Collaboration in the Arts | ARDV 0216
More information here.
During January Term 2017, Maree ReMalia is co-facilitating the Collaboration in the Arts Course with her Pittsburgh-based collaborators Paul Kruse, Adil Mansoor, and Nicole Shero of Hatch Arts Collective and Joseph Hall the Deputy Director from BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance.
Final Project Showing
photo Gigi Gatewood
Course Description
What happens when a musician dances, a choreographer writes, a micro-biologist makes a sculpture? Artists and those who are creatively curious, come play, experiment, and engage in collaboration across artistic and academic disciplines. We will consider how stretching in this way helps us acknowledge and embrace difference and reveal information across our many, intersecting identities. Focusing on the creative process, this course explores artistic expression and helps students generate new collaborative projects which may include performances, installations, and hybrid works. Throughout the term, we will generate journals and mini projects that culminate in substantial final projects that are original, collaborative, and unpredictable. Creative and scholarly sources supporting this class include the practice of contemporary improvisational methods, viewing recent film, visual art, and dance performance, as well as engaging with current readings, interviews, and discussions related to collaboration in the arts. We will also touch on the entrepreneurial aspects of creative process, such as writing artistic statements, project descriptions, and grant proposals.
To learn more about the visiting artists and their project, Fuse, click here.
Final Project Showing
This collage of work draws from the students’ assignments and mini projects and facilitations led by the instructors. Together, the students and instructors collapsed, wrecked, edited, and played with the works in process to create this culminating project. Created and performed by Greg Swartz and Chris Vandiford, Bella Carey, Rathapon Satjapot, Millie von Platen and Matt Gillis with faculty mentors Paul Kruse, Adil Mansoor, Maree ReMalia, and special guests Joseph Hall and Nicole Shero
About the Artists
Joseph Hall is Deputy Director at BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance where he manages programming and operations. He is also an independent producer, curator, and performer working in New York and Pittsburgh. With choreographer Staycee Pearl, he is co-curator of Pearl Diving Movement Residency, a month-long development period in Pittsburgh for new multimedia work by national and local movement-based artists. He is currently Company Manager for choreographer Marjani Forte and was interim Company Manager for MacArthur ‘Genius’ Award winner Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion where he managed the Dancer Development Program and touring schedule. As Programs Manager at 651 ARTS in Brooklyn, he directed public relations and marketing for the 2014-2015 season.
From 2009-2014, Joseph was Producing Director at Kelly Strayhorn Theater in Pittsburgh where he created original programming including My People, a film and performance series celebrating the lives of queer people of color, and the residency and showing series Fresh Works. He managed and co-curated year-round programming including black box and mainstage performances, residencies, rentals, workshops and classes, and special events, and presented artists including Carmen de Lavallade, Rebecca Walker, Terrance Hayes, and Nora Chipaumire. In 2013, he managed the promotion and outreach for Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures’ special event with Wu Tang Clan’s RZA and curated outdoor stages for The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival.
As a performer, Joseph has worked with Staycee Pearl dance project, choreographers Maree ReMalia and Jasmine Hearn, video artist Suzie Silver, and presented his own work at The Andy Warhol Museum as part of Trans-Q Live!, which he also MCed. He has served as Board Member for Balafon West African Dance Ensemble, grant panelist for MAP Fund, and has been awarded a Dignity & Respect Champion in 2013 and New Pittsburgh Courier Fab 40 in 2012. http://www.baadbronx.org/staff—board.html
Paul William Kruse is a playwright, film/video maker, and teaching artist from Western Wisconsin. He is a founding member and the resident playwright of Hatch Arts Collective. Paul creates stories for stage and screen that play with traditional forms of narrative. He strives to create work the context of community. He has particular interest queer identity, spirituality in contemporary culture, and the ever-evolving experience of family. He seeks to express moments of transcendence in his work. Paul also has a fascination with science fiction and fantasy stories and the creation of alternate realities. He loves exploring what it means to create other worlds and what that tells us about our own.
As a teaching artist Paul is passionate about media literacy and narrative play. He works with arts organizations to create unique and relevant experiences for students both in classroom and after-school settings. He is excited to live in a moment when media technology can enter and enhance educational experiences in a highly accessible way. In Pittsburgh, Paul has worked with the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh Filmmakers, The Andy Warhol Museum, The Heinz Endowments, Gateway to the Arts, The Marilyn G. Rabb Foundation, Dreams of Hope, and City Theatre.
Paul has shown short narrative video work at Cannes Film Festival in France (2006); Darryl’s HLP Festival in London, Toronto, and New York (2008); Bearded Child Film Festival in Grand Rapids, MN (2008); and CNKY Scene Film Festival in Cincinnati, OH (2012). In 2010 his short play Kiss was produced as part of the National Ten-Minute Play Contest at the Humana Festival in Louisville, KY. Kiss went on to be published in the May 2011 issue of Dramatics magazine. Paul’s play Chickens in the Yard was selected to inaugurate Quantum Theatre’s Gerri Kay New Voices Program and was produced as part of Quantum’s 25th season. Paul received a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University in 2008, where he worked as filmmaker in residence from January 2011 to August 2012. www.paulwkruse.com
Adil Mansoor is a theater director and educator based in Pittsburgh, PA. He is a founding member of Hatch Arts Collective, a performing arts group committed to creating socially engaged work across disciplines. He has directed multiple projects with Hatch including Walldogs, a new play by Paul Kruse and Reasonable Assurance, a devised performance investigating the economics of higher education and adjunct unionization. Other favorite projects include directing his adaptation of Sherwood Anderson’s Triumph of the Egg (Prologue Theatre Company), dancing in Maree ReMalia’s The Ubiquitous Mass of Us (The New Hazlett Theater), and performing with Project US (For Youth Inquiry), a play engaging young audiences in conversations about sexuality and relationships. In the fall of 2015, Adil directed Hatch Arts Collective’s Chickens in the Yard, a play by Paul Kruse and the inaugural production to be selected for Quantum Theatre’s Gerri Kay New Voices Program.
Adil is the program director for Dreams of Hope, an arts organization working with queer and allied youth. In 2012, he was awarded the Young Audiences National Teaching Artists Best Practices Award for his facilitation of Dine and Discuss, an afterschool program at The Andy Warhol Museum focused on teen-led dialogue. He has thought with many organization including Urban Gateways in Chicago,The Mori Museum in Tokyo, and MozFest in London. Adil is a member of the Heinz Endowments’ Transformative Arts Project and 2010 Director’s Lab Chicago. He has B.A. in Drama and B.S. in Education and Social Policy from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. http://www.adilmansoor.com
Nicole Shero is an administrator, project manager, and producer. She has gained experience in a wide variety of administrative practices, including medical practice management, non-profit and for-profit marketing, arts programming, contracts management, facilities management, organizational finances, individual giving, artwork and document archiving, grantwriting, and events planning. After receiving her bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh, Nicole served as a member of Public Allies Pittsburgh, a non-profit leadership development program. In 2013, she co-founded Hatch Arts Collective, a multimedia and performance group, where she produces theater and performance workshops. Previously, Nicole has worked with Einhorn Media Group, PearlArts Studios, Carnegie Mellon University, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, and Pittsburgh Child Guidance Foundation.
Hatch Arts Collective gathers interdisciplinary artist communities to create performance and media-based work. We believe that meaningful, human interaction mediated by an arts experience can be transformative for individuals and communities.
Hatch Arts Collective formed in late 2012 in Pittsburgh, PA, when three friends set out to produce a new play called Chickens in the Yard. Written by Paul Kruse, directed by Adil Mansoor, and produced by Nicole Shero, Chickens opened to sold out audiences in 2013. Since that first production, Hatch has grown to create multiple new works of performing and interdisciplinary art as catalyst for conversation. In 2014, we premiered Walldogs, a new play and art-making event at Artists Image Resource on Pittsburgh’s North Side investigating the many ways that humans have made their mark on the walls all around us. Spring of 2015, we devised Reasonable Assurance with a group of undergraduate students, local artists, and several adjunct faculty members invested the unionization of adjunct instructors across the country.
In the fall of 2015, we were honored to remount Chickens in the Yard as part of Quantum Theatre’s 25th season through the Gerri Kay New Voices Program. We are currently developing a new play titled Driftless, set to premiere in August 2016 at the New Hazlett Theater in Pittsburgh. Driftless will deal with the very complex issue of fracking in Western Pennsylvania. We are excited to continue to create work that challenges boundaries and creates conversation. www.hatcharts.org
Hatch Arts Collective, Driftless 2
photo Paul Kruse