Coursework

These classes are intended to serve all performance students including non performance majors with an interest in movement for reaching personal or professional goals. The material can be leveled as introductory or as an advanced technique for dance or physical theater students. Developmental Technique™ was developed by Wendell Beavers, based on the work of somatic educator Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and many contemporary dance influences from release technique to contact improvisation. This training has formed the core physical training for two influential, original performance programs, Naropa University’s MFA Theater: Contemporary Performance Program and New York University’s Experimental Theater Wing(ETW) at Tisch School of the Arts.

  • Developmental Technique™ is a structured investigation of developmental movement exploring the basic patterns of locomotion, from pre-spinal, navel radiated states through crawling to vertical, embodied expression in space. The goals of the technique are to generate original movement vocabulary and to open the possibility of a wider and wider range of psycho-physical response within an interdisciplinary performance medium which embraces acting, dancing, abstract choreography, narrative and the play and scene form. Classes can be geared toward creating choreography from somatic sources or as a physical technique class in support of many styles and applications.

  • The Viewpoints work can be offered at a variety of levels: an introduction to the Viewpoints language and creative process with specific emphasis on ensemble improvisation; mid-level to advanced level work addressing composition with emphasis on integrating acting/directing and dancing/choreographing. Specific topics include: the relationship of improvisation to composition; improvisation as rigorous research and means of inquiry into movement languages, text, image, story and emotional connection; placing the inner work of acting and dancing on a continuum as opposed to a binary view. Classes are also offered as bridge classes between dance and theater departments, mixing students from these particular disciplines. This can be expanded across all disciplines including music, the visual arts and non arts majors with an interest in an experiential creative process. 

Viewpoints Lectures and practicums

Since my first teaching experiences (1977-78) with Mary Overlie’s Viewpoints material there has been a consistent truth, which for me became a kind of proof, not only of concept, but also of practice. There was something ineffiable held in this view of artistic process that always seemed to nourish and challenge and deliver. What was delivered was in many ways a mirror of the participant/student’s own potential and agency—their personal power to manifest. The Viewpoints operated very like something called a “pointing out instruction” that occurs in Buddhist teachings that I have come in contact with, and also I am quite sure exists in any “spiritual” or “wisdom” tradition that points to how things are, how things work. That something is unspeakable and can only be pointed at—the proverbial finger pointing at the moon.

This “pointing out instruction” can happen in an instant, a day, three days, a week, a month or a year, or years. In my experience a profound experience with The Viewpoints happens precisely this way. One can only hear—which these lectures purport to provide—and be propelled deeply into oneself and irrevocably onto previously unplanned artistic journeys. 

The second aspect of offering lectures, lecture dems, and/or very short introductions to this way of working is to fulfill a need for context. Much of this lecture material is devoted to this: contextualizing, translating, conceptually framing, pointing out probable and improbable associations and meanings.  

  • A Single 1-1/2 hour lecture with discussion (This is a Ted Talk style presentation)

    There are skillful means (compositional) that can create space for differing (different) voices and can integrate the voices into a whole. The Viewpoints can offer tools, and a perspective, that follow a continuum of full differentiation, full claiming of individual identity, to full integration into a single whole. Differentiation, I am different than you, is considered to be a pre requisite for integration into a whole. This is what is practiced in Viewpoints improvisation and subsequent composition. This is a process of YES AND. Issues of control immediately arise which is one of the many buried obstacles that individuals in ensembles face.

  • A two-part lecture/demonstration 

    (for interdisciplinary faculty, staff, and upper level students)

    Ideally: 2 sessions of 3 hrs each. 

    A two part lecture-dem on the current state of the Viewpoints work, directions that are emerging, and ramifications for conservatory and liberal arts programs over the last 40 years. How has the work been disseminated?  What were its original intentions and how have those intentions evolved? How are the Viewpoints perceived and practiced currently? What are our questions that will point us to a fruitful future? This presentation can/should include ample time for questions/facilitated discussion and some time for demonstrations of questions and responses. 

    Main Takeaways: Inspiration to take a fresh look at teaching and/or applying the Viewpoints; How does one take a fresh look? How do we push beyond assumed or entrenched hierarchies of aesthetics, pedagogies? Inspiration to Identify what is satisfying and what is unsatisfying in our present work and to develop strategies to strengthen or move into fresh territory. 

  • (For upper level or mid level students who have had some contact with the Viewpoints previously in the program)

    x number of sessions for x number of hours (Ideally this is something like 3 hrs a day for 5 days, but could extend up to 3 weeks for 15 sessions.

    A review and contextualization of basic Viewpoints Theory and Practice with emphasis on deepening investigations, physically and conceptually, of space, time, shape/line, story/image and emotion as both inner focuses for the performer, and compositional pallet for the director, devisor, choreographer. Also, we will look at the Viewpoints as a primary tool of deconstruction and examine deconstruction itself. What is it’s value? Why is it important? 

  • (mid or upper level students, although could be an introduction to ensemble creation or working in ensemble)

    x number of sessions for x number of hours (Ideally this class would be folded into curriculum hours for a minimum of ten 2hr sessions…something like that)

    We will explore different models of ensemble and the roles of inclusion, equity, hierarchy in group creative process. How are decisions made? Who decides? How can shared values arise and be recognized in an open group process? We will base our practice and discussion on a deconstruction of Viewpoints improvisation and composition practices with assignments for setting, repeating and critiquing material. Our goal is for class participants to begin to articulate their own process in making original work or re-digesting a canon through a physical process of deconstruction and generation.