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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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Improv on the Border (Juarez, Mexico)

3/16/2014

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This past week (March 10th-15th) we had the honor of working with students and community members in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The multiple events throughout the week involved the Pedagogical National University in Juarez, four NGOs (Techo Comunitario, Coaliciones Comunitarias, CCOMPAZ and Organización Popular Independiente), and friends and members of the Fred Newman Center. Among all the things we did, Sandra Paola taught a Latin dance class, Chris a jazz improvisation class to young underprivileged musicians, and we gave versions of our workshops Creating with what we have, Arts in Education and Social Transformation and Listening, Touch and Kinesthetics for community members, educators and university students. We are very inspired and excited to look for opportunities to continue this work in a much needed area that continues to recover from drug violence.

Watch a short video of our experience and listen to some testimonials.

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Young IDEA 2013

7/14/2013

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Young IDEA 2013 was an international multidisciplinary arts-education laboratory that brought together 39 artist/educators from all over the world to collaborate, perform and question our work. We were selected along side Colombian dancer and choreographer Jenny Angelica Angulo Soledad as a team of three to represent Colombia and the US. For 2-weeks we performed for each other, taught each other and discussed the importance of arts education in our respective cultures.The last week of the program we were part of the 8th Congress of the International Drama/Theatre Education Association (IDEA) where we taught workshops for kids, helped with organizing events and the opening and closing ceremonies, organized an improvisation night for congress participants and provided assistance with the assessment of the congress.

in2improv represented Young IDEA 2013 in the General Council Meetings during the week of the congress and presented a report of the program at the UNESCO headquarters after the congress.

To see excerpts of our performance click here.

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A Big Project

12/20/2012

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in2improv had a video broadcasted on December 20th, 2012 as part of the international artistic event A Big Project. This project began in January of 2012 with a group of organizers who sought to gain clarity on where people agreed the world could be better – and to share that message in ways that could open people’s minds and hearts, through art and music. Since then, supporters from more than 97 countries have joined the effort. A Big Project and Arts for Peace (in partnership with dozens of other organizations) called on artists, musicians, and creative types of all kinds to set-off a global renaissance to bring a new sense of hope, possibility and direction for global progress. People from all walks of life participated, including celebrities like Dolly Parton, corporate giants like the Intel Corporation, the United Nations, local politicians, and thousands of citizens from around the globe. This is the video in2improv created to share our vision of a better world:

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

knee-jerk

Collaboration with CCOMPAZ

The Cattleya Project

Improv on the Border (Juarez, Mexico)

Young IDEA 2013

A Big Project

Categories

Archives

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

knee-jerk​

Collaboration with CCOMPAZ

The Cattleya Project

Improv on the Border (Juarez, Mexico)

Young IDEA 2013

A Big Project

Categories

Archives

knee-jerk