Camille Deprang and Love and Monsters
Poster Design by Armand Alidio

Facebook: www.facebook.com/GenericEnsembleCompany
Twitter: @genenco
Tumblr: http://experimentbygenenco.tumblr.com
To donate to this production, please visit: http://www.indiegogo.com/theexperiment

GenEnCo Receives Open Meadows Foundation Grant!

Just got the letter awarding GenEnCo with an Open Meadows Foundation grant toward developing our full-length show, "The Experiment." Hooray!
"The Experiment" is about the connection between sexual and scientific experimentation in the contexts of colonial histories. Set in a laboratory/sanatorium in both the future and past, "The Experiment" asks: what does it mean to be human when everything we encounter takes that humanity away? Co-written by GenEnCo Producing Artistic Director, kt shorb and award-winning writer, Ana-Maurine Lara, "The Experiment" will premiere in Austin in Spring/Summer 2012.

Before This Was Texas--In Progress

Fri & Sat, September 23 & 24; 7pm: Visual Arts Center
FREE and Open to the Public

Using collaborative ensemble work to create dramatic movement based on poetry by Austin-based poet Kimberly Alidio, Before This Was Texas explores bodies crossing borders and our relationship to this land called Central Texas. The Generic Ensemble Company stretches the boundaries of both form and content through a collaborative process that presents bodies that are still marginal in U.S. theatre and dance today in performance. Featuring performances by kt shorb, Saray De Jesus Rosales, and Krysta Gonzales, this iteration of Before This Was Texas will include guiding the audience through the Visual Arts Center Galleries in a site-specific exploration of space and time.

The Generic Ensemble Company makes the invisible visible through bold, socially relevant, body-centered performance. We embrace experimental approaches in both the rehearsal room and public performance by asking complex theoretical questions based on rigorous scholarship. We believe that creative work is a source to mine profound discourse and strategies for social change. Theory, praxis, and aesthetics are interconnected and equally integral to create a powerful, successful work.

Before This Was Texas is made possible with the support of the University of Texas at Austin Department of Art and Art History and the UT-Austin Engaging Research component of the University Co-op Cohen New Works Festival. This project is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division believing an investment in the Arts is an investment in Austin’s future. Visit Austin at NowPlayingAustin.com.

For more information about the performances and the Visual Arts Center are here and here.

Info on directions are here.

"The Experiment", an in-progress reading

Thursday, August 11 at 7pm at

The Vortex Repertory Company


The Experiment

Written by Ana-Maurine Lara and kt shorb

Featuring: Krysta Gonzales, Saray De Jesus Rosales, and Julianna Wright.

What does it mean to be human? The imaginations and desires of Dolly the Cyborg and Lucy the Mutant come together in a laboratory ruled over by Dora the Attendant. The Experiment explores historical legacies of colonialism, world's fairs, and scientific inquiry by drawing from personalized stories of queer and racialized resistance. This staged reading will showcase an in-progress script written by co-founders of the critically acclaimed Stamp Lab, Ana-Maurine Lara and kt shorb.


Donations encouraged, but none turned away for lack of funds.

GenEnCo Presents: "Before This Was Texas" - an in-progress showing

presents

"Before This Was Texas"

an in-progress showing
with kt shorb, Saray de Jesus Rosales, Krysta Gonzales, and Carole Metellus

With poetry by Kimberly Alidio


Monday, 2/28 at 8:15; Kayim Atrium (Trinity Street entrance to the Visual Arts Center in the Art Building on University of Texas at Austin campus)


Part of the Engaging Research component of The Cohen New Works Festival presented by the University Co-op.

GenEnCo Presents: Una Corda (A Ritual)

The Generic Ensemble Company presents the world premiere of

Una Corda (A Ritual)

written and performed by
kt shorb

directed by
Yvan Greenberg

Where: The Blue Theatre
916 Springdale Road, Austin, TX 78702

When: Friday, September 10th, 8 pm

Saturday, September 11th, 2 pm

Saturday, September 11th, 8 pm

Sunday, September 12th, 2 pm

Tickets are $15, $12 for students, seniors, and starving artists.

Click the showdate above to reserve your tickets now!
________________________________

Una Corda (A Ritual) focuses on the emotional ties that we forge with the people who grapple with a terminal disease and the moments that are shared in the space occupied between life and death. It's a ritual meditation on the spiritual and emotional effects of cancer and the experience of witnessing the destruction and loss caused by ...the disease. This solo show is an original rite, using rigorous physicality and stream-of-consciousness text based on shorb’s experience nursing three women undergoing cancer treatment. Blurring the line between ceremony, happening, and autobiography, Una Corda asks the question: How do we not lose sight of ourselves when surrounded by loss itself?

Created by performer/writer kt shorb in collaboration with director Yvan Greenberg, Una Corda uses Greenberg’s signature layering of choreography, text, imitation and indeterminacy alongside shorb’s explorations of intimacy, failure, and frenetic action to create visceral movements, objects, and atmospheres. Drawing influences from Noh theatre, Bugaku, and Japanese Buddhist ceremonies, the ritual takes place in the liminal spaces between life and death, presence and oblivion, redemption and loss.

The piece also includes scenic painting by Sarah Sage, costuming by Irene Roderick and poetry by Kimberly Alidio.


What people are saying about the artists’ work:

shorb:
"I love what kt shorb does and how she does it, both onstage and off. Whatever she is up to is not to be missed." –Anne Bogart, Artistic Director of the SITI Company

“…entertaining, controversial, memorable…”–Emily Ascolese, The Oberlin Review

Greenberg:
“...ironic, weird, experimental, anti-dramatic, and compelling...” –Alisa Solomon, The Village Voice
“Inane, insane, mundane...esthetic purity under the guise of the absurd.” –Amanda MacBlaine, NY Press
“Yvan Greenberg’s choreography [is] a strange brew of awkward gestures and simple but evocative movement phrases.” –Claudia La Rocco, The New York Times

kt shorb is a director, performer, writer and founder of the Generic Ensemble Company. She has trained in Suzuki Actor Training and Viewpoints with the SITI Company and Zen Zen Zo. She was a founding member of Stamp Lab, winner of the 2008 ArtSpark Festival and the 2009 FronteraFest “Best of Fest.” Acting credits include: “Sadako” in Relativity, “Nina” in T.A.G., “Claude/Ventriloquist” in HUSH, “Reverend” in Why Koreans Don’t Hug, and in the solo show of chicks, dicks, and chinks. Directing credits include: Eagle Woman Poems, Stuck on Gee-Dot, Drawn and Quartered, Piri!, and by a quiet sea. shorb has presented her work on multiple college campuses, including Oberlin College, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and the University of Texas at Austin.

Yvan Greenberg founded Laboratory Theater in 2001 and has since directed the ensemble in eleven original pieces. His work has been presented in New York by PS 122, HERE Arts Center, The Brick Theater, Dixon Place, The Tank, chashama, TIXE, New Dramatists, The Performing Garage, The Knitting Factory, and Movement Research, among others. In February 2007, Laboratory Theater was the first Artist-in-Residence at Dixon Place, helping them establish an on-going residency program. Greenberg was awarded a MacDowell Fellowship in 2006. In addition to his work with Laboratory Theater, he directs Murphy, an experimental music-theater piece by composer Corey Dargel and playwright Honor Molloy, which was awarded the New Dramatists’ 2007 Frederick Loewe Award in Musical Theater. Laboratory Theater will premiere their newest piece, GIT ALONG LIL DOGGIES, October 14–30 at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn, NY. Greenberg is also an associate of The Wooster Group. www.laboratorytheater.org

GenEnCo Presents: Eagle Woman Poems at The VORTEX

I am afraid of eagle
But keep clutching at her.
Sometimes,
I want to rip this eagle from my neck.
___

Join us for one night only at The VORTEX!

The Generic Ensemble Company presents

Eagle Woman Poems

written and performed by
Natalie Goodnow

directed by
kt shorb

an in-progress showing
July 21st, 8 p.m.

The Yard @ The VORTEX (outdoor stage)

$8 suggestion donation, none turned away for lack of funds

___

Natalie Goodnow is a teatrista, teaching artist, and cultural activist from Austin, Texas. She performs, writes, and directs; she's been doing some combination of these things for the past 16 years, and began teaching about and through those forms seven years ago. She is the Associate Artistic Director of the Generic Ensemble Company, an Artistic Associate at Theatre Action Project, and a member of the Austin Project. Previous original, solo performances include Muntu: a word that means tree and person, and Mud Offerings.

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Use of The VORTEX is made possible through the support of VORTEX Repertory Company.

This project is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division.

What People Are Saying About GenEnCo...

http://austinlivetheatre.blogspot.com/2010/01/stuck-on-geedot-generic-ensemble.html


http://www.outcastaustin.com/episodes/2010/item/2-volume-91-01-26-2010


http://thepopularpodcast.com/?p=3932

SOLD OUT!

Come early to our remaining performances to sign up for our waiting list!

We'll try to make room for you, but know that we might have to ask you to sit on the floor!

Thanks,
GenEnCo

Make your reservations here!

Stuck on Gee-Dot: A site-specific, devised play by The Generic Ensemble Company

Directed by kt shorb
Additional Direction by Natalie Goodnow
With Saray Rosales, La'arni Ayuma and Natalie Goodnow
Dramaturgy by Kimberly Alidio
Design by Camille DePrang
Stage Managing and Event Logistics by Kai Bumpus

DeeDee and GohGoh’s ride needs fixin’. Who knew you could find a good mechanic at a surprise party? They just have to wait for her to show up.

An all-women-of-color adaptation of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot." Set in a deserted house, DeeDee and GohGoh are two queer youth who are waiting for Gee-Dot, She Who Fixes Things.

shorb, Goodnow, and Rosales are recipients of the 2009 FronteraFest "Best of Fest" for their work in the short play, "T.A.G." by Stamp Lab: A Performance Group. This is the premier work of the Generic Ensemble Company, a new theatre group that foregrounds marginal bodies in performance.

To make your reservations for Stuck on Gee-Dot use the link provided (click on the post title!), fill out the form, and wait for the confirmation email.

The Lemon Peel Lounge is a private residence so seating is limited to 15 people per performance.

Any questions should be directed to: genericensemblecompany@gmail.com

Look forward to seeing you at the show!
GenEnCo