“I have been teaching since I began to perform professionally in the mid 70’s. For me, teaching, alongside ones professional practice, is one and the same process. I do, therefore I teach”. Katie Duck
Multidisciplinary Workshop
The workshop extends towards improvisation sessions, setting a fictional front in the studio space and then declaring this as a platform to choose pause, flow or exit. The limit of these three choices already provide a frame for a composition to take place. Misunderstanding, coincidence, interactivity, messiness and inspiration are highlighted as a basic experience in a creative process. The workshop is placed in two parts that eventually merge throughout the process of the daily work:
BODY BODY BODY
The Body is the single element that all performance disciplines have in common. I begin the workshop with early human development movement patterns which include the ways babies naturally explore and gain control over their bodies.
Roll, crawl, sit, stand, and walk, emphasising the natural intelligence of these movements, spinal undulations, floor work to reconnect with foundational motor development, learning through touch, sound, and internal sensation, improvisation as play with curiosity and without pretence, “listen” without imposed technique or expectations.
The aim is to re kindle a curiosity for discovering movement, question what motivates you to move and “why” you choose to go one direction or another in any given creative situation. And to relies that “Dance is fancy walking”
“We forget that we have a body once we reach adulthood. Before that, it was the first thing we remembered as we woke in the morning glee full and proud that we learned to step out of our beds. We remember we have a body, we are reminded we have a body, we take detours in order to re-discover daily we have a body”
“The agility we have to orientate ourselves in space is a gift. As we move through space, the chemical rush we receive to the brain enhances our perception of “Body Body Body”.
Composition/improvisation/multidisciplinary
The central goal is to enhance real time composition skills and expand creative expression through physical improvisation, vocal/textual experimentation, sound and movement relationship, awareness of space, timing, and audience and collaborative ensemble work.
While each workshop is shaped by the group’s experience and context, common elements include exercises to build presence and responsiveness, improvisation scores or structured games to explore interaction, solo, duet, and group explorations using real-time composition principles, and interdisciplinary tasks adding live music, text, or visual art to performance improvisations. Feedback & reflection sessions are added to refine awareness and artistic decision-making.
The workshops will investigate intuition over impulse or technique, failure as a tool for discovery, real-time decision making, listening (to sound, space, and others), the performer’s presence in the moment, the role of chaos and order in creativity, autonomy and authorship in improvised work.
The workshop is intensive, laced with Katie Duck’s insistence to find “humour” in every dark corner of the work.
Teaching projects held in my base Amsterdam
Xmas Workshop OT301 – December 29, 30, 31 yearly
Improvisation Summer Course – Late August yearly
Multidisciplinary workshops Attic Studio Amsterdam Sundays 11:00-18:00 – announced monthly
Body Body Body Classes Attic Studio Thursdays and Fridays 16:00-18:00 – announced monthly
To keep up to date with my monthly classes and workshops in my Attic Studio Amsterdam, join my mailing list – katieduckmail@katieduck.com