This Onion Talk reveals some of the aspects we won’t be looking at in the workshop.
by Michael Wheeler,
Next week I am leading a workshop with Theatre Ontario on online tools and how they can complement and integrate with live performance. It is designed to be useful to staff at arts organizations as well as artists interested in these ideas and concepts . You know how they say spots are limited and filling up fast? This is also true in this instance.
Looking at examples from work with The Electric Company, Volcano Theatre, The Shaw Festival, The Theatre Centre, Praxis Theatre and The Wrecking Ball, this workshop investigates imaginative expression and best practices in performing arts and online integration.
Praxis Workshop @ Social Media Week 2012
Questions the workshop poses:
Where does your social media content come from?
What ‘voice’ should you use to represent your work or organization online?
What’s the latest with live-blogging and live-tweeting?
How can online tools and presence assist instead of distract from the work?
Participants will emerge with:
A better idea of your relationship to social media
A clearer idea of what approach to social media is right for you.
Information to inform your social media strategy.
Ideas for social media content and where to look for/create them.
A better understanding of trends and developments.
HASHTAG: #THEATREON WHERE: 215 Spadina Avenue, Suite 210. Toronto WHEN: Tuesday November 27, 6:30pm to 8:30pm RSVP:Theatre Ontario Registration
Praxis Theatre is involved in two events as part of Social Media Week next week, both of which address the intersection of performance and online technologies.
Although many of these events are now “sold out” for online pre-registration, there is a waiting list available at the venues, half an hour before each event begins that you can get on in person. Because all SMW events are free, it is anticipated that most events will have some people that don’t show up for their free pre-reserved spots.
The Online Brain created by Aislinn Rose is part of Liza Balkan's Out The Window at The Theatre Centre. The Line up for Free Fall '12 will be announced at The Drake Hotel on Monday February 13th.
What are the ways that online technologies can be used in conjunction with performance? How are digital technologies expanding the potential of art forms that have initially been analog based?
Free Fall Festival Co-Curator Michael Wheeler moderates multi-platform artists involved in The Theatre Centre’sFreeFall ’12 – ‘Performance Without A Net’. Panelists will demonstrate, discuss, and debate their mid-process methods and artistic philosophies in this interactive event.
From online “brains” that supplement the material an audience engages with live, to interactive performance that encourages audiences to upload their consciousness online, to cross-city tours that keep a mobile audience connected through social media tools, the parameters and potential of storytelling has expanded in exciting and unexpected ways.
Follow along or participate via #SMWFreeFall.
Panelists:
Jonathan Goldsbie on the use of Twitter in Route 510 Revisited Aislinn Rose on an Online Brain that complements Liza Balkan’s Out The Window Andrew Templeton on online platforms and narratives intersecting with Radix Theatre’s Babylonia.
Melissa Hood prepares her notes before a workshop presentation of Open Source Theatre Project
Yes, that’s right, it’s the romantic Valentine’s Day activity you’ve been looking for. Set the flowers and chocolates aside and come talk internet, community and theatre.
Praxis Theatre and the Toronto Fringe will co-host a case-study analysis of the work that Praxis makes in tandem with online community building activities, and how that community in turn helps build the work.
A presentation lead by the editors of praxistheatre.com and community members, this conversation aims to not only explore the notion of social media as audience development tool, but also performance development. A conversation for industry professionals, students, producers, media, PR professionals, and industry enthusiasts.
As the production rehearses, The Company is releasing short documentary films by Michael Schultz about the creative process behind putting the show together. You can view Part 1 of 4 above and click here to view Part 2. The first mini-doc already has over 1000 views, it will be interesting to see if this translates in to actual in-person views.
What do you think? Is this an effective audience engagement strategy? Does getting a an insider’s peek at putting the show together make it more likely you will see it? For theatre creators – would having a camera in the room impact your creative process? Would you like to see more or less of this?
Here are 3 internet/performance-related things I am up to. They’re all completely different and have me thinking about how different people – playwrights, young artists and audiences – can interact with the the internet and performance.
Also, I still like to direct plays and will talk about that from time-to-time too.
1
Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC) has asked me to give a seminar on – wait for it – Social Media in the Arts.
Today, as part of ‘PLAYWRIGHTS: Getting Down to Business’, a day of professional development workshops for playwrights organized by PGC, we will discuss social media as it relates to the Canadian playwright. What advice would you give playwrights about how to use social media these days? Leave your advice in the comments before 3pm and maybe we will end up discussing it.
2
This summer I am leading a FREE program for youth at The Theatre Centre on – you guessed it – online tools and performance.Dates:Monday July 25 – Friday July 29 Time: 10pm -2pm Age: 15-19
This FREE program includes free LUNCHES and a TRANSIT subsidy in an exploration of what tools are available on online, what stories the participants are interested in telling, and how to tell them on the stage in new and exciting ways. Throughout the week, resident companies at The Theatre Centre will join the workshop giving participants a rare window into how cutting-edge artists are working with the newest technologies to create their work. Click here to sign up or learn more.
3
Work is ongoing with Theatre Smith Gilmour as they move ever closer to their North American premiere of the first ever Sino-Canadian co-production Lu Xun Blossoms at Luminato.
The latest post explores who Lu Xun was (Western audiences can understand him as having many parallels to Chekhov). Luminato has also launched their own Smartphone Ap to keep track of everything that is going on when the mega-festival hits town, which means you can now also buy tickets instantly via the small computer many of us keep in our pockets.
4 (the outlier)
This weekend I will be participating in Directors Lab North, which fosters a national and international exchange between a community of emerging, mid level and established career directors created by alumni of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in New York City.
My involvement is contributing to a panel that also includes Obsidian Theatre Artistic Director Philip Akin and Modern Times Artistic Director Soheil Parsa. We will NOT be discussing the internet. Mostly we will be talking about theatre, aesthetics and identity. Although Philip has been an early adopter of the The Blog, so you never know. Also I guess my aesthetic in some way involves the internet. Never mind.
Reilly Dow will illustrate the The Digital You – creating a visual representation of our discussion through graphic recording.
If you are an Equity member attending CAEA’s AGM in Toronto tonight – this year there is something a little different.
From 8pm to 9:30pm I will be moderating a discussion on the way social media tools like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube have been rapidly transforming the theatrical landscape in a panel called: “The Digital You.”
The panelists for this discussion are: Ross Manson, Maev Beaty, Marjorie Chan and John Karastamatis. These artists and arts professionals represent a broad range of social media use in conjunction with performance. I think it will be a lively discussion and I am excited to see what it looks like at the end as a graphic recording.
Hopefully we will be able to digitize and share this recording!
Graphic recording is a powerful tool for synthesizing conversations, dialogues, meetings and events. The recorder creates large-format visuals in real time, tapping into the collective intelligence and wisdom of a group and bringing it to life with graphics. These “murals” act as a public memory, and help participants in any meeting or conversation share complex ideas easily.
Video discovered on the always compelling AWG: Chicago theatre blog. Clearly it was made to garner some big consulting bucks – still, it’s hard to not find the argument compelling. Things do seem to be advancing at more than an incremental rate…
“After the years and years of weaker and waterier imitations, we now find ourselves rejecting the very notion of a holy stage. It is not the fault of the holy that it has become a middle-class weapon to keep the children good.”
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