TWO SATURDAYS, JUNE 25TH & JULY 9TH, 10AM TO 2PM
CATCHING THE MOON STUDIO, 139 HARVARD NE (NEAR CENTRAL), Alb.
TUITION: $120 Call: 897-5057
LINDA RODECK performs and teaches ACTION THEATER, “the improvisation of presence.” A body-based practice, Action Theater deconstructs narrative, movement and sound; shape, space and energy; rhythm, stillness and relationship, and reconstructs them into dreamlike, jazzlike, zenlike improvisational theatre performances. There is narrative content, but, as Ruth Zaporah, the founder of the form describes it, “the nature of its sourcing pulls the audience into alternative realities rather than imitative.”

Action Theater performances are often funny, moving or even strange; the difference between it and more mainstream, story-driven or comedy-oriented improvisation is embodiment. Watch comedic improv and oftentimes you’ll see very clever heads spouting clever dialogue while dragging limp bodies around behind them onstage. By contrast, in Action Theater, every activity originates in the body; and these actions are enlivened by attention, awareness, presence. Further, language is a condiment; narratives arise equally from the interplay of sounds and movements, and the performers’ ability to reveal/refract their experiences of these elements.