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Thank you for 2015, our best year yet! (Programs)

1/17/2016

2015 was the first full year of work we have done in our new home in the El Paso, TX - Ciudad Juarez, Mexico border, and what a year it has been! We have accomplished so much in such a short amount of time, and what is most exciting to us, we are GROWING! in2improv has now 11 committed volunteers that are implementing and developing our 3 new long-term programs:

knee-jerk

Under the artistic direction of our founders, knee-jerk is an improvisation ensemble bringing together musicians/sounders and dancers/movers to explore and create innovative and experimental performance experiences. This is in2improv's artistic laboratory.
Since January 2015, knee-jerk members have come together for a 2-hour weekly laboratory to explore different ways to create together. The biggest influences in our work (so far) have been Ensemble Thinking, Action Theatre and jazz improvisation. This year we produced two evening-length performances, a series of summer happenings at the downtown farmers market in El Paso and we were invited to perform at the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts’ 10th Anniversary Gala. The most notable of our activities was the November 20th performance fall/fallen/falling - an evening-len_gth performance in collaboration with artists featured in the Matters of Gravity installation at the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts in El Paso. It was an incredible success, with more than 150 audience members in attendance. To learn more about our process you can hear this radio interview at the local NPR station and read this article in the local publication What’s Up.

Collaboration with CCOMPAZ

in2improv first met CCOMPAZ (Citizens Committed for Peace) during a week-long visit to Ciudad Juárez organized by the Fred Newman Center in March 2014. Serendipitously, a few weeks after our visit, co-founder Dr. Chris Reyman was offered a full-time faculty position at the Department of Music at the University of Texas at El Paso, right across the border from Ciudad Juarez. This prompted a reconnection of the two organizations to create a long-term weekly program, serving the children that attend their music-based after school program. From January to June 2015, we ran a pilot with a group of children in CCOMPAZ’s center at the Aguilas de Zaragoza neighborhood. This culminated in an improvised performance within a concert that CCOMPAZ was commissioned to do at the Centro Cultural Paso del Norte, the biggest performing arts center in Ciudad Juarez. For the second part of the year, we pioneered a dance program in the Tecnica 1 high-school and started restructuring their entire contemporary music program. In December 11th, the dance program performed for the first time at a concert organized at La Rodadora, a children’s museum in the city.

The Cattleya Project

This project aims to empower women by working with diverse communities through programs, workshops and performances in the US and abroad. The Cattleya Project intends to promote artistic and social development by creating new gender performances and re-imagining the gender binary as a fluid and dynamic spectrum. The Cattleya Project started as a creative research project by our director, Sandra Paola, where she was exploring Latinness and femininity through her experience living abroad in the US for the past decade. This process culminated in an evening-length performance on May 2nd, 2015 and was followed by performances at the annual arts festival LadyFest Juárez, and the Hispanic Heritage Celebration at the University of Texas at El Paso. To learn more about this initial process of The Cattleya Project, you can listen to this radio interview.

Through the outreach done in these performances, The Cattleya Project grew into a collective, where now 7 women implement its mission. In September 2015, this collective started giving weekly-workshops to women temporarily housed at Sin Violencia - a shelter for women escaping severe domestic violence. These workshops are creative in nature, where we explore with them how to construct new relationships with their bodies, other people close to them (like their children) and other women in the shelter. We do this through improvisational activities using movement, writing, drawing and dialogue. The response has been very positive and we have started to build a closer relationship with the staff at the shelter, so that together with them, we can reinforce messages of self-esteem and empowerment.

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Thank you for 2015, our best year yet! (Related Projects)

1/17/2016

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As we continue to grow in the El Paso, TX - Ciudad Juarez, Mexico border, we have started to get involved with other projects, which although not always associated directly with our organization, have been greatly influenced by the work and growth of in2improv.

The Borders Project - This project looks at the histories and effects of borders, how they are constructed, who profits, who suffers and why. It encompasses elements of performance, community outreach, teaching, and dialogues with diverse communities affected by the delineation of physical or subjective borders. This project is directed by DNAWORKS and has traveled throughout the world. When co-directors Daniel Banks and Adam McKinney traveled to the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez border, in2improv was the on-the-ground organizer for community and artistic projects. You can learn more from this project by listening to this radio interview and by watching this video - a compilation of excerpts from dances done at several sites throughout the border.

EPISD Fine Arts Initiative - The El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) recruited our director, Sandra Paola, to be part of the arts specialists team to design and implement training for current school teachers to integrate the arts into their curriculum. Sandra Paola is the performing arts specialist for the initiative and has, thus far, led activities in three professional development days and directed a PLC at one of the pilot schools. The initiative is currently piloting this program in three elementary schools in the district: Hillside, Coldwell and Burnet.

Creative Dance for Kids - Our director started a new creative dance program for children sponsored by Theatre and Dance Department at the University of Texas at El Paso. The program is centered on providing children with a fun and educational experience in the process of creating dances. It introduces children to basic concepts of dance, improvisation and dance-making and aids their continuous development of motor skills, coordination, strength, and flexibility while offering them the opportunity to engage and create with others.

KOAN - Our founders have embarked upon a creative project involving two other internationally-recognized jazz musicians: Erik Unsworth and Mack Goldsbury. Combining piano/accordion, upright bass, saxophone/flute and dance, the quartet composes spontaneous interdisciplinary pieces for a wide range of venues. To see a sample of our work click here.

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Thank you for 2015, our best year yet! (Programs)

knee-jerk​

Collaboration with CCOMPAZ

The Cattleya Project

Thank you for 2015, our best year yet! (Related Projects)

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