After a long, productive residency with Divadlo Continuo Theatre in the Czech Republic, which involved daily training along with the creation of 14 Lines, the final performance of their 2+ year MFA program, Cohort IV took the production on a short tour of the Czech Republic, and a few weeks later, were able to mount a final performance in Arezzo, where their work began two years ago.

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Brittany Roa

You’ve just completed the final final performance of 14 Lines in Arezzo. Can you describe how you felt afterwards?

After finishing our final performance of 14 Lines I felt relieved and energized. We have been working on this show for a long time and I am very grateful to have been able to perform it in Arezzo. I think it is pivotal that we brought the show back to the community where we grew up as artists. I am relieved to have a break from the long hours together and to find space individually and to figure out where exactly my next journey begins. I will miss the ensemble that we’ve created and I’m very proud of how we’ve all grown together, but it also feels like it’s time to move on and develop our own aesthetics. I am looking forward to figuring out my type of theatre and discovering myself more as an individual artist.

Looking back over the past 2+ years what would you say you are most proud of about Cohort IV? How about of yourself?

I think the thing I am most proud of from my group is our ability to create beautiful work. We’ve had our fair share of interpersonal issues, but at the end of the day, we have been able to be professional and produce really strong work. We are a very talented group of performers and I think we have pushed each other to be better. I am most proud of myself how I have developed as a person. These past two years have forced me to confront a lot of things (professionally and personally) and I have risen above them and I am a stronger person as a result. One of my professors told me that he sees a light in my eyes that wasn’t visible in the beginning of this program. I have learned to accept myself and have worked through trauma and personal struggles during these two years and consequently, I am a better performer because of it.

The next and final step in the program is writing your thesis. Can you give us a brief description? What started you down this path?

My thesis is constantly shifting. Every time I sit down and think about the topic, it transforms. But as of now, it’s a pronouncement that since theatre can be so healing and therapeutic it is our responsibility as theatre makers to create theatre of substance that can make a difference in this world. It’s a call to consciousness and acknowledgment of the power that performers and devisers have. I anticipate proving that theatre can heal trauma and therefore asserting the importance of it in this fragile world. I have experienced PTSD and have worked out a lot of problems through performing and I want to prove that it can also heal those who watch. For me, it is very important to create art that touches others and encourages the spiritual development of all those involved.

What are your plans or aspirations for the next few months?

I am performing at a competition in Rome in November and have been rehearsing and preparing for that! I will also be playing music for an Amnesty International event, which I’m super excited to be able to help out! I want to get more involved with organizations like Amnesty while I continue to develop my art and find ways of collaboration. I recently started a Meetup to find a group of like-minded individuals to encourage each other and develop our awareness and spirituality! I’ve been reaching out to theatre companies and professional actors that I’ve met to see if I can find a job in theatre in Italy. I will return to the states for about a month to visit friends and family and then will be back in Arezzo to ring in the New Year! I am excited about the blank canvas that is in front of me and nervous about the unknown, but I know that I will find what I’m meant to be doing.

How do you anticipate the knowledge, skills and experience you’ve gained over the course of the program will inform your work as you move forward?

I have truly transformed as a performer, as well as a human being and spiritual being during this program. I can only hope to take this experience (the good and bad) and use it to continue my journey to create conscious theatre as well as to improve myself and help others.

Cohort V is now in the middle of Year 2. What advice or words of wisdom do you have for them as they continue?

Don’t take any of this for granted. The time seems to go by slowly, but it’ll be gone before you know it. Specifically, the last few months when there were a lot of difficult times I would focus on gratitude and know that when I look back I will be filled with love and appreciation for what I went through, what we all went through. I wasn’t happy every day to be in class and be exhausted, but I was able to see the bigger picture. I was able to realize that all of these moments are transient and precious, and so I embraced my feelings of frustration and focused on being more present in the moment to truly experience and feel everything. I know that I’ll look back years from now and be nostalgic for the amazing experience we all had together.

I was surprised by how moved/worked up I was, honestly. I’m a pretty pragmatic guy, but there was something about doing that show and the finality of closing this chapter of my life that really got me. So many friends and family came to see it, as well as an Aretino public that we’ve spent these two years building. It was a lovely capstone to the whole thing, and a lot of us us got kind of choked up, I think.

Looking back over the past 2+ years what would you say you are most proud of about Cohort IV? How about of yourself?

For the cohort, I think I’m most proud of how we’ve been able to work together. We’re a big cohort with a lot of very different personalities, but this show (and our others, but especially this one), shows what we can accomplish when we really get together and use all of those differences cohesively and with a clear vision/aesthetic. For myself, I guess I’d say I’m most proud of how I’ve grown or changed in the program: when I think back to tour first few devising projects, it’s clear that the seed was there, but that it’s really flowered with time. I feel like a much more articulate artist now than I did two years ago.

The next and final step in the program is writing your thesis. Can you give us a brief description? What started you down this path?

I’m still more or less planning to explore the idea I had coming in to the MFA, though the angle on it has maybe a changed a little. I’m going to be looking at the sociologist Emile Durkheim’s work with collective effervescence in religious settings and try to apply some of the ideas of ritual and community building to the theatrical world, with the goal of developing some ideas about how theater companies, small companies especially, can drive a sense of connection and identity with their audience. As for how I got started on this, my dad is a sociologist and my mom is a literature professor, so I think maybe the sociology of storytelling was an inevitable result.

What are your plans or aspirations for the next few months?

Right now, my main focus is finding work (if anyone reading this needs a technical writer, copywriter, or editor, please let me know!) so that I can stay in Arezzo while I figure out the next big step, whenever and whatever that will be. I’m teaching circus skills here in town, working as a freelance writer for some companies in the states, and working on my own theatrical material with the hopes of putting some kind of show together.

How do you anticipate the knowledge, skills and experience you’ve gained over the course of the program will inform your work as you move forward?

The main thing I think I’m taking away is a better dramaturgical eye, and a more clear ability to find the right timing, crescendo, etc. as well as how to effectively blend spectacle (my main background is circus performance) with emotion. I’d like to think that all of that will directly inform my work, almost no matter what I make in the next months and years.

Cohort V is now in the middle of Year 2. What advice or words of wisdom do you have for them as they continue?

Go big. This whole program is a pretty unique opportunity to experiment and try ambitious things that might fail while you have a sort of safety net. That goes double for the gradlabs and residencies that form the last calendar year of the program, though – this is the moment to try something big and maybe leave school with the makings of a show, or a clear eye for the direction you want to go in after the program finishes. Don’t waste it by thinking “doable” or dreaming small. As they told us at Continuo this fall: “SMRT NEBO SLAVU” (“DEATH OR GLORY”)

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 Nike Redding

Less final than I was expecting! I felt elated at having put on a performance of such high quality and I felt just a bit of the mourning that comes at the end of each show, but I have the feeling that the story will continue on and that this group will find ways to continue working together in some capacity. 

Looking back over the past 2+ years what would you say you are most proud of about Cohort IV? How about of yourself?

I would say that honestly this moment of culmination in the Czech Republic has been the most impressive to witness and be a part of.  Of course, all of our training beforehand allowed this transformation to happen, but I really saw a shift in everyone including myself in the Plum Yard.

The next and final step in the program is writing your thesis. Can you give us a brief description? What started you down this path?

I came to this program with an abiding (some would say obsessive) curiosity about ancient Greek theatre performances, particularly the function of the chorus.  I set out to write my thesis about Athens in the early 5^th century BCE, during the time of Aeschylus, to examine what political, social, and/or cultural movements could have contributed to the invention of drama and the dedication it had among the Hellenic audience.  Ultimately I was seeking to find some justification for the relative lack of enthusiasm for theatre in the contemporary world stemming from its current social functions.  What I’ve found so far has surprised me, particularly in that the religious function, assumed to by the majority of post-Aristotelian scholars to be drama’s true point of origin, seems to matter much less than militaristic and rite-of-passage themes for younger soldiers.  Moreover, I’ve come to understand that actor-drama first debuted in Athens under the support of the tyrant Peisistratos rather than Athenian democracy, and that the Athenian democracy itself was seen by many Greek states as an Imperialistic system whose goal was to enslave the rest of Hellas.  So, I would say I’m at a difficult but productive crossing of thought and I am happy that my research has taken me on a journey and not just supported my previous assumptions.           

What are your plans or aspirations for the next few months?

I plan on staying busy, performing as much as possible and continuing to research for my thesis on my unstructured days. I have a couple performance projects coming up in November and December that I’m excited about.  One of them involves a scene with Ricardo Martinez that he and I developed during our residency in Berlin with Familie Floez.  We’ll be performing it as a part of the Premio Internazionale Lydia Biondi festival in Rome.   The other project is a site-specific work here in Arezzo that takes place inside a bell foundry that was shelled and rebuilt after WWII.  A handful of other things have come up but it’s too early to say how they will materialize just yet. My hope is to stay in Europe as long as I can, but for that I feel that I have to be patient despite my own sense of urgency.  It’s a period of fishing in unknown waters, but I’m not yet anxious and hungry. 

How do you anticipate the knowledge, skills and experience you’ve gained over the course of the program will inform your work as you move forward?

The program has developed nearly every aspect of my work to a much higher degree of artistry, from my physicality to my musicianship to my sense for dramaturgy.  I feel prepared to work with a company and adapt quickly to their needs, but moreover I feel confident to devise my own work and collaborate with peers.  Going ahead with new projects I have a realistic awareness of what can and can’t be planned beforehand, of the importance of improvisation in the creation phase in other words.  Perhaps one of the most important lessons I’ve gleaned from the past two years has been to experience each moment like it’s the first time, and so in that spirit I would say I am primed and enlivened but not decided.      

Cohort V is now in the middle of Year 2. What advice or words of wisdom do you have for them as they continue?

I think that with this program everyone’s journey within it and beyond it is unique to them, so I would just say to stay open to discovering new paths that you didn’t know you wanted to pursue.  And don’t hesitate! 

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 Elyse Brown

You’ve just completed the final finalperformance of 14 Lines in Arezzo. Can you describe how you felt afterwards?

I felt relieved – our show is technically complex and we made quite a few changes to accommodate the space we were in. But it was also that sense of relief one feels when they return home after being away for a long time. Arezzo has been my home for the past two years, and bringing the show back to a community that has welcomed and supported me in my studies felt wonderful.

Looking back over the past 2+ years what would you say you are most proud of about Cohort IV? How about of yourself?

I am proud of the growth I have seen from every person in our cohort. I saw moments from everyone where they recognized the need to change, and opened themselves up to be vulnerable in front of the group. That takes great courage, and I am grateful I was there to witness these moments.

Despite the physical changes my body has undergone, I am most proud of how my inner life has changed. I don’t know if it’s improved for the better, but I am marvel at how adaptable I am, and can continue to be. I am more comfortable failing, and have a newfound patience for editing devised work that I hope to carry with me.

The next and final step in the program is writing your thesis. Can you give us a brief description? What started you down this path?

For my thesis I want to research and gain comprehensive knowledge of different forms of object manipulation in theatre, then analyze whether these variants can be applied to the New Circus genre. My interest for this topic stems from our first residency at the Flic Circus School in Turin, Italy, when I experimented with dance and movement on the floor with the aerial silks.

What are your plans or aspirations for the next few months?

Now is a great opportunity to really dedicate my time to research and writing an excellent thesis that I may reference for future projects. I will actively seek work, but I want to take these months as a chance to reconnect with artists back home, and travel to other parts of the world I have yet to see.

How do you anticipate the knowledge, skills and experience you’ve gained over the course of the program will inform your work as you move forward?

I have a clearer understanding of my aesthetic and style as a theatre artist; I look forward to marketing myself more specifically and finding projects that will complement my artistic needs. Thanks to the intense physical training in this program I am eager to continue exploring the possibilities within my body as a contemporary dancer.

Cohort V is now in the middle of Year 2. What advice or words of wisdom do you have for them as they continue?

Cohort V: what can I possibly say? I am always surprised when I see you work; and love how all your unique talents combine to make a strong ensemble. A professor once told me to breathe,  and I echo this word and idea to you. There will be so many other things occupying your minds as you wrap up this program that I hope this gentle reminder will give you pause to take it all in.

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