About

The Performance Workshop

The Performance Workshop is an approach to performer training and group collaboration originated by director, educator, theorist, and editor Richard Schechner (b. 1934). The origins of this approach extend back to the 1950s, and continue through his work with his two New York Theatre companies, The Performance Group and East Coast Artists. The extensive catalog of exercises was passed on to members of East Coast Artists and others, who have taught, developed, and applied the work internationally since the late 1990s.

The Performance Workshop, in its traditional 3-4 week intensive format includes the following key components:

Yoga
Vocal Training and Exercises
Explorations of "Self" and identity
Crossings
Rasaboxes
Solo & Group Performance Composition

Rasaboxes

Rasaboxes—a featured set of exercises, and one that has been developed separately in a variety of contexts, from devised theatre to clown to acting for the camera to drama therapy and K-12 education—is an interdisciplinary approach for training emotional expressivity through the use of breath, body, voice, movement, and sensation. It brings together:

The concept of rasa from classical Indian performance theory and practice
Research on emotion from neuroscience and psychology
Experimental and experiential performance practices
Theories of ritual, play, and performance

TPW and Rasaboxes Core Teachers

Paula Murray Cole (Ithaca, NY, USA)

Paula Murray Cole is Associate Professor in the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance at Ithaca College, a teacher of the Alexander Technique, and a licensed massage therapist. Cole acted in Schechner’s Three Sisters and Hamlet with East Coast Artists. Her professional work centers on the development and dissemination of Rasaboxes and The Performance Workshop (TPW). She has taught and/or presented this work at colleges, universities, conferences, and independent arts organizations nationally and internationally since 1999. In 2009, Cole produced the only documentary video recording of Schechner teaching the whole of TPW, Crossing the Line: Inside Richard Schechner’s Performance Workshop.

Michele Minnick (Baltimore & NYC, USA, &Brazil)

Michele Minnick, PhD, CMA, SMT/E is a performance maker and producer, somatic movement educator, independent scholar, and teaching artist. She has taught, presented, and applied TPW and Rasaboxes internationally since 1998 and applied the work to the creation of performance in professional and educational settings in the US and Brazil. Minnick was a member of East Coast Artists from 1994 to 2005, translating and performing in Schechner’s production of Three Sisters (1995–1997) and performing in Hamlet (1999). In 2021, she launched Vital Matters, an interdisciplinary, arts-based laboratory for change motivated by the climate crisis and social injustice. Minnick is a Core Creator with Submersive Productions in Baltimore, where she uses Rasaboxes as a core pedagogy with K-12 students through Arts for Learning Maryland.

Rachel Bowditch (Arizona, USA)

Rachel Bowditch, PhD (NYU Performance Studies), is a theatre director and Professor of Theatre in the School of Music, Dance, and Theatre in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University. She attended Ecole de Jacques Lecoq in Paris in 1998 and is a core teacher of TPW and Rasaboxes. Bowditch acted in Schechner’s productions of YokastaS (2005 and 2007) with East Coast Artists. She has taught and developed Rasaboxes and The Performance Workshop (TPW) since 2003. Her books include On the Edge of Utopia: Performance and Ritual at Burning Man (2010), Performing Utopia (University of Chicago Press/Seagull Books, 2018), and Physical Dramaturgy: Perspectives from the Field (Routledge, 2018). For more about her artistic work: https://vesselproject.org/ and https://rachelbowditch.com/

Ulla Neuerberg (Montreal, CA)

Ursula Neuerburg, PhD, educated in Berlin and New York, is Associate Professor of Theater at Concordia University, Montreal. She connects her commitment to ecology, de-colonization, history, and feminism with her work in somatic engagement, a CATR working group, as member of the Seedings Collective (Rwanda, Israel, Germany), and through the performance of space and place, particularly in the meeting of indigenous and non-indigenous world views. As a performer/director she was a founding member of two companies, TZF in Berlin and East Coast Artists, NY. She is a core teacher of Rasaboxes and volunteers regularly at Bread & Puppet Theater. She has published widely in English and German.

Fernando Calzadilla (Spain)

Fernando Calzadilla, PhD (NYU Performance Studies), is a visual artist, theater designer, dramaturg, performance scholar, and a core teacher of TPW and Rasaboxes. He has been awarded 14 times for best set, costumes, and lighting designer. He has performed and exhibited in Caracas, São Paulo, New York, and Miami art galleries. His work has received support from the Knight Foundation, the Shubert Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Calzadilla was a Fulbright Specialist 2017–2020 in theater and was Guest Artist at the Directors Lab West 2017. Between 2007 and 2017, he was Resident Artist for Miami Theater Center, where he co-authored three original plays and four adaptations. He designed sets, lights, and costumes for all of them.

Marcia Moraes (Berlin, Rio de Janeiro)

Coming soon!

Scott Wallin (Berkeley, CA, USA)

Scott Wallin, PhD, MSW, is on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught a variety of courses in writing and research, theater, and acting, and directed a number of theater productions. He previously taught in the interdisciplinary arts at Stanford University. As a clinical case manager and therapist, he has worked extensively with people who are homeless and within the criminal justice system in San Francisco and New York. He has had the privilege to live and study in Europe, travel extensively throughout Central America, and serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Caribbean. He is a core TPW and Rasaboxes facilitator.

Rasaboxes Practioners and Instructors in Brazil

Rasaboxes in Brazil

the Performance Workshop and Rasaboxes

the Performance Workshop and Rasaboxes

About

The Performance Workshop

Rasaboxes

TPW and Rasaboxes Core Teachers

Paula Murray Cole (Ithaca, NY, USA)

Michele Minnick (Baltimore & NYC, USA, &Brazil)

Rachel Bowditch (Arizona, USA)

Ulla Neuerberg (Montreal, CA)

Fernando Calzadilla (Spain)

Marcia Moraes (Berlin, Rio de Janeiro)

Scott Wallin (Berkeley, CA, USA)

Rasaboxes Practioners and Instructors in Brazil

the Performance Workshop and Rasaboxes

the Performance Workshop and Rasaboxes

About

The Performance Workshop

Rasaboxes

TPW and Rasaboxes Core Teachers

Paula Murray Cole (Ithaca, NY, USA)

Michele Minnick (Baltimore & NYC, USA, &Brazil)

Rachel Bowditch (Arizona, USA)

Ulla Neuerberg (Montreal, CA)

Fernando Calzadilla (Spain)

Marcia Moraes (Berlin, Rio de Janeiro)

Scott Wallin (Berkeley, CA, USA)

Rasaboxes Practioners and Instructors in Brazil

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