Expedition details

Date: Thursday, March 8, 2012 – 7:00 p.m.
Location: Rush Dance Studio 392 Broadway #3F, New York, NY
Tickets: None required, free event
Website: www.terptribe.com

Note: TERP is neither created nor produced by Wirth Creative.

Expedition description

The TERP system is a tool designed for human movement composition without rehearsal. TERP experiments with movement instructions to find those that are meaningful to regular people. Think of it like a voiced GPS for groups of non-dancers!

At the TERP event, you will be wearing on your arm a small computer that is about the size of an iPod. You will also be wearing a set of headphones through which you will hear a pleasant voice providing instructions about movement. None of the instructions you will be responding to are physically taxing. Some require interpretation, either physically or emotionally. Most will be straightforward; all of them will be simple to follow.

It’s important to be able to move about the room in whatever you’re wearing that day. Also, sessions are recorded for the archives. The fun part of this TERP system for movement is that you will be creating, with the others, a little art piece in real time.

Want to come along?

1. Add your name to the Interactive Expeditions RSVP list so we’ll know to look for you.
2. Participate in the TERP experience.
3. Afterwards, introduce yourself to Jeff Wirth and share drinks and conversation about the experience.

Jazz musicians do it. Sure, they rehearse, take lessons, perform for audiences; but they also get together and just jam. No audience. No instructors. Just a few musicians exploring a groove and discovering where the music wants to go. It’s relaxing. It’s invigorating. It’s easy and challenging at the same time.

But where do actors and improvisers get a chance to do that? If you’re an actor, you’re in a workshop with people watching and the instructor critiquing your work, or you’re rehearsing a scene to get it ready for an audition or a show. If you’re an improviser, you’re in a class or a rehearsal or a performance with people watching, a coach taking notes, and three or four other people waiting to jump in to the scene. Where do you get the time for a character live and a scene to breathe, to find the groove and enjoy the ride?

What if there was a way for it not to be about the audience, or the critique, or the funny, or the product? What if there was a way for it just about the work. Wouldn’t that be cool?

That’s what the Work is all about. It’s an chance for you to improvise with other performers, living as characters in spontaneous scenes that play out in a real-world environments. No directors, no audience, just performers getting together, finding a groove, honing their chops, and focusing on…the work.

Expedition details

Date: Saturday, November 26, 2011 – 7:30 p.m.
Location: St. Anne’s Warehouse, 38 Water Street, Brooklyn, NY
Tickets:718.254.8779, 866.811.4111, or online.
Cost: Pick the price you think is fair given your interest and economic ability: either $15, $30 or $60.
Website: www.StAnnsWarehouse.org

Note: How Much is Enough is neither created nor produced by Wirth Creative.

Expedition description

How Much is Enough? explores notions of “value” — in all its poetic iterations — quantitatively through our relations to money and qualitatively by asking what we hold dear. The piece itself is built entirely out of questions posed by three performers to audience members, to each other, to the universe, and then some, about how we live our lives, what plans we’ve made for the future and what advice we can offer one another as we attempt to create lives of value.

Equal parts town hall meeting, party, guide for the perplexed … and then some, How Much is Enough? gathers its greatest theatricality from the most interesting people in the theater – those who usually sit in the dark.

Want to come along?

1. Order your tickets from the presenting organization for the date and time listed above.
2. Add your name to the Interactive Expeditions RSVP list so we’ll know to look for you.
3. See the show.
4. Look for the person holding the Interactive Expeditions sign after the show.
5. Go to a nearby cafe, share drinks and conversation about the experience.

Below is a link to an interesting article in The Economist about  about modeling crowd dynamics on the behavior of molecules (a common model) and on the behavior of  people (the innovation addressed in the article).  Turns out there is an advantage to the use of both models.

Wisdom About Crowds - http://www.economist.com/node/18584096

The article was sent to me by Kenneth Ingraham, the president of Interactor Simulation Systems.  Ken also has an interesting idea to address the hazards of crowd behavior disasters by using physical connection.  While his idea might at first seem counter-intuitive, it also might be a successful one.  I wonder how one might test such an idea?

The upright bass player was able to make it to rehearsal last Monday. He was very talented and able to play a wide range of emotions, and while it was his first time working with us, it was a wonderful experience.

The biggest lesson we learned – less is more. Silences are powerful when a spect-actor is accustomed to a layer of music coming in and out. Because the spect’s senses are on overdrive for the opening scene, music only complicates the work. Best to let them get comfortable with their surroundings before putting some of their focus on a new element. Tense moments are heightened when there’s a break in the music, when nothing else is audible except the dialogue and sounds of the scene partners, and then a quick start gets the pace moving in a fresh direction.

There were only a couple moments when the music was a distraction, pulling the spect-actor out the moment with the inter-actor in the scene. We’ll have to play with volume control and some more sensitivity to what the scene needs.

Much appreciated,
Shea

Small time prisoner

This story comes from The Moth.  If you don’t know this podcast and you like great stories, you should check them out.

Not all aberrations are innovations, but every innovation was at one time an aberration.
-JW

Chop wood, carry water.
- portion of a Zen proverb

Think twice about partnerships that result in leaking buckets or dulled blades.
-JW

The condition of the tools is the responsibility of the one who uses them.
-JW