‘Tis the season once again, that magical time of year at the Walker when the Performing Arts department elves begin to prepare for the arrival of the artists featured in this year’s installment of Out There. Out There 2011: New European Performance features four fabulous performance groups from across the European continent whose works of theater, film, and puppetry (and combinations thereof) promise to stimulate and delight audiences in the Twin Cities.
In addition to outstanding performances, each Saturday of Out There our visiting artists will explore essential elements of their performance style in a series of “Inside Out There” workshops. Inside Out There always provides fascninating insights into some of the world’s most exciting alternative theater companies and is a great way to stay warm during the coldest part of the year!
On January 8th, Slovenian physical theater group Betontanc and Latvian puppet theater group Umka.lv kick off Inside Out There with a puppetry workshop. Participants will improvise and animate objects and puppets and learn more about the unique blend of physical theater and puppetry seen in Betontanc/Umka.lv’s Show Your Face.
On January 15th, Gob Squad invite you to join them for their contribution to Inside Out There, a workshop that gives you an chance to explore Gob Squad’s method of using the individual performer to filter, digest, and interact with culture, history, and society, elements you may recognize from Gob Squad’s Kitchen (You’ve Never Had It So Good).
For film enthusiasts, in conjunction with their production of Bonanza–A Documentary in Five Parts, on January 22nd Belgium based group Berlin is offering a discussion and demonstration of the “art of invisibility” in documentary filmmaking. Although this workshop, like all Inside Out There events, is open to the public, filmmakers and film students may find this workshop most useful.
Examinations of space, set, and bodies–and their connections– are at the center of French artist Phillipe Quesne’s creative process and the results of those examinations are evident in performances of Quesne/Vivarium Studio’s L’effet de Serge. On January 29th, make your own examinations during a workshop that invites you into a theater laboratory that swings between solitude and the group, dream and matter to modify the conventions of the form of theater itself.
This year, in addition to being able to purchase tickets to individual workshops, you can buy tickets to the whole series for only $20 ($12 Walker members) and get the full Inside Out There experience! Tickets to individual workshops are $6 ($4 Walker members).
