Description
This workshop is a multidisciplinary class that challenges the traditional methods of arts education. It is collaborative and student focused; meaning what we work on is dependent on what the students need and how they like to learn. It also involves creating together, through devised and collective creation ideologies!
Together, we will look at storytelling through any medium. How does one conceive, begin and produce their own work? Through a series of individual and group exercises, we will explore how we integrate ourselves, and the world around us into our art. Each exercise involves many different mediums, such as visual art, writing, movement, performance, and film. By using many mediums to create one cohesive piece, participants will learn how to get out of their heads, create art that is socially and politically important but also meaningful to the artist, and bring their entire selves to the work they create.
Teacher Bio
Riel is a multidisciplinary artist from Cole Harbour, NS. She is a graduate of Randolph College and current acting student at the National Theatre School of Canada. While most of her formal training is in performance, Riel also composes and produces music for musical theatre and hip hop!
Riel was recently awarded the Rita Joe Award for Playwriting by Highland Arts Theatre for a new hip hop basketball musical she is developing with Aaron Jan, and was part of the 2021 Noteworthy cohort with Prime Mover and Musical Stage Company. As an actor she has worked with companies like Broadway in the Hood and Two Planks and a Passion Theatre Company. Along with her artistic practices, Riel works as an arts educator; teaching, facilitating and doing various outreach projects.
Riel loves to create work that amplifies voices that wouldn’t normally be heard in a theatre context. She strives to make theatre more inclusive for all, by creating free theatre programs for all. She hopes to help people find their voices and support communities through theatre training.
Links to Riel’s work, reviews and media attention
- 2021 Rita Joe Canadian Playwriting Award (Winner)
- Do U Love Me? (Music)
- Me (Music)
Who Should Take This Workshop?
This class is geared toward beginners and anyone seeking a foundation in cross-disciplinary art-making.
Course Breakdown
Session 1: Beginnings
Participants will gain many tools to use when feeling stuck or unsure of how to begin or how to discover what the piece they’re creating is about. They will also learn how to take existing texts, images, etc. and develop them into something new that aids their storytelling.
Session 2: Developing a piece
Participants develop skills to incorporate many different mediums into their work, as well as knowledge surrounding how mediums work together in perfect harmony to create a cohesive image, story, etc, to the point it feels like one.
Session 3: Sharing and feedback
Participants will leave this session with an understanding of how to critique their own work, as well as how to listen to feedback from others, choose what makes sense to them, and turn it into their own. Furthermore, they will have an idea which questions to ask to gain the feedback they are looking for, what aspects of the piece they are actually looking to change, as well as knowing how to give constructive feedback.
Session 4: Reworking and redesigning
Participants solidify their practice, by learning how to continue developing a work even after it’s been seen, and tuning into one of the biggest questions surrounding art-making: how do we allow ourselves to let the work go?
Event Details
Session 1: November 02, 2021
Session 2: November 09, 2021
Session 3: November 16, 2021
Session 4: November 23, 2021
Start time: 19:00 EDT
End time: 21:00 EDT
Venue: Zoom Conference
