Thursday, October 4, 2007

1:30pm – FREE - at Goucher College Meyerhoff Arts Center -- Dunnock Theatre

Alternate ROOTS: Resources for Social Change - Exploring principles for partnerships between Artists and communities.

Resources for Social Change (RSC) is a training program developed by Alternate ROOTS that teaches ideas and techniques to develop sustained social change through art. This workshop will focus on five principles as a model for artists working with community: Shared Power; Equitable Partnership, Open Dialogue, Individual and Community Transformation, Aesthetic including Beauty and Justice.

4:00pm-6:30pm – FREE - at Goucher College Todd Dance Studio

Cornelia Kip Lee: Building Inclusive Community through Dance

In this workshop participants will create original ensemble dance theater in a way that is inclusive and welcoming of people with “different” physicalities and physical limitations. We will practice inclusive modern dance technique, use improvisation as choreographic research, and create moments of shimmering dance art together. The workshop invites participants to consider questions such as: What is a dancer? What is dance? What makes a dance theater piece good? Who could not dance?  How do limitations become opportunities and doorways rather than obstacles to creativity? There will be time for performing for and with each other, as well as discussion at the end of the workshop.

Friday, October 5, 2007

4:00pm - FREE - at University of Baltimore *

* Sponsored by Free Fall Baltimore (www.freefallbaltimore.org). This FREE performance is made possible by a grant from Mayor Sheila Dixon and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts. Special thanks to Free Fall Baltimore media sponsors: Maryland Public Television, WBAL-TV, 92Q-FM, Magic 95.9-FM and The Baltimore Sun.

The Collective: Community Building through Improvisation

Our goal is to make the impossible seem possible. This workshop will address the strength of community building to accomplish seemingly impossible goals. Through various trust building exercises and dance demonstrations, the workshop participants will accomplish a community goal of creating a new dance through improvisation. This workshop is geared to the general public, open to all ages and ability levels.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

9:30am - FREE - at Maryland Institute College of Art

Art on Purpose: Speaking of Silence

The “Speaking of Silence” workshop will address the rich and layered meanings of silence. How does silence play a role in our daily lives, in communication, spiritual practices, and our relation to ourselves and our environment. In this workshop, participants will listen to audio recordings taken from an ongoing interview project conducted by Art on Purpose to collect individuals stories. The audio pieces explore observations, descriptions, and experiences of keeping and breaking silence and how it relates to voice and empowerment. Participants of any age will reflect on the audio, view and respond to photographic portraits, engage in discussion around the topic and create their own piece of artwork expressing the significance of silence in their own lives. The workshop itself acts as a space for the participants to listen, observe, and share their own experiences as a tool to create a piece of writing, a drawing, or their own recorded story.

11:30am - FREE - at Maryland Institute College of Art

American Friends Service Committee: Policing US

The workshop is intended to demonstrate the relationship between policing, prisons and political repression in U.S. communities of color. The workshop will provide a historical timeline that draws the connections between slavery and the advent of urban police forces as well as law enforcement initiatives such as the FBI’s infamous Counter-Intelligence Program and its impact on the Black Panther Party.

11:30am - FREE - at University of Baltimore

Ioana Stoica: Mythic Journeys - Engaging the Hero Within

Recognizing that social justice begins with personal transformation, this workshop will draw upon myth as the source and inspiration for that process. Myth reawakens our sensuous experience of the lived world and re-enchants our practical experiences in a way that provides us energy to initiate change in the world around us. The workshop will create a space where individuals can identify, discuss, and embody mythic elements of their own lives and ways in which myth can inspire action and change. The goal is for each participant to identify and embody an inner hero whose power for action - in whatever capacity and on whatever scale - is reinforced by a personal story and a symbol that can serve as a source of strength and meaning in daily life.

2:00pm - FREE - at Maryland Institute College of Art

Maggie Cleland: Empowering Adult Immigrant Communities through Theatre

In this dynamic workshop, participants will investigate the challenges and benefits of theatre-making across socioeconomic, educational, and ethnic boundaries. Maggie Cleland, the Workshop Facilitator, will share lessons learned from The ESL Living Collage Project, an interdisciplinary, collaborative theatre project about the diverse adult immigrant community of the Arlington Education and Employment Program’s Clarendon Education Center (REEP/CEC) in Arlington, Virginia. Through discussion as well as theatre games and activities, participants will explore ways of using theatre for community-building, language learning, and lifeskills development. This workshop is appropriate for older teens and adults of all abilities/needs. No acting experience is necessary.

2:00pm - FREE - at University of Baltimore

Quest: Poetry in Motion

Participants will gain a greater understanding of Physical theatre; the role physical theatre can take in enhancing literacy; and the role physical theatre can play in developing acting and communication skills. This workshop is an example of Quest’s commitment to use visual theatre as a strategy to enhance learning readiness and literacy.

4:30pm - FREE - at Maryland Institute College of Art

Wide Angle Youth Media: Flip It - Exploring & Creating Youth Media

Members of the Mentoring Video Project, who produce the “for youth, by youth” television show BeMore TV, will share their knowledge and teach other young people how to explore and produce media that gives them their own platform to speak out about issues that are important to them. In this workshop, we will open with a participatory exercise, in which we will analyze contemporary media and discuss how youth are represented. Then, we will showcase examples of youth-made videos using material from episodes of BeMore TV. After watching these videos, youth will learn and practice techniques for creating youth-focused media and discuss its importance in advocating for community issues. Though this workshop is intended for the youth, it can be open for people of all ages to join.

4:30pm - FREE - at University of Baltimore

Plunge Cabaret: Power Struggles and the Call for Creativity

We will work with one definition of power as “the ability to make choices,” and, through that lens, explore how the struggle to feel powerful is a central issue in most any social, cultural, or developmental issue facing us today. Using the venue of cabaret-style theater, we will create a learning environment using both performance and interactive workshops to discover how the subjects of power and choice impact our lives and fields of work, study, and art. Not inappropriate for any age/ability, but geared primarily towards artists, activists, and facilitators dealing with a variety of social , cultural, and developmental issues.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

1:30pm - FREE - at Red Emma’s

Theatre Action Group: Embracing Discomfort

In this workshop, Theater Action Group (TAG) asks how this festival can serve us as artists and activists to identify, explore and address the contradictions in our work? TAG is open to working with festival participants and leaders to identify and respond to an emerging concern, theme or need that arises during the festival. TAG is also prepared to explore some of the questions that have been relevant to our community-based theater work: What are the tensions experienced as artists and activists? Can one be both? What are the tensions experienced as an insider and/or outsider working in a community as an artist? What is this thing we call “community” anyway? How do we build it? How do we build a community with differences? Why bring art to communities, or build communities through art?

Rather than propose “answers,” TAG will create a framework to explore these questions and potential tensions through physical and collective responsive action. TAG uses a wide range of structures and techniques such as Theater of the Oppressed, ensemble-based practices, improv, poetic movement structures, creative writing, playback, and image theater. This workshop is intended for community organizers, community-based artists, and festival participants. It welcomes people of all ages and needs who wish to explore these questions as well as one’s own creativity, to express one’s hopes and aspirations, and to give voice to one’s passions and stories. Our goal is to create spoken and image-based dialogue around these issues and give folks a direct experience in some of TAG’s evolving community-based performance practice. Theater Action Group (TAG) is a collective of citizen artists in Baltimore empowered with the language of theater to promote dialogue, to encourage social action and to build community via performance, workshop series, and community partnerships.

4:30pm - FREE - at Red Emma’s

Brave Soul Collective: Embracing Your Truth

Through the use of group discussion, BSC will conduct their "Brave Soul" gathering with a specific focus on the power (and/or) importance of embracing one's truth in order to increase self esteem, dispel stereotypes, and reduce the risk factors generally associated with HIV infections. BSC has found that the ability to identify & demonstrate one's truth openly is extremely beneficial not only to individuals, but to larger groups of people who may not otherwise take the time to understand, acknowledge and accept one another.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007 - FREE Performance!
8:00pm
(Sponsored by Free Fall Baltimore*)

Courtney Weber
The Collective
Deletta Gillespie

* Free Fall Baltimore (www.freefallbaltimore.org) is made possible by a grant from Mayor Sheila Dixon and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts. Special thanks to Free Fall Baltimore media sponsors: Maryland Public Television, WBAL-TV, 92Q-FM, Magic 95.9-FM and The Baltimore Sun.

Thursday, October 4, 2007
8:00pm

Run of the Mill Theater
Black Codes
Kids on the Hill (video documentary)
Radical Artist Movement

Friday, October 5, 2007
8:00pm

Encounter Risk
The Everlutionary Trust
Cornelia Kip Lee/Air Borne Dance Theater
Marietta Hedges
Stephanie Powell

Saturday, October 6, 2007
8:00pm

Brave Soul Collective
Quest
ClancyWorks Dance Company
Jennifer Lanier
Reggie Glass

Sunday, October 7, 2007
8:00pm

Maura M .Garcia
Kuumba Collective
WombWork Productions
Laura Schandelmeier & Stephen Clapp
Paula Larke

Friday, October 5, 2007 at Baltimore Theatre Project

Activist Networking Cocktail Hour - 6:00pm - FREE (donations welcome)

This networking cocktail time will provide a space for Activists, Organizers, and Artists to discuss their current projects and potential future partnerships. This will be a chance to connect with artists, organizations, and some of the organizers and activists who have been doing social justice work in the Baltimore area around different community issues. This event is free to attend. Open Cash Bar & Light refreshments.

Sunday, October 7 at Creative Alliance

Brunch - 9:30am - $7 in Advance / $10 at the door
Panel - 10:00am - FREE (donations welcome)

For tickets and more information
Plese call: (410) 276-1651 or visit: www.creativealliance.org

Join organizers and artists to discuss Baltimore’s commitment to social change.  Come to The Patterson for brunch, lively company and a broad panel, including Mama Kay and Mama Rashida from Womb Work, Musician Ogun, Pamela King from the Open Society Fellows Program, and Charlie Dugger, a long time organizer and activist in Baltimore. This panel moderated by Lamar Shields from the Urban Leadership Institute will be inviting dialogue around social movements in the region and the tools needed to broaden and deepen this work.

Baltimore Theatre Project www.theatreproject.org
45 West Preston Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Creative Alliance at The Patterson www.creativealliance.org
3134 Eastern Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21224
(410) 276-1651

Goucher College www.goucher.edu
1021 Dulaney Valley Road, Baltimore, MD 21204
Meyerhoff Arts Center -- Dunnock Theatre and Todd Dance Studio

The University of Baltimore www.ubalt.edu
1420 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21201
Business Center at the SW corner of Charles and Mount Royal
Room# BC003

Maryland Institute College of Art www.mica.edu
1300 Mount Royal Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217
Main Building Room 222
Click Here to link to directions and a map of MICA.

Red Emma’s 2640 www.redemmas.org/2640
2640 St. Paul Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

For more information, please call: (540) 558-8744

Or visit the following websites:

http://www.clancyworks.org/creativeconverge.html
http://www.communityperformance.org
http://www.dancenow.org/convergence.html