Mary Overlie’s Six Viewpoints – Brooklyn, NY

This three session workshop offers a condensed but complete introduction to Mary’s Overlie’s Six Viewpoints physical practices and philosophy. It is good for performers, directors, designers, dancers, choreographers, and any artists who are interested in the medium of performance.

Mary’s Six Viewpoints offer a non-hierarchical field to interrogate the medium of performance through a careful deconstruction of the elemental materials that make up theater and dance. Her postmodern philosophy and physical practices go hand in hand and ultimately train artists to think physically.

Unlike Anne Bogart’s widely known misinterpretation of The viewpoints, Mary’s work is not stiff, it doesn’t push a particular aesthetic forward, and it is aimed to connect every artist with their own individual freedom, curiosity, attention, and artistry.

During two evenings we will work physically with each of the materials independently: Space, Shape, Time, Emotion, Movement and Story/Logic. And during a half-day on Saturday we will explore the relationship of these materials to one another through exercises in perceptual malleability and live composition. The workshop will end with Mary’s Lecture: The Bridge, which contextualizas the work historically and conceptually as it lays out the philosophical and structural foundations of the Six Viewpoints.

Nico has been teaching Six Viewpoints for the past six years at The Experimental Theater Wing at NYU where Mary developed most of her theory. He is interested in sharing this work with working artists from different mediums, different ages and different physical abilities. The wider diversity of perspectives we have in a room the richer the experience will be for all of us involved.

P.S. The work is physical but not necessarily athletic, and everyone attending is free and responsible for their own learning.

WORKSHOP SESSIONS:

TUESDAY 4/30 6:30-9PM

THURSDAY 5/2 6:30-9PM

SATURDAY 10-2PM

BIO

NICOLAS NOREÑA is a Colombian theater maker and performer based in Brooklyn.

He is the artistic director of THE MILLION UNDERSCORES, an experimental theater company founded in 2013, through which he has developed, produced, directed and designed over fifteen original productions that have been presented at The Museum of Modern Art, The Exponential Festival, Movement Research, The Brick Theater, The Clemente Center, Triskelion Arts, Target Margin Theater, O.D.C San Francisco, as well as galleries and public spaces around New York City.

Nicolás studied, performed and worked with Mary Overlie for twelve years. Under her tutelage he learned how to teach her work. He currently teaches at the Experimental Theater Wing in New York University where Mary taught for 40 years. He has taught at Playwrights Horizons, MIT, TK Studios, and Universidad de Los Andes among others. He is the director of the Mary Overlie Archive.