"Touching Into Text" workshop with Marissa Perel

CLASSCLASSCLASS 

presents

Marissa Perel

"Touching Into Text"

Saturdays, June 1 and June 8, 1-3pm

Description

This class will combine somatic awareness with reading to create an embodied approach to understanding language. For each class a short selection of text will be presented for reading and discussion. Through exercises that draw from various somatic practices, and experiments made up by the instructor and participants, the class will play with ways of feeling language; bringing words and their meanings into an intimate experiential sphere.

There is room in this class for contemplation, finding an individual pathway for movement and speech, and for giving space to the often daunting mind-body split. It’s possible that we will get emotional about language, that we will love or not love how some texts feel, and that we will invent radical interpretations of what we read. We will investigate who we are as bodies that are simultaneously reading and being read by others.

There is no level of ability, skill or virtuosity required for this class, except real investment in writing, reading, and taking your own body and the bodies of others seriously. Being able to listen to your body as it is reading and experimenting, and being sensitive to the processes of your peers is highly valued here. The desired outcome of this class is that participants find possibilities for integrating language and movement in their artistic processes.

The first hour of class will be a short meditation and relaxation exercise, followed by reading and discussion of the selected text. In the second hour of class, participants will find their own space in the room to investigate the text somatically, with exercises provided by the instructor and the participants. For the last hour, we will debrief on our investigations, and individually present our discoveries.

There will be guest facilitators and lecturers on specific class days coming from diverse fields of art, writing, cultural theory and criticism, poetry, music, science and healing arts practices who will either provide the selected texts, or lead discussions or experiments.

Texts will include selections from such writers as Gertrude Stein, Claire Bishop, Jack Halberstam, Dodie Bellamy, CA Conrad, David Wojnarowicz, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Camille Roy, Kim Jones, Yvonne Rainer, Amelia Jones, Peggy Phelan, Lucy Lippard, Laurie Weeks, Judith Butler, Helene Cixous, Roland Barthes, Carole Maso, kari edwards, Jill Johnston, Faith Wilding, Avital Ronell.

Marissa Perel bio:

I am an artist, writer, independent curator and editor whose work spans performance, video, installation, visual text, poetry and criticism. Recent work has been presented at Danspace Project, Golden gallery, Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church, and Ontological-Hysteric Theater. I was co-curator of Movement Research Festival 2012: Push It. Real. Good, and co-editor of Critical Correspondence, for which I co-curated two Judson 50th Anniversary events at Judson Church and the New Museum. I write the column “Gimme Shelter: Performance Now” on the Art21 blog, and am a contributor to P-Club. B.A. Naropa University, M.F.A School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

marissaperel.com
thebodyofmarissaperel.blogspot.com
art21 blog

Admission: $8 per class

St. Nick's Alliance / Arts@Renaissance
2 Kingsland Avenue (at Maspeth Avenue), Garden Level, Brooklyn
L train to Graham Avenue (map/directions)