Meredith Monk

– former workshop participants

SCHEDULE

AM Session: 11:00-1:30
PM Session 2:30-5:00

Friday, January 13

AM Ellen Fisher
PM Katie Geissinger

Saturday, January 14

AM Lanny Harrison
PM Tom Bogdan

Sunday, January 15

AM Pablo Vela
PM Janis Brenner & Allison Easter

Ellen Fisher’s session will be movement based, using some of Meredith's language of gestural shaping. There will be group improvisations as well as simple solo & group choreographic problem solving, using terminology of rituals, rites and trance dance.

Katie Geissinger will lead an extensive vocal warm-up, exploring relaxation, breathing, flexibility, ease of production, and expressivity. The session will focus on calling, canoning, voice and movement, and hocketing exercises, incorporating selections from Monk’s vocal repertoire.

Lanny Harrison will focus on shape-shifting and transforming characters in changing landscapes and environments within solo, duo and trio forms, working predominately from a movement base. She will also touch on how Shambhala Buddhist practice can inform all theater work.

Tom Bogdan will deal with a simple approach to voice production and teach a basic tour of exercises to help with breathing, resonance, range and color. He’ll also teach a round, do an improvisatory exercise and work on one of Meredith's pieces, Panda Chant, Quarry Weave, or other.

Pablo Vela’s class will be devoted to Composition. Form in three-dimensional space: vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curved, straight. Content and Meaning: near/far, tight/loose, up/down, flat/full; and, last but not least, Style.

Janis Brenner & Allison Easter will co-teach the final session which will include a brief physical warm-up, and a vocal warm-up with the teaching of a song to be sung in "round". Material from “Quarry” and “A Celebration Service” may be incorporated. Movement/voice integration through structured improvisations and character development will also take focus.

BIOGRAPHIES

Tom Bogdan teaches voice at Bennington College and has worked with Meredith Monk since 1991. Ms. Monk wrote NY Requiem especially for him. Bogdan has received critical acclaim for his performances in Concert, Opera, Recital, Cabaret and his own interdisciplinary pieces, L’Amour Bleu and Tell Me The Truth About Love, both produced by the Danspace Project, NY. Of his many recordings his favorites include Monk's ATLAS, Tom Bogdan's L'Amour Bleu, a gay celebration of love, and his For Your Delight with pianist Harry Huff. He received a Fulbright award to teach Monk’s A Celebration Service to a Hungarian Ensemble in Budapest. Bogdan's new cd Hungarian Folk Songs by Bartók and Kodály is available on Centaur Records.

Janis Brenner is an award-winning dancer/choreographer/singer/teacher and is Artistic Director of Janis Brenner & Dancers in N.Y. She has toured in 33 countries and is recognized as a "singular performer" with a multifaceted artistic range receiving numerous honors/grants from the US State Dept., The Trust for Mutual Understanding, Asian Cultural Council, The Fund for US Artists, UNESCO, for tours in Indonesia, Senegal, Taiwan, Russia, etc. Janis joined Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble in 1990 for ATLAS, receiving a group "Bessie" award for The Politics of Quiet in 1997. She performs an acclaimed suite from Monk's Songs from the Hill in concert and in 2009, revived Monk's seminal 1964 solo Break for JB&D's NY season at Joyce SoHo. Her classes/workshops in technique, improvisation, choreography, repertory and voice have been taught throughout the world. She is currently on the faculty at Juilliard serving as Choreographic Mentor and Creative Process instructor, as well as creating and touring with JB&D. www.janisbrenner.com

Allison Easter has worked with Meredith Monk since the 1985 revival of Quarry. As a member of Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble, she has sung on recordings, toured the US, Europe, Asia, received a “Bessie” Award for her work in The Politics Of Quiet, and directed the chorus of Quarry in the 2003 Spoleto Festival. She was the first American woman to appear in the Off-Broadway percussion sensation STOMP. She played Vengeance in Will Pomerantz’s A Tale Of Two Cities, Jerri Lewis in Tony Zertuche’s Anchors, Ms. Porgy in the feature Vacuums, Anita Chambers on Law & Order, and danced with Susan Marshall and Company receiving a special mention in The Village Voice. She has produced and directed original works at Ensemble Studio Theatre, the NY Fringe Festival, and has taught dance and performance at Bennington College, Naropa Institute, Marymount Manhattan College, Sarah Lawrence and NYU-Tisch. She currently teaches modern dance at Pace University in downtown NYC.

Ellen Fisher's performance art production combines gestural actions partnered with visual components such as film, video, shadow play, puppets and apparatus. Her performance work is informed by ethnographic research on the rituals and trance dance of South Asia. She began performing with Meredith Monk/The House in the ‘70s, in such works as The Plateau Series and Recent Ruins, and more recently has appeared in mercy, impermanence and Songs of Ascension. Fisher has also toured internationally with her solo performances. These works have been funded by NEA, NYFA, Jerome Foundation, Art Matters Inc. and the Asia Cultural Council. In addition to solo work, she continues to collaborate with community groups and other artists on intergenerational and intercultural projects. She and Katie Geissinger have also led the Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble education program at LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts for the last three years.

Katie Geissinger has been performing with Meredith Monk since 1990, at festivals and venues worldwide, in concert, and in pieces such as ATLAS, The Politics of Quiet (for which she is a Bessie recipient), mercy, the Grammy-nominated impermanence, and Songs of Ascension. She premiered Bang on a Can’s OBIE award-winning The Carbon Copy Building and performed in the world tour of Philip Glass and Robert Wilson's Einstein on the Beach, which was recently revived in concert at Carnegie Hall. Other Carnegie Hall appearances include Bach’s Magnificat with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Witch in Honegger’s Le Roi David, and Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar. Katie has also appeared in Jonathan Miller’s staged productions of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at BAM,and in John Tavener’s The Veil of the Temple at Lincoln Center. Her Broadway credits include Baz Luhrmann’s production of La Boheme and Coram Boy, and Off-Broadway she has appeared in many Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. She has premiered many new music theater pieces, including Mark Mulcahy and Ben Katchor’s The Rosenbach Company and Philip Miller’s The Hottentot Venus at MASSMoCA. In March, she premiered Monk’s new work, WEAVE for Two Voices, Chamber Orchestra and Chorus in St. Louis. Katie's teaching experience ranges from choral work in Estonia and San Francisco to workshops at Naropa, Bang on a Can's new music institute at MASSMoCA, Oberlin, ETW at NYU, Berklee, the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, and LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts.

Lanny Harrison has been a member of The House since 1969, playing many leading roles in Monk’s productions including recent performances of mercy and Quarry. Since 1966 she has performed in Off-Broadway musicals, films, theatrical duets and her own one-woman shows, which have toured internationally. She teaches acting for children, theater at the Gallatin division of NYU, workshops at the New York Shambhala Center, is a certified meditation instructor, and taught at Naropa University for many years. Since 2000 she has been a member of the Shambhala Arts team at the Shambhala Institute in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and has practiced Tibetan Buddhism as a student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche since 1973. She and Ms. Monk last co-taught a workshop with Acharya Judy Lief at the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York in March 2011.