A Field Tour and Workshop by Ava Roy (Artistic Director, We Players)
RSVP required
Presented by the UC Berkeley Global Urban Humanities Initiative
How can performance illuminate public spaces, examine their histories and futures, and shed light on the way we design and inhabit our cities? In 2008, and again in 2013 and 2014, Ava Roy, Artistic Director of We Players, mounted site-integrated productions of Macbeth at the massive historic fort at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge known as Fort Point. Moving the audience and actors through the multi-storied galleries, vast courtyard and dark stairwells of the Civil War-era fort, Roy explored Macbeth's themes of ambition, power, and violence via the resonant spaces of the building and the foggy atmospherics of the site. From the rumble of cars overhead on the steel bridge to the sound of footsteps and voices on stone, the sonic as well as the visual frames of the space created a powerful vessel for theater and memory.
In this tour and workshop, Roy will explain the process by which she makes decisions about the use of space in her site-integrated performances. Participants will try out techniques for physically examining spaces with bodies and voices--methods that may be useful for urban design, architecture, performance, or historical investigations.
Space is limited to 25 participants and will be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis. Please RSVP to susanmoffat@berkeley.edu by February 25, 2016.
Ava Roy is the founder and artistic director of We Players. Since its founding in 2000, We Players has presented site-integrated performance events that transform public spaces in to realms of participatory theater. Past productions include The Tempest at the Albany Bulb, The Odyssey at Angel Island, Hamlet on Alcatraz, and Ondine at Sutro Baths. Since 2008, We Players has forged unprecedented partnerships with the National Parks Service and California State Parks. In a three-year artistic residency at Alcatraz (2009-2011), We Players catalyzed examinations of incarceration through exhibitions of artwork by current prisoners at San Quentin, and screenings of documentaries on the American penal system.