I don’t really know anything about this, but my friend Bertie vouches for it, so I’m putting it up here. And I like this quote they put in the promo copy:

“We struggle with dream figures and our blows fall on living faces”
-Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Still, I suggest emailing toplabnyc@gmail.com to find out more first. Or visit http://brechtforum.org

The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB) presents Cutting It Up: A Theater Workshop facilitated by Julia Lee Barclay. It is a one-day workshop that will be held twice, first on Saturday, April 7, 2012, 12:00 noon to 6:00 pm and again on Saturday, May 12, 12:00 noon to 6:00 pm at the Brecht Forum located at 451 West Street (West Side Highway, at Bank Street, one block north of
West Eleventh Street) in good ol’ NYC!

Here’s the description

In this beginning workshop, we will break down both the basic elements of how we communicate with each other and the (mostly unspoken/hidden) rules which govern that communication. Working with verbal and gestural clichés relating to class, race, religion and gender, we will look at how (and to whom) we speak, and develop tools that will enable us to get underneath social clichés in a playful way, thus coaxing the hidden rules into the room. By doing so, those rules will be shown to be mutable rather than fixed.

These tools are useful both for creating new kinds of political-philosophical performances and interactions, and also for learning new ways of communicating within and among groups which are interested in getting beyond stale patterns of hierarchical/binary “that’s the way it is” thinking. This workshop offers some basic tools to help change old perceptions and to allow for new ways of making things happen.

The Cutting It Up workshop evolved from more than a decade of work with actors, dancers, writers, visual artists and musicians in experimental theater labs in New York City (The Present Company,1997-2001) and in London (Apocryphal Theatre, 2004-2011).

This workshop is open to all and no prior theater experience is necessary to participate. Pre-registration is strongly encouraged. Please write to toplabnyc@gmail.com for further information or to let us know you will be attending.

Tuition–sliding scale: $35-$65

If you go, let me know how it turns out.