Next! Workshop series hosted by Pioneers Go East Collective.
Physical Theater & Crafting Moments Workshop by G^2: Beth Graczyk & John Gutierrez - Free & Online
Saturday, February 27, 2021, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM
RSVP at pioneersgoeast@gmail.com - All participants are welcome!
In this class we will write, sing, move, and use our creativity to share and construct seed ideas for structured improvisation. We will draw from what is always there (the present moment) and what we find (our history) to generate and explore material stemming from the most expansive source of information we have access to, our individual selves and our physical bodies. We will utilize the energy generated to find unusual, yet natural portals into an infinite range of possibilities within our imagination. The culmination of our learning together will allow us to craft real-time choreography malleable to each student’s unique vision.
Beth Graczyk is a Brooklyn-based dance artist and scientist who aims to spark creative dialogue through performance, teaching, and contemporary dance-based projects with a focus on LGBTQIA+ and disability inclusion. Graczyk has performed throughout the United States and internationally in Japan, Ecuador, France, China and India for the past 18 years. In NYC, her solo works have been presented by Gibney, La MaMa, Judson Church, Jack, Triskelion, CPR, Movement Research, Oye Group, Kraine Theater, Chez Bushwick and through Pioneers Goes East Collective. She is commissioned to make a new dance work with Interact Theater in Minneapolis with their LGBTQIA+ artists, and will tour through the MN Touring Arts Grant to 4 cities starting at the Mayo Clinic in 2021. She has a collaborative partnership with John Gutierrez (G^2), in which they co-teach improvisation and create performance works together. In addition, Beth partners with BAIRA in Detroit as a teaching and creative collaborator, is a resident artist for NYC-based Pioneers Go East Collective, and is on Faculty at Peridance Contemporary Dance Center. Graczyk travels annually to India to work as an educator and choreographer with Kerala-based artists Sen Jansen and Arunima Gupta. Concurrently, she is an author on 10 science publications in the field of cancer research and a Research Specialist at Rockefeller University. In October 2020 Beth received a Pilot Award from Rockefeller University with collaborator Guadalupe Astorga for research on visual perception in Autism. She co-directed the performance company Salt Horse in Seattle with Corrie Befort and Angelina Baldoz from 2008-2016. @bethgraczyk
John Gutierrez is a multidisciplinary artist, creator, and performer originally from Washington Heights, a neighborhood in a densely populated small island known as Manhattan/New York City. Since finishing his BFA (in theater/drama) at NYU Tisch’s Experimental Theater Wing, John has ventured into various worlds of performance - working with directors and choreographers from around the world such as Big Dance Theater, Full Circle Souljahs, The Ridiculous Theater Company, Andrew Schneider, the feath3r theory, MOTUS of Italy, Ivica Buljan of Croatia, Jesse Phillips-Fein, Martha Tornay, Culture Hub NYC, and many more, performing in venues all over the East Coast and Europe such as BAM, The Kennedy Center, La Mama, Dixon Place, Danspace, Dance Place DC, BAX, and many more. John’s personal work combines theater, movement, and original music ranging from artistic expressions based in everything from hip hop to postmodern and has been presented at The Rubin Museum, Gibney, Theater for The New City, HERE Arts, TADA Theater to name a few. His work, typically collaborative based, often deals with current and historical interpersonal and systemic sociopolitical issues. John recently finished his training at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio which offers a two year acting conservatory in the Meisner technique/method. He is faculty at Peridance Contemporary Dance Center where he co-teaches improvisation with Beth Graczyk, from which has stemmed a new collaboration project known as G^2! Recent credits include performing internationally with Miguel Gutierrez, MOTUS, and Pilobolus. John is a proud member of the Great Jones Rep Company of La Mama and BAIRA / MVMNT PHLOSHPY. @jmg160