Sector Support

Doing Dramaturgy

Critical Path provided two places for NSW-connected practitioners to join Critical Path First Nations Producer Jasmine Gulash as participants on DOING DRAMATURGY a course with Lou Cope, founder of CoAD.

The course was delivered virtually across April/May/June.

The goals of the project are to help practitioners to

  • deepen their practice and mission
  • examine their making strategies
  • explore structure, composition, form, content and context
  • share experience, questions and challenges
  • build relationships with each other

 

Lou Cope is one of the world’s most prolific and well-respected dramaturgs, with 20 years of experience working with some of the top choreographers in the world, (including Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Garry Stewart, Birmingham Royal Ballet) and sections of it will be created in direct response to the needs and practices of the participants.

Geraldine Balcazar is a dancer, movement artist and mother working on research-based choreography. She is currently studying in the B.M.C Somatic Educator Training with Alice Cummins, dancing in conversations with Meredith Elton, sharing practice and motherhood with Ade Suharto and making time and space to have regular slow conversations on creativity. Geraldine lives on Bundjalung Country in Regional Northern NSW.

“Doing Dramaturgy course held me accountable in the most loving of ways and mirrored back to me what I do and how I do it. The impact this course has had on me is whole and complete. It was an incredible experience to be asked intimate and personal questions about my practice that I have not openly been asked before.

This opportunity from Critical Path was incredibly supportive and inclusive in every way.  Thank you, it allowed for me to be accountable to having  the ongoing responsibility to my art, my self-care, my practice and the collaboration of the other participating artists throughout the entire course.

Thinking dramaturgically is new way of thinking about art making and life.” – Geraldine Balcazar

Brian Fuata has a 15-year practice in the improvisation of movement, text and speech, using characters such as the faun or the ghost as a narrative device to produce and structure content within timed periods. This body of work was supported by a restricted vocabulary of compositional techniques where over the last 3 years, this “body” of work has undergone an intense process of conceptual autophagy- the results of which are still only emerging.

Jasmine Gulash, Critical Path First Nations Producer, is a descendant of the Kabi Kabi (Gubbi Gubbi) people in South-East Queensland. She has been working in the First Nations Contemporary and Cultural dance space for over 30 years as a dancer, educator, choreographer, tour manager, director and creative producer. Jasmine’s learnings and practices have been enriched by the opportunity of work alongside some of the most talented emerging and established First Nations artists on Country.

“Connection and intimate conversation about practice, process and purpose with artists who you are unfamiliar with was exposing.  However, the Doing Dramaturgy sessions were structured in a way to give us, the participants an opportunity to connect and reconnect so eventually a bond or meeting of minds was established. This then generated a respectful and safe space to engage in open and vulnerable dialogue.

Thank you to  Critical Path, Lou Cope ( CoAD ) and most importantly all of the participating practitioners for giving  so generously throughout this course.” – Jasmine Gulash, Critical Path Producer

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Critical Path

The Drill, 1C New Beach Rd,
Darling Point (Rushcutters Bay), Sydney