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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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Creating with the “crap” of our world

11/27/2015

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It is hard to disagree with the simple fact that there is much in our world that we wish wasn’t there: violence, pain, suffering, injustice... the list could go on. I strongly believe that in order for lasting social change to be possible, we need to learn how to create new things out of what is there, that means: the good, the bad and the “crappy” of the world. Today, the Cattleya team had a lovely training session with our friend and colleague Miguel Cortes from the Fred Newman Center, who with his experience working both as a therapist and community activist in Ciudad Juarez for many years, further contextualized the work we are doing with The Cattleya Project.

Since September of this year, we have been implementing a weekly-workshop in Sin Violencia A.C., a women’s shelter housing women and children escaping severe domestic violence. The workshops are led by a different team member each week, and they all have a self-care component and a creative component. All of us in the Cattleya team are connected in some way with art-making either through dance/movement, performance, theatre, and/or drawing and design, and even though most of us are hispanic, our experience and knowledge of Ciudad Juarez is extremely varied. Through a combination of historical account, story-making, social therapy group and creative sculpture-making, Miguel led us through a 3-hour exploration of what life is like for women in Juarez, the significance of projects like The Cattleya Project and what doing this work raises for us emotionally.

After reading and discussing the gruesome headlines from newspapers in Ciudad Juarez this past week (Miguel brought a bunch in with him), the session culminated in a collective creation of a sculpture and a new “first page” of our own newspaper... all created from the papers themselves. We literally embodied the spirit of creating new things with the ‘crap’ of our world.

It is after activities like this that I am reminded that along side the violence, injustice, pain and suffering, there is also hope, creativity, love and compassion. I am reminded that this is why in2improv is committed to create spaces where new relationships can be forged and new activities can be created, because in the words of Dr. Lenora Fulani - a major force and leader in the Performance Activism movement - even though we do not know what we are doing and what lasting change our activity is creating, we are doing something and “something is better than doing nothing."

Sandra Paola LR
in2improv's Director

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Exploring public affairs through dance

10/25/2015

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On October 17th, our founder and Director Sandra Paola Lopez R. was invited back to Missouri State University (MSU), her Alma Mater, to share her artistic work and the development of in2improv. Her visit was centered around two activities that were part of the College of Arts and Letters homecoming schedule: giving a master class to students from the Theatre and Dance Department and giving a 60-minute talk to the broader community.

The master class she gave centered around timing in improvisation and composition. How can you alter and change the duration and speed of both your movements and pauses? How is that affected by other elements in the space? How does the element of timing play into a spontaneous composition in a small improvising ensemble? Her and 40+ students explored and played with these questions coming up with new ways of understanding and seeing dance and collective creativity. Students responded positively, expressing how the exercises really expanded their view of movement and the importance of attention and awareness in improvising/composing.

Her talk later in the afternoon was titled From Personal Passion to Global Commitment: Performance, Activism and Community Engagement. It outlined Lopez’s journey to the performance activism movement we are part of, while connecting back to her experience at MSU and how her work now reflects strongly the university's Public Affairs mission. As part of the highlights of her talk, she included the programs with CCOMPAZ and The Cattleya Project that we currently run in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

We are very proud to continue to see her(our) work highlighted through out the US and beyond. Congratulations!

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knee-jerk @ the market!

6/23/2015

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Join knee-jerk for our summer performances at the downtown farmers market in El Paso!

knee-jerk has started a new venture of doing monthly performances in public/urban spaces around the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez area. To start us off, what better place than the local market? Join us for the first three improvised performances on June 27th, August 1st and 29th. This is a free event!!! Come to support us and enjoy all the wonderful vendors. See you there.

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Changing the world without changing what you are doing

5/31/2015

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This Saturday, our Director had the privilege to be one of the invited speakers for the second rendition of TEDx El Paso. Her talk centered around the practice of Performance Activism, how it has shaped her life and how (among many other things) it gave birth to in2improv. Her clear message was to step out of your comfort zone and perform in new ways what you already do... because it is not WHAT we do, but HOW we do it that makes a difference. Enjoy!

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Our second donation for Instruments for Peace!

4/6/2015

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A big thank you to the second donors of our new initiative Instruments for Peace: Maria Torres and Carlos Rubalcava who gave a keyboard and guitar. The instruments will be on their way to Juarez next week!

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A piano for the community

4/1/2015

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Yesterday, our co-founders received this beautiful restored 1945 Steinway D grand piano. It was a personal donation to them for the continuous support of their artistic development and growth and in turn, be able to give with the best quality possible back to the community. Stay tuned for the months to come as we design programs that will make this piano accessible to underserved populations. We feel blessed and grateful beyond belief!

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Welcome Anuja Singhal!

3/29/2015

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We are very excited to share with all of you that we are growing! This week we have our first ever formal addition to the in2improv team. Anuja Singhal, after donating the first instrument for our Instruments for Peace initiative decided that this was too good not to help grow! She has joined us as the new Coordinator for the initiative. Welcome Anuja!

Anuja Singhal is a Realtor, a Yoga teacher, & a Math tutor. She loves kids and has volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House. One of her kids' played drums as a small child. After he switched to band, the drum-set needed a new home. Anuja & her son are proud to be the first donors to the Instruments For Peace Initiative. Anuja lives in El Paso with her husband who is a University Professor.

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Instruments for Peace

3/25/2015

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Do you know anyone that has a music instrument that is no longer being used? Don’t let it keep collecting dust!

Introducing Instruments for Peace, a new in2improv initiative to donate instruments to CCOMPAZ’s music after school program in Juarez, Mexico. If you or anyone you know lives in the El Paso del Norte region you are eligible to donate! We are now collecting any music instruments (used or new) that are in good condition. You contact us, we pick it up and take it where it’s most needed.

Simple. Inspiring. Life Changing.

Contact us TODAY!

Meet Anuja Singhal our first donor!

Drum set coming to CCOMPAZ next month!

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