ARTEL

Inspiring Quote for ARTEL to continue to live by:

2011-01-16T05:59:00.001-08:00

...Russian theater as deconstructed by local company ARTEL is one of the most visceral, dangerous acts we’ve witnessed from the audience since the days of Jesus Lizard, redefining the boundaries of how live theater can engage us.-Hadley Tomicki, LA TACO

Interacting Galaxies

2010-07-02T08:34:00.000-07:00

Leeds - Los Angeles

Barcelona Bus - Olya Petrakova

Writing Practice - Physical Practice

Our galaxies are colliding.

After 18 months, it is imperative for the Artistic Directors

to realign, rebalance and restructure life's majesties.

New Explosions are coming.

photos courtesy of NASA and Hubble telescope. Yay NASA!

KHARMFUL CHARMS in San Diego

2010-03-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

A riotous 5 week run in Hollywood was not enough! A serving of Kharmful ARTELians has been ordered in San Diego!

Honoring the writing of Daniil Kharms with a dash of Monty Python, a pinch of Waiting for Godot, and a heaping spoonful of American Russian devised mayhem,

Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms
will perform Friday March 26th & Saturday March 27th @ SUSHI PERFORMANCE & VISUAL ART.

Come partake at
www.sushiart.org

Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms will then return with an ever-evolving show of Circus Shardam Antics to rouse your senses at Art|Works theatre for 6 more shows (see below post for review, dates and tickets)!

"Simultaneously Disorienting and Comforting..."

2010-03-24T08:22:00.000-07:00

A humble thank you to K. Primeau for upholding the job of reviewer! Far too often LA Theatre critics feel that a précis of the literary aspect of a theatrical event suffices as a job well done. It's an honor to have our work so well articulated and to see the noble role of critic is still preserved in some minds of the world.

http://www.latheatrereview.com/2010/03/11/kharmful-charms-of-daniil-kharms-at-art-works/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kharmful-charms-of-daniil-kharms-at-art-works

ONLY 6 SHOWS LEFT IN HOLLYWOOD THIS RUN!
Conforming to our laboratory manifesto, ARTEL continues to present an ever-evolving spectacle of Circus Shardam Antics to rouse your senses.
Come partake in 6 new performances of an evolved version of Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms!
S. April 3rd, Th. April 8th, F. April 9th, S. April 10th, F. April 16th, S. April 17th
ART|WORKS Theatre, 6567 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood CA 90038
tickets : www.brownpapertickets.com/event/93470

Premiere

2010-02-18T01:19:00.001-08:00

www.kharmful.com

Declaring 2010 as the Year of the Absurd, ARTEL is making explosive (re)solutions to the New Year, beginning with detonating notions of theatre as a dramatic servant of literature. While English speaking academics are just now wrestling with Hans-Thies Lehmann’s ten year old articulation of a ‘post-dramatic theatre’, ARTEL ransacks a storehouse constructed eighty years ago by Daniil Kharms when he divined a creative practice of sluchai*, to propose its own poetics of perplexing alogical perspectives formulated for a new decade of twenty-first century theatre.

Daniil Kharms, an early Soviet-era surrealist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist, was a post-modern artist before the term had any cultural currency. Kharms exploded the conception of theatre as a literary representative, defining the rules of theatre not as dramatic but scenic. By the late 1920s, his anti-rational verse, nonlinear theatrical performances, and public displays of iniquitous and irrational behavior earned Kharms - who always dressed like an English dandy with a calabash pipe - the reputation of being a talented but highly eccentric "fool" or "crazy-man" in Leningrad cultural circles. Exiled briefly during the “relatively vegetarian” days of the early 1930s, ten years later he was imprisoned in the psychiatric ward of Leningrad Prison No. 1. Kharms died in his cell – most likely from starvation – in February, 1942 as the Nazi blockade of Leningrad was well underway. His writings (a vast assortment of stories, miniatures, plays, poems, and pseudo-scientific/philosophical investigations) were virtually unknown until the 1970s, and not published officially in Russia until the late-1980s period of "glasnost".

ARTEL has found a kinship in the writings, theories and spirit of OBERIU (Union of Real Art), the avant-garde collective founded by Kharms, that adds a legacy and language to the ways in which the ensemble laboratory has been training performers and devising theatre since its inception. Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms is therefore presented as homage to OBERIU whose aesthetic centered on a belief in the autonomy of art from the real world's rules and logic as well as the intrinsic meaning to be found in objects and words outside of their practical function.

By ‘Real Art’, OBERIU intended the creation of an artistic language that refused symbolism and subtext as a means to present realism. The Oberiuty rejected literary drama, in which all the elements are subordinate to the dramatic plot, that is the play as ‘a tale told by people about something that happened’, and in which everything is done on the stage in order ‘to explain the meaning and the course of the events more clearly, more comprehensibly, and in a more life-like way’. ‘Theatre’, said the Oberiuty, ‘has nothing to do with that.’

OBERIU embraced a creativity that demanded “the transformation of the forms of private life into a fact of art”. The promotion of an aesthetic and ethos that blurs life and art has been a main line of research for ARTEL, and coupled with the notion of ‘scenic plot’ was a central dramaturgy for the Bulgakov variations over the last three years.

Derided as literary hooligans in the increasingly hostile atmosphere of 1930s Stalinism, OBERIU survived as a collective for only a few short years, but are considered “the last of the Soviet avant-garde”.

As the cultural weather continues to fluctuate in our own tumultuous times, Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms disrupts the experience of daily entertainment routines, challenges the central questions around the role of art, the responsibility of artists, and the creative capacity of all living citizens, and ultimately aims to provoke an incident of love.

You want to find the laws of normality and logic which you think you see in life. But you will not find them here. Why? Because an object and a phenomenon transferred from life onto the stage are no more dependent on the laws of ‘life’ and acquire laws of another kind, those of the theatre. We are not going to explain what they are. To understand the laws of a theatrical presentation you have to see it.

- OBERIU, 1928

After a riotous oversold presentation of the workshop production last spring, ARTEL – a mad-gang of artisanal scientists comprising the underground American Russian Theatre Ensemble Laboratory – brings Daniil Kharms back with a vengeance! And he is more charming, macabre, and scintillating than ever! Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms is an original decadent comedy illogically formulated from Russian Surrealist and Absurdist motifs, constructed as an evening of not-so-innocent commotions and antics, vignettes and dreamlike incidents, all set to a rousing live musical score.

Where: Art|Works Theatre 6567 Santa Monica Blvd. 90038
When: Feb 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, March 5, 6, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20 at 8:30pm
March 7 and 14 at 3pm
Tickets: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/93470

Produced by viaCorpora International Performance Research and Development House and Don Cesario
www.viacorpora.com

Absurdity is here, or is it waiting for the Tiger

2010-01-05T04:05:00.000-08:00

Daniil Kharms is back with a vengeance! And he is more charming, macabre, and scintillating than ever!

After a riotous oversold presentation of the workshop production last spring, ARTEL is hard at work to re-invent and re-create their production of “Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms”. Continuing to explode the thread of illogically decadent comedy formulated from Russian Surrealist and Absurdist motifs, ARTEL will be constructing an evening of not-so-innocent commotions and antics, vignettes and dreamlike incidents set to a rousing live musical score.

Opening night FRACAS is February 19th!

Teatr Zar in Los Angeles

2009-12-02T03:21:00.000-08:00

Our friends and collaborators of Teatr Zar are spending two weeks in Los Angeles conducting performances, specially arranged workshops and occasional concerts. "Gospels of Childhood. Triptych" opened last night at UCLA Live to a completely sold out run. Zar's work is for the intimate spaces, and that is a blessing. Royce Hall, a large venue, is transformed into a small sanctified space for closer transmission of song and action from performers to the audience. This proximity is paramount. Still nothing can compare to seeing their work at Apocalypsis room of Grotowski Institute in Wroclaw, where darkness of the room resembles that of the black hole, and the acoustics those of the ancient caverns. Tuning into their performances in London, Chicago or Los Angeles requires perhaps a greater amount of work on behalf of the audience to tune out brightly lit "exit" signs, the dust of the big city, the head noise of the daily grind. Here are a few eloquent accounts of encountering Teatr Zar by American colleagues who witnessed their performances in Poland last summer: A Search for the Oldest Songs in the World by Jim O'Quinn, and Applauding in Poland by Guy Zimmerman. If one is attracted to this kind of theatre, making a pilgrimage to Wroclaw can be life altering. It certainly was for every ARTEL member who went.

For a direct website of Teatr Zar, please follow this link: Teatr Zar.

Auditions for Kharmful Charms of Dani Kharms - World Premiere!

2009-08-31T10:41:00.000-07:00

WHAT: After a sold-out workshop production last April, ARTEL returns with Kharmful Charms of Dani Kharms - A World Premiere: collaborative ensemble-devised project based on the works of Russian absurdist Daniil Kharms (1905-1942). Creation/training process will explore the styles of Eastern European clowning (Slava Polunin), vaudeville, cabaret, burlesque, commedia dell'arte, viewpoints, Polish/Russian theatre practices (Grotowski, Meyerhold, Vakhtangov), and devising techniques.

DATE/TIME/LOCATION: Oct 2, 6:30-8pm or Oct 3, 11-12:30. Artworks Theatre & Studios. Studio C, 6575 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, 90038. Tel. 310-985-9996.RUN: Presented at Artworks Theatre. Opens February 12, Fri-Sat 8pm (occasional Wdn, Th or Sun shows) 4 weeks. Please be open to extend. (another 4 -6 weeks)

WHO: We are looking for character actors-creators, dancers, singers, puppeteers, musicians with a proclivity for comedy and absurd. Physicality, expressivity, courage to create are a must. Everyone will be required to devise solo and group work. Training in physical approaches to theatre, commedia dell'arte, clown, cabaret is a plus.

AUDITION: The audition will be 1.5 hours long or so, with a group of people auditioning together (up to 12 people). It will involve physical, vocal and movement-led exercises, ensemble work, devising session and a presentation of prepared material. Very fun, high energy event. At the very least you will get an awesome workout. In the prepared material category I am asking for a short theatre/performance piece up to 3 min long. Preferably comedic. Original piece is a plus, but not required. The more unnaturalistic and expressive it is - the better. This can be done with any material, classical or not.

If you feel like creating something new on your own (which a few people did at the workshop audition we had in the spring) - you can take a look at the link below and see if any of the pieces of Kharms spark your imagination. In your preparation you can use anything you fancy - puppets, shadow play, monologue, write a song to Kharms' story - anything at all. This is just one site with Kharms' material, but there are many on the net: http://www.sevaj.dk/kharms/kharmseng.htm.

REHEARSAL: ARTEL's work is highly collaborative and physically/vocally demanding (think Robert Wilson). The styles of approaches to the material are varied: vaudeville, burlesque, cabaret, circus, commedia dell'arte, etc. All of them are tied together by something uniquely kharmsian, the show definitely has an overarching style of its own. All material is generated by the group utilizing Kharms' stories and references. The entire show is put together as a puzzle set to a rousing live musical score. We did a workshop production of it in April (in a research stage), and it was met with an enthusiastic response (oversold both nights). So there is a strong momentum: audience's anticipation, a good amount of material already generated, and a number of great bandmates in place. This next stage, what would be considered a development stage, is where we will add more material (text, song, dance, shadow play), a few new cast members and fine-tune the details. The long-term goal for this piece is to tour and/or to be presented in several countries (UK, Poland, Russia)

REQUIREMENTS: I ask everyone in the cast to be solidly available in January and February (Mo-Fr evenings) and have no other creative conflicts (jobs, ready performances can be OK, depending on dates, but no rehearsals). As this piece will demand a lot of time, even outside of rehearsal schedule. All of us will be working on getting at the quality of performance, which is placed in physical/vocal exactitude and high degree of expressivity. There are training sessions and creative opportunities that are open to all new cast members as early as October and a performance salon Gogol-Mogol that is slated for Oct. 24 (to be confirmed), where any creative material can be tried, especially connected to Kharms.

WHAT TO DO: Send PIX and RESUME to contact@arteltheatre.org, or via post: ATTN: KHARMFUL CHARMS, 6569 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90038

The Russian Yorkshire experience

2009-07-31T13:13:00.000-07:00

Our dear friend Evgeniya Osipovna Zasimova has joined us in Leeds for 10 days of singing and exploring Western Yorkshire. We have warmed our house, discovered new material for future projects and learned how to meet once again each other, ourselves, and guests through song.

US Artists Initiative

2009-05-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

Artel is honored to announce its acceptance into the US Artists Initiative, part of the UNESCO sponsored Year of Grotowski International Theater Event, The World as Place of Truth. http://www.grotowskiyear.pl/

This amazing program is the work of Arden 2 in collaboration with the Grotowski Institute to bring 30+ US Artists to Wroclaw, Poland during an inspirational festival celebrating the life and work of Jerzy Grotowksi. The festival will host performances, films, and dialogues of world renowned practitioners (Peter Brook , Anatoly Vasiliev, Pina Bausch, Krystan Lupa, Eugenio Barbo, Theodorus Terzopulous, Tadaski Suzuki, Teatr Zar, Maisternia Pisni, etc.). The US Artists Initiative is an opportunity for a varied group of American theatre practitioners to attend the festival and to meet and discuss 21C theatre outside their homeland and habitual context.

Alongside the phenomenal experience of being in Wroclaw for such an event, the US Artists' Initiative is designed to create opportunities for dialogue and hopefully a little experimentation around the work seen throughout the festival. During the two week+ festival, Artel has been asked to lead a session on theater-laboratories and contemporary practice for the group of US Artists. We look forward to engaging the many fantastic companies and practitioners that have been working in the US for years in this discussion to investigate the potentials of 21 C theater .

We will post updates later in the summer.

A HUGE THANK YOU to Joanna Klass and Rachel Jendrzejewski for their vision and dedication to make this a reality.

Giving Voice

2009-05-05T22:17:00.000-07:00

In April, Olya attended the 11 International Giving Voice Festival hosted in Wroclaw, Poland in collaboration with the Grotowski Institute and the Giving Voice festival producers, the Centre for Performance Research (CPR).

This stunning ten day event presented workshops, work demonstrations and evening concerts by a range of artists organized around Grotowski's work with voice and action as well as the growing concern of where and how to continue passing vocal traditions on to younger artists.

Not only was this Olya's first solo trip to Wroclaw, allowing for more particular relations to be built between Artel and the Grotowski Institute, but she also had the pleasure of meeting Judie Christie whose CPR has been an inspiration and model for our modest [via]Corpora House.

Beyond being immersed in a mixture of vocal practices, Olya worked with Theatre Lalishlabor and continued our previous year's explorations with Natalka Polyvinka of Maisternia Pisni.

Thank you to Jarek Fret, Judie Christie and Ditte Berkeley for making Olya's attendance possible.

For the list of practitioners hosted and more information:
http://rokgrotowskiego.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48

Kharmful Charms of Dani Kharms!

2009-03-15T19:02:00.000-07:00

AUDIENCE COMMENT: Alisa Slaughter said...
I saw Saturday's show with some friends, two of them from Ukraine. We were all amazed! Such high quality, and such commitment, for a single weekend of performances! The collective apartment piece was absolute genius.

Kharmful Charms of Dani Kharms
Based on writings of Daniil Kharms
Devised by Ensemble
Conceived and Directed by Olya Petrakova
2 performances only
Friday, April 10 and Saturday, April 11th at 8PM

Reservations: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/60213,
24 hour Ticket Hotline 1.800.838.3006,
Information 323.871.1912
Tickets: $17-30 General Admission
______________________________

Daniil Kharms (1905-1942) was an early Soviet-era surrealist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist.

By the late 1920s, his antirational verse, nonlinear theatrical performances, and public displays of decadent and illogical behavior earned Kharms - who always dressed like an English dandy with a calabash pipe - the reputation of being a talented but highly eccentric "fool" or "crazy-man" in Leningrad cultural circles. He was imprisoned in the psychiatric ward at Leningrad Prison No. 1. and died in his cell in February, 1942 -- most likely, from starvation, as the Nazi blockade of Leningrad had already begun. His writings (a vast assortment of stories, miniatures, plays, poems, and pseudo-scientific, philosophical investigations) were virtually unknown until 1970's, and not published officially in Russia until "glasnost".

Led by Olya Petrakova (a co-artistic director of ARTEL along with Bryan Brown), a mad-gang of artists and scientists will cook up in a devised-collaborative fashion a Russian Surrealist Absurdist Comedy at its most iniquitous and irrational, violent and erotic. Kharmful Charms is structured as an evening of not-so-innocent pranks and antics, vignettes and dreamlike incidencies set to rousing musical soundlife by multiple award-winner Jef Bek.

This production is paying respects to Daniil Kharms' founded avant-garde collective OBERIU, or Union of Real Art, whose aesthetic centered around a belief in the autonomy of art from real world's rules and logic, and the intrinsic meaning to be found in objects and words outside of their practical function.

Next Series of Workshop Auditions for Theater-Laboratory in Leeds

2009-02-27T08:09:00.000-08:00

A Series of Workshop Auditions for a new Theater-Laboratory at the University of Leeds

“Meyerhold's vision was of a mutually supportive, interactive organisation incorporating a stage, a workshop and a training school in which: "the discoveries in the workshop would affect the training in the school as well as what was exposed on the stage" in a three-fold symbiosis.”

Bryan Brown, co-creator of Artel*, is looking for Performers and Students of Performance (performers, actors, dancers, musicians) that wish to explore the interstices of performance and the possibilities of a contemporary UK Theater-Laboratory within the framework of his Practice-As-Research Postgraduate work under the auspices of Prof. Jonathan Pitches and Dr. Tony Gardner.

The laboratory will be a continuation of Artel, extracting its research questions from the previous work in the USA and focusing its investigation into the relevance of theater-laboratories in the 21century by clearly defining the practical mechanics of theater-laboratories of the past in hopes to discover inspiration for the future. [This new Artel will be working throughout the next three years; however, acceptance into this stage does not imply or require a three-year commitment.]

The Structure of this new Artel will be based upon a triangular model, perhaps most clearly articulated by Vsevolod Meyerhold. The triangular model allows for a systematic investigation of Performer Training as well as Performance Development - the two branches of this Artel that will specifically focus on appropriation, tradition and innovation.

The third branch of the laboratory will be the Stage – the creation of specific productions that grapple with Russian thematic material as a means of creating a distance from which to approach new perspectives on UK contemporary reality. Wrestling with the great writers and philosophers of the last two centuries in the schools of Romanticism, Modernism, Existentialism and Postmodernism, the Stage will approach a language of production that aims at an articulation of hope and change while standing on the precipice of collapse.

If you are interested in participating in either or all three branches of this Artel, please send an email to bryan@arteltheatre.org

* Created in Los Angeles, California three years ago, Artel - a Russian word meaning labour collective as well as an acronym for American Russian Theater Ensemble Laboratory – is dedicated to an investigation of tradition and innovation in actor training and performance research with a focus on combining American and British experimental collective devising work with Russian and East European ensemble practice.

PLEASE NOTE DATES, TIMES AND SPACES CAREFULLY**

While there is no requirement to attend all of the workshop auditions, an ability to attend as many as possible indicates commitment and interest.

Performer Training Branch

“Everyone learned — students and teachers alike. It was a laboratory for working through the foundations of a new aesthetic.”

This branch of the laboratory will be a place to explore the potential syntheses of training practices that have arisen from American experimental physical approaches to theater and dance training with the ensemble actor training of Eastern European/Russian theater in order to arrive at an engaged Performer Training that provides a springboard for the creation of dynamic contemporary performance.

The Workshop Auditions aim to cultivate will, awareness, and sensitivity through the discovery of physical and vocal potentials. Our aim will be supported by a focus on imagination, rhythm, coordination, and the relations of the individual and the ensemble.

Participants should be prepared to work barefoot, to move in ways that will challenge their physical habits and to sing.

Tuesday 10 March 2009 9:30am – 12:30pm
Alec Clegg Studio, Stage@Leeds

Thursday 12 March 2009 6 – 9 pm
Dance Studio, Stage@Leeds

Saturday 14 March 2009 11am – 2pm
G14 Man Made Fibers Building

Tuesday 17 March 2009 9:30am – 12:30pm
Alec Clegg Studio, Stage@Leeds

Thursday 19 March 2009 6 – 9 pm
2.03 Man Made Fibers Building

Performance Development Branch

“The participants were not required to present preconceived conclusions, but were expected to find new paths to create new concepts of theatre.”

This branch of the laboratory will investigate the meetings and divergences of American/British devising processes with the rigor of Russian/Eastern European etude work. The majority of participants for this branch will ideally be mature(ing) artists searching for new possibilities to encounter the edges of our potential within the container that is Performance.

The Workshop Auditions will aim at physical approaches to individual and ensemble creation. We will begin with physical and vocal warm-up and training in order to move into three specific ways of composing etudes.

Participants should be prepared to work barefoot, to move in ways that will challenge their physical habits, to sing and to bring their own personal histories to the joyful act of creating!

Saturday 21 March 2009 11am - 2pm
2.03 Man Made Fibers Building

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 25, 26, 27 March 2009 6 – 9
2.03 Man Made Fibers Building

MAP OF UNIVERSITY
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/timetable/assets/map/index.htm

** We will be meeting outside the main entrance to the MMF Building or the Stage@Leeds Building 10minutes before scheduled start time. In some cases, the doors will lock once we enter the building. Please do not be late.

BRYAN BROWN has taught and studied extensively in New York City, Europe, and Los Angeles. He is co-creator of Artel and [via]Corpora. Deeply influenced by American Experimental theater teachers Stephen Wangh and Raina von Waldenburg as well as Mary Overlie, Viewpoints and Contact Improvisation practitioners, Bryan has spent the last two years investigating the contemporary theater practices of Eastern European and Russian ensembles primarily through his relations with the Grotowski Institute and the Song of the Goat Theatre.

Recently he was Artist-in-Residence at Hooyang Performing Arts Centre, South Korea. Besides consistent teaching in Los Angeles at [via]Corpora - Center for Performance Research and Development, 2008 had Bryan leading workshops in Poland, New Orleans and NY as well as co-producing numerous workshops including the first 5 day worksession of Song of the Goat Theatre in LA and a Teachers Practicum in NY of Stephen Wangh’s devising. He is currently teaching Performance Technique at the University of Leeds where he is a Postgraduate Research student.

All quotes are from Pitches, Jonathan Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting (London: Routledge, 2005)

Theater Laboratory in Leeds

2009-02-15T10:47:00.000-08:00

Bryan Brown, co-creator of Artel, is creating a theater-laboratory in Leeds under the auspices of Prof. Jonathan Pitches and Dr. Tony Gardner as the practice-as-research aspect of his Post-graduate studies. The laboratory will be a continuation of Artel incorporating directly the use of a triangular model that allows for a more systematic investigation of Performer Training and Performance Development as two branches of the lab, with the third being Productions of new performance. The productions will grapple with Russian thematic material as a means of creating a distance from which to approach new perspectives on UK contemporary reality.

If you are interested in participating in either or all three branches of the laboratory, please send an email to bryan@arteltheatre.org

Auditions for New Work in Los Angeles

2009-02-10T02:49:00.000-08:00

American Russian Theatre Ensemble Laboratory (ARTEL) is casting Kharmful Charms of Dani Kharms, a collaborative ensemble-devised project based on the works of Russian absurdist Daniil Kharms (1905-1942). Creation/training process will explore the styles of Eastern European clowning (Slava Polunin), vaudeville, cabaret, Viewpoints, Polish/Russian theatre practices (Grotowski, Meyerhold, Vakhtangov), and devising techniques.

Director Olya Petrakova Brown, training leader Garth Whitten.

Training/Devising March 9-April 9. Weekend Presentation April 10, 11 at Artworks Theatre. A full-production run is possible, dates/locations TBD.

Seeking character actors-creators, dancers, singers with a proclivity for comedy and absurd. Physicality, expressivity, courage to create are a must. Everyone will be required to devise solo and group work. Training in physical approaches to theatre, commedia dell'arte, clown, cabaret, sketch comedy is a plus.

Submission address: ARTEL, Attn: Kharmful Charms, c/o ArtWorks Theatre, 6567 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90038, or email pix and resume to olya@arteltheatre.com. Audition Workshops will take place Sunday, February 15th 11am - 1pm and Monday February 16 7:30pm - 9:30pm at ArtWorks Theatre and Studios. Prepare to move, create and have a blast! Prepare a short monologue, preferably comedic.

Workshop Auditions for Theater Laboratory in Leeds

2009-02-09T13:25:00.000-08:00

Workshop Auditions for new Theater Laboratory at University of Leeds

Saturday 14 Feb 2009 10am* – 1pm G14 Man Made Fibers Building

Bryan Brown, co-creator of Artel**, is currently a Post-graduate research student under Prof. Jonathan Pitches and Dr. Tony Gardner investigating the relevance of theater-laboratories in the 21 Century.

This Workshop Audition is for the first of two branches, the Performer Training Research branch, of a Theater Laboratory that will be created in the coming months and working throughout the next three years. (Acceptance into this stage does not imply or require a three year commitment.)

The laboratory will be a place to explore the potential syntheses of training practices that have arisen from American experimental theater, British devised theater and Eastern European/Russian ensemble theater over the last century in order to illuminate an engaged Performer Training that provides a springboard for the creation of dynamic contemporary performance.

The Workshop aims to cultivate will, awareness, and sensitivity through the discovery of physical and vocal potentials. Our aim will be supported by a focus on imagination, rhythm, coordination, and the relations of the individual and the ensemble.

Participants should be prepared to move, to work barefoot and to sing.

It is recommended to have some text memorized that we could work with.

To reserve your place, or for more information, please contact: bryan@arteltheatre.org

* We will be meeting outside the main entrance to the MMF Building at 10am sharp. The doors will lock once we enter the building. Please do not be late.

** Created in Los Angeles, California three years ago, Artel - a Russian word meaning labour collective as well as an acronym for American Russian Theater Ensemble Laboratory – is dedicated to an investigation of tradition and innovation in actor training and performance research with a focus on combining American and British experimental collective devising work with Russian/East European ensemble practice.

BRYAN BROWN has taught and studied extensively in New York City, Europe, and Los Angeles. He is co-creator of Artel and [via]Corpora,. Deeply influenced by American Experimental theater teachers Stephen Wangh and Raina von Waldenburg as well as Mary Overlie, Viewpoints and Contact Improvisation practitioners, Bryan has spent the last two years investigating the contemporary theater practices of Eastern European and Russian ensembles primarily through his relations with the Grotowski Institute and the Song of the Goat Theatre.

Recently he was Artist-in-Residence at Hooyang Performing Arts Centre, South Korea. Besides consistent teaching in Los Angeles at [via]Corpora - Center for Performance Research and Development, 2008 had Bryan leading workshops in Poland, New Orleans and NY as well as co-producing numerous workshops including the first 5 day worksession of Song of the Goat Theatre in LA and a Teachers Practicum of Stephen Wangh’s devising. He is currently teaching Performance Technique at the University of Leeds where he is a Postgraduate Research student.

Artel in Leeds, England

2009-02-08T11:01:00.000-08:00

Bryan has been accepted into a Postgraduate Research program at the University of Leeds, under the supervision of Prof. Jonathan Pitches and Dr. Tony Gardner. His research will be primarily focused on the relevance of theater-laboratories in the 21 century. While predominantly investigated and contextualizing Russian and Eastern European models, the research will extend to theater-laboratory models the world over. The research will encompass questions of Tradition and Innovation not only in Performance Technique and Performance Development but also in Leadership and Social Structures. While the terrain is still being mapped, the proposal is a practice-led PhD which essentially entails the reconstitution of ARTEL in Leeds under the auspices of the University for Post-graduate research.

New Chapters

2009-01-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

After the close of our well-received Legendary Times of Bulgakov in June and the recognition of nearly two and a half years of continuous work together, the four active long-term members of Artel decided it was time for a necessary break.

It was clear that a period of gestation, review and reorganization, of not only our labour collective, but of our individual lives was in order.

After some rich meditation, we decided that the collective needs were not sustaining the individual needs, and so, a New Stage in Artel is developing.

Artel, as a laboratory, is continuously proposing lines of research, evaluating how they are or are not being carried out, and adapting our actions to suit new methods of inquiry. The stage of an administrative collective based on consenus of each member of the performance collective has come to an end. We are proposing a return to a slightly more familiar theatrical model - that of Artistic Directors, Director, Members and Associates - but with the insight of our previous Stage and within the framework of an ensemble theater laboratory, exactly how this model will be adapted is still in process.

In fact a reevaluation of where and what Artel is, as well as what it can be, is also in process as we negotiate the continued building of community and associates in Los Angeles with the internal need for developing working relations with practitioners in Europe and Russia.

We recognize a need for our investigatory ensemble processes as defined and provided by [via]Corpora - Centre for Performance Research and Development, the intensive collaborative and performance opportunities provided by Artel, and the support and recognition of new work provided by Artworks Theater. At the same time, we recognize the need for our own work to enter a new phase of challenge - one that promises a deeper knowledge of research methods allowing for more engaging and relevant performance to be generated as well as an ability to articulate and contextualize our work in a language that may provide new models for American theater in the 21 century.

Towards this end, Bryan completed a PhD application to the University of Leeds under Jonathan Pitches (author of the keen description of a Theater Laboratory that serves as inspiration for Artel - posted elsewhere on this blog).

And so, Artel grows in unsuspected and exciting ways. Recently Bryan has made the move to Leeds while Olya remains in Los Angeles, organizing a new production, new workshops and new possibilites for our home, ArtWorks Theater, to expand beyond Artel and [via]Corpora to support and sustain other local artists.

While the research in England provides more opportunity to work with practitioners in Europe and to realize our goal of building relations and working with practitioners in Russia, we have a strong sapling growing in Los Angeles and are nurturing it towards the vision of an orchard.

Thank you for your continued support, involvement and excitement.

The Grand Guignolers are celebrating and we want you to join!

2008-12-03T11:42:00.000-08:00

The Immaculate Debbie McMahon, [via]Corpora, Artel's Performance Research and Development House, and Don Cesario of Art|Works Theater invite you to the only Holiday Children's show in Los Angeles - not for Children, nor for the Holidays!

A Grand Guignol Children's Show*

(*not for Children)

Guignol, the French Puppet, is having his 200th Birthday and Andre du Lordes Grand Guignolers de Paris are celebrating, along with the city of Lyon and you! Come see this band of revelers serve you up some Birthday Cake along with a hearty helping of ancient Folk Tales reinterpreted in Grand Guingol style! Each Evening's billet will feature:

Hansel & Gretel:

A Horror Play

Little Red Riding Hood:

A Horror Play

The Ugly Duckling:

A Melodrama Ballet

and

Rapunzel:

An Erotic Thriller

(performed by French finger puppets)

Due to violence this show is not recommended for children.

For all those lucky enough to be considered Adults: Expect DANCE, ABSINTHE, PUPPETS, BIRTHDAY CAKE, MASKS, and GORE!!!

Where: Art|Works Theatre, 6569 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90038

When: Dec 5 through Jan 10

* Fridays and Saturdays at 8:30pm (no show 12/26)

* Two Thursdays at 8:30pm (12/18 and 1/8)

* Two Pay-What-You-Can Sundays at 7pm (12/28 and 1/4)

Tickets: $20 - 30, 1-800-838-3006

written and directed by Debbie McMahon

www.grandguignolers.com

RIP Steven Oliver Price, September 15th 2008

2008-09-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

Read about Steven in SF Chronicle Obit... Here

Steven Oliver, words won't do justice - the loss is immense and yet sublime, as the vividness of life has emerged thousandfold stronger. You are an inspiration to the artists of many walks of life.

Her Majesty, Theatre was lucky to have you play in her court as of late. Your influence and presence will always be felt at Artworks and with Artel, a theatre space and a theatre company you helped to birth and grow!

Join us to celebrate Steven's Life at ArtWorks Theatre, on THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2008 at 8PM

Love to the Prince(ss) of Darkness, The Shadow...

The Legendary Time of Bulgakov - FINAL SHOWS!

2008-06-01T09:55:00.000-07:00

photos by Taso Papadakis

4 shows left! June 6, 7, 13, 14!

LA WEEKLY SAYS GO!

THE LEGENDARY TIMES OF BULGAKOV

... a finely crafted creation of riveting visual theatricality, macabre symbolism and high-wire emotion. The four excellent performers (Bryan Brown, Keirin Brown, Olga Petrakova and Ilana Gustafson Turner) sing and speak in a collage of Russian phrases that become a cartoon of life in a crowded Moscow apartment.
... The company’s theatrical language consists of a sequence of visual images that roll through his marriages...
ARTEL’s style is that of a train in motion, challenging us to jump aboard and discern from the views that unfold, rather than stopping at a station, opening the doors and announcing where we might be headed...
This is a work that shouldn’t be missed. (Steven Leigh Morris)

Art/Works Theatre, 6569 Santa Monica Blvd., Hlywd.;
Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; thru June 14.
(323) 871-8382 or
www.arteltheatre.org.

NEWS: Stephen Wangh Teacher's Practicum

2008-05-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

Artel is proud to announce that our extension, [via]Corpora has successfully helped Stephen Wangh (author of An Acrobat of the Heart) to gather a Teacher's Practicum at NACL in the Catskills July 5 -12, 2008. Bryan Brown will be attending the Practicum and will be reporting back on it later in the summer at the newly registered [via]Corpora What Arises? thoughts from the practice blog : whatarises.blogspot.com

10 Performances Only!

2008-04-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

The American Russian Theatre Ensemble Laboratory strikes again!
- LATaco.com

ARTEL is delighted to announce 10 Performances Only of our latest installment of newly devised Bulgakov material,

The Legendary Times of Bulgakov!

We have been enticing this show, along with our ensemble and community, to blossom for the last two years! All three have burst forth in unexpected and astounding ways! After so much pruning, care, and love, we are very excited to share our growth with you, our audience, and discover what new branches may appear along the way!

Opening and Closing night Gatherings are planned, but as always with our work, each performance will have refreshments and time for discussions, singing and who knows what else. So please begin buying your tickets now, spreading the word, and planning to make each night a new perspective on Los Angeles community! We look forward to meeting you again.

The Legendary Times of Bulgakov captures the soul of Russian satirist Mikhail Bulgakov (best known in the West for his novel The Master and Margarita) and the essence of his time (Russia, 1917 - 1940). Though he was repeatedly censored, persecuted and eventually silenced by the Stalinist regime, Bulgakov continued to write until his final days. His depth of humanity and integrity serves as bountiful inspiration to all who may despair in times of increasing authoritarian control. ARTEL employs the use of movement, image, voice, satire, surrealism and song to present a quilt-like unfolding of Bulgakov’s story, inviting the audience to enter a mutual search for revelation.

When:
Fridays and Saturdays, May 16th through June 14th
At 8pm

Where:
Art|Works Theatre
6569 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90038

Admission:
Sliding Scale $15-$25;
$25 general admission
$15 students/seniors/hungry artists
Tickets may be purchased at the Brown Paper Tickets link on the right of this Webpage
or over the phone at 1-800-838-3006

Here's what some of the community said after our Highways version in December:

Like a trusted lover, ARTEL savors blindfolding us, keeping us waiting, wanting, guessing…our senses wide awake, ready to engage. Fearless, avant-garde and determined to make us active participants in the creative process, ARTEL’s shows are disorienting and exhilarating, creat[ing] a symphony of spectacle and shock, always journeying on roads less traveled, stretching their wild imagination muscles to suggest, rather than dictate, Bulgakov’s incredible journey.

- Frankie Colmane, writer

Congrats on a terrific show! I really admire and respect all of the work you guys are doing, especially in this culturally vacant city, it means a lot!

- John Sinner, Director/Playwright

In Los Angeles, we critics see theaters put on plays as though in a slaughterhouse, one after another along the production line, busy people rehearsing between cell-phone calls and auditions for other projects, rehearsing for reasons rarely understood with clarity. Too often, the result is a carcass. When artists reach an understanding by reaching for an understanding of what they’re doing, and why, the nature and purpose of doing theater in a city as absurd as Los Angeles begins to emerge. That’s what I saw onstage at Highways last week. It was a nonlinear, imagistic, biographical and beautiful exercise dedicated to the proposition that one must continue the work because the work must be continued.

- Steven Leigh Morris, LA Weekly

Artel to help celebrate Highways 19th Birthday!

2008-04-05T18:52:00.000-07:00

Come join Artel as we honor 19 years of a beacon and shelter for artists in Los Angeles! Artel will present A Chapter from the Legendary Times of Bulgakov as part of Highways 19th Birthday Celebration!

May 9 & 10th

HIGHWAYS' 19TH BIRTHDAY
NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

Celebrate our 19th year with great performances by fierce artists who honor us with their work.

FRIDAY
blue13 dance company
DanceGood.Damnit!!!
Naked with Shoes (Anne + Jeff Grimaldo)
Rosanna Gamson/World Wide

SATURDAY
ARTEL
Nao Bustamante
LeVan D. Hawkins
Mira Kingsley
Dorian Wood

Fri + Sat 8:30pm $20/$15

www.highwaysperformance.org

(please note the birthday bash is two nights of different performers and performances, Artel performs on Saturday).

Artel to host one of Russia's "zasluzhenniy deyatel" (national treasure)

2008-02-29T20:34:00.000-08:00

Evgenia Osipovna Zasimova, professor of solo folk singing and dance at the Moscow State University of Arts and Culture and founder of folk ensemble Karagod, is coming to Los Angeles to work with Artel!

This visit is quite an honor for us.

Ms. Zasimova has been leading expeditions to Russian villages to learn ancient and traditional songs, dances and games for over twenty-five years. Her ensemble, Karagod, performs at some of the most prestigious concert halls in Russia and abroad as well as provides music and musicology for numerous film and theater productions.

We greatly anticipate our first collective work with a Russian master. Not only will we be able to learn how to sing directly from the woman whose CD's have been teaching us many of the songs we have been sharing at our Gogol-Mogols but we will also deepen our experience, knowledge and perspective of both Russia and America.

Ms. Zasimova is looking forward to meeting and sharing her wisdom with the larger community of Los Angeles artists as well. Artel's [via]Corpora will host a weekend of vocal-movement workshops with her at our studio, March 15 and 16. See www.viacorpora.com for more details.

Bulgakov's Law of the Conservation of Matter

2008-02-29T09:53:00.000-08:00

Our performances at Highways in early December were precisely what we needed for making the next leap (today!) towards the Bulgakov performance we have been envisioning for the last two years!

Thank you all for coming out and supporting us in such numbers!

Two superb writers penned articles on the evenings, if you missed them, please see the Press section on the right side of our blog

Over the last few months, we have been taking the generous feedback we received from all of you as well as our own experiences of performing the two evenings and returning to the intensive work in the studio of shaping the Bulgakov material into the most concise, dynamic performance possible.

Our major concerns, besides our ever demanding vision of intensifying our physical and vocal edges in order to challenge our accepted forms of expression, have been the clarification of the story -- How much of the story is about Bulgakov and how much of it is about what Bulgakov inspires in us?

The big questions of Censorship, Transmission, the Role of the Artist, Terror and the Shaping of Consciousness, History and Man's Questionable Evolution have been gaining specificity and sharpness the longer we sit with them.

The fears of creating another theatrical biography are giving way as we find the more connected we are to the personal details and anecdotes of Bulgakov's life as well as emphasize the context around his writing career, especially his three marriages, the brighter the themes that brought us to the material in the first place shine.

We are preparing to show you all the new endeavor in mid-May.

Artel invited to Poland!

2008-02-28T07:01:00.000-08:00

In November 2007, three members of Teatr Zar graced Artel's studio to lead us in a five hour workshop. This meeting was born in Wroclaw last summer during the Institute's Atelier between Bryan and Matej Matejka. Originally envisioned as three days of 8 hours, practicalities allowed for the one five hour day with Matej, Przemek Blaszczak and Kamila Klamut sharing a variety of daily physical exercises aimed at increasing concentration, trust, mutuality, coordination and psycho-physical expansion of expression.

Over the next few days, Artel found time to share conversations, songs, and a small showing of Bulgakov material with all of Teatr Zar, deepening our understanding of each others' work and vision. As all good meetings should, ours ended with a gentle sadness in our hearts fueled only by the commitment to meet again soon for a longer, more in-depth time.

In January, Artel received a formal invitation to Poland to work with Teatr Zar and friends of the Grotowski Institute, thus the Open Doors project was born! Open Doors is an establishing of relations between Artel, the Instititute, its resident theatre, its theatre associates, and its extensive Archives. Practically Open Doors is a two week intensive worksession (late July in Wroclaw and Brzezinka) between Matej Matejka, members of Teatr Zar, Ukrainian song theater Maisternia Pisni, and Artel to expand our expressive abilities, hone the Bulgakov material and develop our modes of creation!

Artel performance in May

2008-02-27T18:55:00.000-08:00

Highways Performance Space is having a birthday! and Artel has been asked to perform as part of a curated evening of Highways favorite performers on May 10, 2008! We are honored to be selected for such a performance and willingly donate our time and work to such a bastion of live performance in Southern California.

Center for Performance Research in crisis!

2008-02-27T09:14:00.000-08:00

CPR, the Center for Performance Research in Wales, is facing the struggle inherent in all theater practitioners lives, the sand we build our castles on is perilously close to the ocean. The Center for Performance Research in Wales, a deeply important enclave of theatrical research is in jeopardy of losing its funding! CPR is a model for Artel's [via]Corpora. For over ten years they have been creating international networks, offering some of the foremost worksessions in physical and voice work in theater today, publishing important journals and books (their next two years are almost solely committed to Polish theater and Grotowski). Wales has made itself stand out and seem like a beacon of light to artists who are underappreciated and undervalued in their own countries and now the Welsh government is disregarding this international "status" that it was beginning to develop and going the way of all conservative governments in an economically unfriendly time. In our letter of support we quoted this from Stanislavsky which seems mightily apropos:

The theatre is not a luxury in the life of the people, but part of its bread and butter. It is not something one can quite well do without, but something incontestably necessary for a great people....You can't postpone the art of the thetare for a while, padlock its workshop, and suspend its animation for a time. Art cannot go to sleep and then, when it suits us, wake up again. It can only go to sleep for ever, by dying. Suspend it, and it will perish...returning to life only centuries later, if then. The death of art would be a national catastrophe.

You can view letters of support from around the world here: centreforperformanceresearch.blogspot.com
For direct information: www.thecpr.org.uk/
To view/sign the petition please visit: http://www.gopetition.com/online/17052.html

Around The Teapot Inauguration!

2008-02-20T20:12:00.000-08:00

Feb 9 saw the inauguration of a new outreach action from Artel, Around the Teapot, a discussion of the role of artists in society. This lively dialog grew organically out of our post-performance discussions and the research we continuously do. A small group of scholars, artists, critics and audience members with special guests, John Achorn and Steven Leigh Morris, gathered in our creative home for blini, tea and other treats.

For more information and to let us know you want to attend the next one, please go to www.aroundtheteapot.blogspot.com

A Workshop to inspire Workshops!

2008-02-18T07:03:00.000-08:00

On Feb 17th Bryan and Olya held a free workshop for 8 students (primarily from CalArts) in order to share our work with younger performers as well as to expand the potential and purpose of Artel's teaching opportunities.

With no set timeline or criteria, the workshop was an exercise in meeting. How do artists interested in something verbalized as similar meet to work with minimal discussion, meet by letting their bodies speak, meet by entering the unknown?

For three hours we traversed a series of exercises aiming at the expansion of awareness, of listening, of glowing. We all experienced the edges of ourselves and shared in the support of that experience as an ensemble of players should. As many of Bryan's recent worksessions have, this workshop ended in a jam of sorts with the intent of pursuing the expression of the freedom found in moments throughout the day's work.

As we discussed the practicalities of the work at the end, Olya asked how many hours a day the participants all worked together (as she was not involved in the setting up of the workshop and therefore believed they were all in the same level at CalArts). But in fact, two of the participants had never met any of the people in the room before!

Everyone expressed a desire to continue the work on a regular basis and this, together with Bryan's ongoing weekly sessions, have led us to realize how much our approach is needed in the Los Angeles community, the need for a transmission of a new approach to the creation of a strong practice a performer can call their own craft, one which allows them to meet and work with anyone at anytime, if even they just met that day.

So, at the least, monthly workshops will be forthcoming. Please check www.viacopora.com for details.

What is a Theater Laboratory?

2008-02-16T07:39:00.000-08:00

Grotowski wanted his theater to be like the lab of Niels Bohr that his older brother Kazimierz once worked in, a place for continuous exploration.

History of a theater laboratory

Claims for laboratory status in the theatre really began in the early decades of the twentieth century. Before that, there were clearly pockets of actor training in the West which were both investigative and systematic — Ian Watson traces the genesis of actor training back to the early 1700s in Britain and in France to 1786, with the birth of the Royal Dramatic school in Paris. But it was the late nineteenth century’s love affair with science and technology which spawned a new scientific rhetoric in the theatre, a development begun by Delsarte’s proto-behaviorist study of actors’ emotions. Delsarte’s work may have been criticised for its mechanistic approach but it heralded a new interdisciplinary language for actor training, a language which drew on the common associations of the scientific method: rigour, objectivity, systematic interrogation.

The laboratory in Russia

This language was never more embedded than in the Russian tradition of actor training; in Stanislavsky’s system (and in the ‘sub-systems’ of Meyerhold, Michael Chekhov and Richard Boleslavsky). From his first experimental Studio in 1905, to his final project, the Opera-Dramatic Studio, Stanislavsky’s preference was to develop a research culture outside of his main institution, the MAT. These satellite activities allowed Stanislavski a creative space to work with young actors and were designed to share what he called "the results of ... research into stage techniques". Increasingly, the research agenda was uppermost in his thoughts, and that agenda was couched in scientific terms.

The Opera-Dramatic Studio, Stanislavski's final project was to be the laboratory he called for in his essay, October and the Revolution ... He made it quite clear to the young actors and directors he gathered around him that there could be no question of gearing their work to performance; it would be done for its own sake, as research.

In Meyerhold's work, the appropriation of scientific terminology was both explicit and calculated. Indeed, of all Stanislavski’s pupils, his is the most emphatic use of an interdisciplinary language, fusing theatrical 'laws' with scientific laws — Huntley Carter called Meyerhold's actor training system, biomechanics, "the science of motion in acting". Meyerhold was founder of GITIS, the State Institute for Theatrical Art, an umbrella organisation which was responsible for the training of some of the key practitioners of the twentieth century, including Grotowski.

From Meyerhold's perspective, GITIS grew out of his attempts to realise an "exemplary model" of revolutionary theatre. Meyerhold's vision was of a mutually supportive, interactive organisation incorporating a stage, a workshop and a training school in which: "the discoveries in the workshop would affect the training in the school as well as what was exposed on the stage" in a three-fold symbiosis.

Everyone learned — students and teachers alike. It was a laboratory for working through the foundations of a new aesthetic.

GITIS was to be: A place unique in the planet, where the science of theatre is studied and drama is built. Exactly: 'science' and not 'art' — 'built' and not 'created.' Clearly for Meyerhold, the laboratory walls extended much further than the building in which he was working — the Zon theatre — for the experimental attitude he was adopting at a local level was reflected on a much grander scale — the huge social experiment of the October revolution itself. Central to this commitment to science was the emphasis on outcomes — the impact science had on the people. Such an emphasis may in part explain the popularity of the machine as a ‘symbol of the new age of mechanical and scientific industrialism’, as Carter puts it. The machine stood for productivity, for the benefits technology can bring a new society. Thus, the work of the laboratory was not seen in isolation. The laboratories of the Russian revolution fed the technological advancement of the society, the electrification of the country, for example. From a theatrical perspective, Meyerhold's work at GITIS established the same principle. The experimental findings in his workshop informed the presentations on the stage — the 'product' of a theatre industry.

The Threefold Model

Firstly, Meyerhold’s ‘exemplary model’, devised in the early 1920s, to be contrasted with Stanislavsky’s secluded investigations in the Opera Dramatic studio which set the stage for later instances of process-dominated practice such as Grotowski’s and Anatoly Vasiliev’s. With such work, there is no imperative to disseminate the research findings beyond the walls of the laboratory, no measurable outcome.

Secondly, Meyerhold’s model sees research as part of a wider picture. His laboratory shared with some of us that old fashioned notion that teaching is an integral part of research. It then extended that idea to incorporate research and teaching into the making of an original creative act — a performance.

Thirdly, is the related issue of outcomes. It is interesting to note that some ninety years ago in the new Soviet Union the research agenda was still pre-occupied with outcomes! The context is clearly a mechanistic one, related, as I have said, to the necessity to produce. But for Meyerhold it nevertheless promoted a dynamic symbiosis of original workshop research, pedagogy and performance.

The engine room of this triangular research model was the experimental workshop, described by Maria Valenti in recognisably research-oriented terms:

The students were not required to present preconceived conclusions, but were expected to find new paths, along with Meyerhold and his colleagues, to create new concepts of theatre.

What I believe is striking about this model is that, as a self-sustaining form, all areas of this symbiotic triangle feed into Meyerhold’s agenda of innovation, not because they are in themselves research but because the environment in which the activity is taking place, the wider picture, is essentially research-centered. And by that I mean:

· it stimulates originality and creativity
· it is underpinned by a set of theoretical principles
· it is designed to test the validity of those theoretical principles and to feed those findings back into the loop
· it utilises an organic system of dissemination.

In this holistic framework it is not necessarily the ‘instance of practice’ which is under scrutiny but the surrounding research environment. Research, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

please visit www.viacorpora.com for more on Artel's teaching as research portion of our laboratory

The above excerpt is from a speech on practice as research given by Jonathan Pitches, author of Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting
The opening line is from The Grotowski Sourcebook, eds. Schechner and Wolford

THANK YOU!

2007-12-10T13:36:00.001-08:00

Thank you all for coming to our performances of Variation #50 at Highways Performance Space this last weekend! It was an honor and pleasure to share our work with you and hear such wonderful feedback from all of you! Please keep it coming!

Please, send us your thoughts and comments on what has stuck with you; what you might be missing; what ideas, images, and/or questions our performance helped provoke. The audience is the jury, the co-creator of the event and it really means a great deal to us to hear what your process is and what we all created that night. In fact, if you can tell us what night you came, we would appreciate it. And we would be especially interested in knowing if our work has sparked any thoughts on Russian and/or American culture, history, politics, etc.

please send to contact@arteltheatre.org

Thank you again for creating two magical evenings with us!
Please come support the LA Physical Theatre Arts Festival at our home base ART/Works Theatre before it runs out (dec 23rd)!
We will be posting more info on our recent experiences with Teatr Zar as well as where Variation #50 will be going from here in the coming weeks!

Premiere of Variation #50: the memorable adventures during the legendary times of Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov!

2007-10-15T11:30:00.000-07:00

photography by Annie Appel, www.annieappel.com

Variation #50: the memorable adventures during the legendary times of Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov aims to capture the soul of Russian satirist Mikhail Bulgakov (predominantly known in the West for his novel The Master and Margarita) and the essence of his time (Russia, 1917 - 1940). Bulgakov created until his last moment of consciousness despite years of censorship, persecution and eventual silence by the Stalinist Regime. His depth of humanity and integrity serves as bountiful inspiration to all who may despair in times of increasing authoritarian control. Through the use of body, song and sensorial atmospheres, ARTEL offers a visceral enticement for audiences to enter a mutual search for revelation.

Highways Performance Space
December 7 and 8, 2007
8:30PM
$20 Regular
$15 Students/members/seniors
To reserve TICKETS: (310) 315-1459
Address:
Highways Performance Space and Gallery
@ the 18th Street Arts Center
1651 18th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90404
for more information: return to this blog in the future or call ARTEL's office at 323.871.8382

Teatr ZAR

2007-10-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

Arden2 in association with UCLALive!
and with the support of the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles Present

Gospels of Childhood

by Teatr Zar
a multinational theatre group from Wroclaw, Poland

US Debut and UCLALive! Exclusive
Tue-Fri, Nov 27-30 at 8pm;
Sat, Dec 1 at 2 and 8pm;
Sun Dec 2 at 2 and 7pm
at Freud Playhouse UCLA

TICKETS at http://www.uclalive.org/
or phone: 310.825.2101

A profound, visceral, and ritualistic spectacle in the tradition of the late Polish theatre revolutionary, Jerzy Grotowski. Gospels of Childhood incorporates acting, chanting, movement and millennia-old polyphonic funeral songs from Georgia, Bulgaria and Greece to envelop the audience in a deeply moving and meditative experience. Using texts from Christian mythology, including the resurrection of Lazarus and the testimony of Mary Magdalene, Gospels transports audiences to a realm hovering between the worlds of the living and the dead, ultimately leading to a fully realized theatrical moment of redemption.

Teatr ZAR is the resident artist company at the Jerzy Grotowski Institute in Wroclaw and, apart from pursuing their own creative work; they also manage the administration of the Institute, of which Jaroslaw Fret is its present director.

Special Reception and Performance Event at Arden2 O.C. Project Gallery:

Monday, Dec 3, 2007 5-7pm

honoring Zar ensemble with guest performance by ARTEL with accompanying interdisciplinary exhibition.

Beyond Orange Curtain: on the wills of Madame Modjeska, Jerzy Grotowski and Disneyland.

Arden2 O.C. Project Gallery
350 East 17th street #112, Costa Mesa, CA 92627
http://www.arden2.org/

Faces of ARTEL

2007-10-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

photography by Annie Appel, www.annieappel.com

Left to right:
Bryan Brown, Betsy Moore, Keirin Brown,
Olya Petrakova, Ilana Turner

The Search is On: The Board of Directors

2007-10-04T13:53:00.000-07:00

We are looking for a few good men and women to help in the establishing of a new arts-driven organization. We plan to transform this usually sysiphean endeavor into an experience of creatively communal flow of support, good will and growth.

We are establishing a Board of Passionate Souls to support the mission and the goals of ARTEL.

We are looking for business savvy individuals who believe in giving back to the community through work, sharing of good fortune, and inspiring others to do the same.

For more information, please contact Keirin Brown at our office number 323-871-8382.

GOGOL-MOGOL IV Aftermath: Comments, Pictures, Video

2007-08-26T10:42:00.000-07:00

Pictures are HERE!

photography by Annie Appel, www.annieappel.com

Dear Audience: Friends Old and New!

Feel free to leave a comment about your experiences at Gogol-Mogol IV by clicking on the Comment Button at the bottom of this blog entry, or by e-mailing us at contact@arteltheatre.org. Your feedback is highly important to us, as we exist and create through a dialogue, contact, and sharing.

Pictures are Here! Video is coming soon. We will announce it via e-mail to everyone: if you are not on our mailing list - join now at the top of this site. You will keep abreast with the latest developments and updates from us.

These are some quotes from emails we have received about our GOGOL MOGOL IV:

"I can't remember when we had a more perfect night. Thank you for inviting us to a wonderful performance/happening with the coolest people. ARTEL has really inspired us to explore and expand our meaning of community."
- T Tanabe

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!! for the most enjoyable evening we have had in years. So many poeple forget that art and theatre is for people to meet and.. if possible .. to have fun! You Guys are fantastic!"
- J Klass

" Thanks so much for last night. LOVED THE SHOW!!!!!!! ARTEL must NEVER, I repeat, NEVER, leave L.A.!!!!!"
- Frankie

"...Congrats on a terrific show! I really admire and respect all of the work you guys are doing, especially in this culturally vacant city, it means a lot! Look forward to seeing your upcoming work at Highways. Break a leg!"
- John Sinner

"...that was f...ng amazing, you guys have something insanely special."
- B Canning

Performances, Appearances, Happenings...

2007-07-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

Our Schedule is firming up and here is a line up of our work through December 2007 ... as we know it at the moment... more updates to come:

SATURDAY, JULY 14, 10am to 2pm, Community Day in the Park. At De Longpre Park (De Longpre Avenue & June Street in Hollywood)

ARTEL entertains with its signature Clowning (exploring a Hill-Billy direction), playing Games, singing Songs and generating an inspired tomfoolery.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22 at 8PM. Gogol-Mogol is back! At Art|Works Theatre.

Explorations on the Bulgakov Theme, Unseen [Nevesta] by Olya Petrakova with ARTEL, songs, dances, more artists will be announced + community barters!

FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7-8, 8:30PM. BULGAKOV PROJECT (title TBD). HIGHWAYS PERFORMANCE SPACE in Santa Monica.

A montage of impressions, memories & explorations, digested into images, songs, movement and rhythm. Many vital themes are entwining themselves to create this original piece: censorship, the three wifes, Stalin and Bulgakov, Margarita and the eternal feminine, Russia as a village, and others.

Poland, Grotowski Center, Atelier, Song of Goat

2007-06-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

Bryan Brown has left for Poland to participate in this year's ATELIER Source Techniques – Sources of Techniques directed by Jaroslaw Fret and Grzegorz Ziolkowski at the Grotowski Center and to train with Piesn Kozla (Song of Goat) Theatre Company.

Company continues to work on the Bulgakov Project and firming up our plans for performances in August and December. Olya is also working on her solo piece, based on Les Noces (English: The Wedding; Russian: Свадебка.)

What is ATELIER?

ATELIER consists of a series of practical and theoretical work sessions, which are part of an enterprise created for actors, musicians, singers, dancers, and theatre people. The aim of the Atelier is to work on the craft in the primary meaning of the word. The craft is a study of tools, a study of discovering creative motivation in oneself, a study of keeping the working spaces (whether them being actual spaces or the spaces of the body and/or the voice) in order. These elements build a skeleton of performer's creative preparation for work, the core of which is re-cognition – dedication.

Programme of the ATELIER includes:

• Openings – presentations of performances, concerts and demonstrations of work open for wider audiences. Presentations will be made by artists whose projects are realized within the framework of the promotional activities of the Grotowski Institute.

• Courses – work sessions divided into 4 five-day units of work which embrace three independent artistic lines (200 hours on the whole). Apart from them, the programme consists of theoretical classes and film presentations with introductions.

Commedia Night

2007-06-13T17:09:00.000-07:00

Last night John Achorn shared with us his video collection of Commedia archives. Ariane Mnouchkine, Dario Fo, Jacques Lecoq, Piccolo Teatro, old films, Laurel & Hardy. Exquisite and ominous in its serious "life or death" demands. He said we will be leaping through the air in a few month. Oh, ok...

Beyond May

2007-06-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

We are regrouping. Heading into the summer. Learning to be an organization, flexing our brain muscles. Boards, non-profits, money - comprehending the constructs of survival. We revised our mission statement: ARTEL is a theater laboratory collective that creates and performs original work through investigation of cultures and histories. By building and extending our creative home we serve a community who seeks a mutual experience of joy, play and revelation.

This year is a year of a pig, the year of overcoming obstacles - and they keep hurdling at us to be overcome. It's a good year, this year, we are becoming stronger, purer, more direct. Our work is more intense, immediate and deeply satisfying. Momo left us a golden set of challenges to grapple with.

LA Weekly Article and Upcoming Workshops in San Fran

2007-04-16T14:04:00.000-07:00

ARTEL got a unique opportunity to be featured in LA Weekly's Theatre Edition: Building an Ensemble in Ego-ville: Olga Petrakova glides through catastrophe in search of some truth by STEVEN LEIGH MORRIS.

We will also conduct two workshops in San Francisco. "Freedom Bound" will be led by Bryan Brown and "Play With" by ARTEL ensemble (Bryan, Olya, Marc and Betsy).

See Workshop Information on our Calendar.

Highways and San Francisco - April is here!

2007-04-05T09:23:00.000-07:00

ARTEL
will be performing.....

Our first installment of
We Play Devil's Advocate (Variation #50)

at
HIGHWAYS in Santa Monica, CA
April 6th and 7th
8:30 pm
info and tix at
http://www.highwaysperformance.org/

and at
TRAVELLING JEWISH THEATER in San Francisco, CA
for the FOOL'S FURY ENSEMBLE THEATRE FESTIVAL
Sat, April 21st at 9pm
Sun, April 22nd at 7pm
info and tix at
http://www.foolsfury.org/index.html

We Play Devil's Advocate (Variation #50) aims to capture the soul of Mikhail Bulgakov (predominantly known in the West for his novel The Master and Margarita) and the essence of his time (1917 - 1940) by physically digesting and reconstructing images and passages from his life and works. As a self-professed mystic and satirist during the rise of the Stalinist Regime, Bulgakov's depth of humanity and integrity serves as bountiful inspiration to all who may despair in times of increasing authoritarian control. ARTEL offers a visceral contest of artistic freedom versus revolutionary and authoritarian fervor, utilizing body, song and sensorial atmospheres to entice audiences into a mutual search for revelation.

March is Over

2007-03-29T10:02:00.000-07:00

Gone the Days of Butoh Anti-War Parade (See album of images in our Gallery), 35 Hours of Intense Butoh Training with Shinichi (with whom we all fell in love), and the Wild Things are on Vacation till May 12.

Above are a few impressions drawn by our beloved intern Brook Rollo, depicting Wild Things on the loose, as ARTEL was solidifying the piece for the Bootleg performance.

March Developments and Beyond

2007-02-23T15:56:00.000-08:00

We have plans through May at this point:

Thursday, March 15th - ARTEL's BIRTHDAY, we are coming up on our 1 year anniversary. We will celebrate on March 14, right after our rehearsal. This year it will be just us, as we are focused intensely on getting ready for all upcoming events.

We launched Physical Training Center for Performance @ our Body|Works Studio with two weekly ongoing classes taught by Bryan Brown (Freedom Bound: Grotowski-based Training) and Jon Morris (Athletic Actor Workout, based on principles of le jeu, or play). Coming up: Clown 101 series. Details are under Current Projects Tab to the left.

NO GOGOL-MOGOL TeaRoom Salon till May - we are busy devising, performing around town and traveling to San Fran. We would enjoy seeing our audiences coming to our shows around town.

Saturday March 17th 1PM - BUTOH SURGE AGAINST THE WAR PARADE. ARTEL is joining Corpus Delicti and friends for the parade. EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO COME! More info on Corpus Delicti is at www.corpusbutoh.org. Information on our Calendar.

Corpus Delicti at the Parade

Monday March 19, 10:30PM - ARTEL will perform a composition based on "Where the Wild Things Are" at NightHawks Salon, Bootleg Theatre. EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO ATTEND. Further details on our Calendar.

One Week Intensive, March 21-27th - Butoh/Physical Theater WORKSHOP with Shinichi Iova-Koga (Momo)of InkBoat, San Francisco. ARTEL Only.

Public Workshop Disciplines for the Hidden Body: Imagery, Form and Improvisation taught by Shinichi Iova-Koga (Momo), presented by Physical Training Center for Performance @ Body|Works Studio. - Saturday, March 24, 10-3PM. Cost $60.00. Contact Olya @ 310-985-9996.

Friday and Saturday April 6th ,7th 8:30PM - ARTEL will be a part of the curated evening at the Highways Performance Space with an Excerpt from a work-in-progress, We Play Devil's Advocate (Variation #50), based on Life & Times of Mikhail Bulgakov. Further details on our Calendar.

Saturday, Sunday, April 21, 22nd - ARTEL is performing in San Francisco at the Traveling Jewish Theatre a work-in-progress We Play Devil's Advocate (Variation #50), based on Life & Times of Mikhail Bulgakov as part of the Ensemble Theatre Festival - The FURY Factory. Further details on our Calendar.

Saturday, May 12th - ARTEL is performing at a Fundraiser for the Little Red School House in Hollywood.

February Developments

2007-02-01T16:39:00.000-08:00

Gogol-Mogol TeaRoom Salon - "Maslenitsa" Carnival
Sunday, February 18, 2007
4-10PM
Our ART|Works Theatre, of course

Russian Pancake Week in 2007 is February 12-February 18. And our third Gogol-Mogol is turning into a Miniture Carnival, as we are celebrating Russian Maslenitsa on February 18, Forgivness Sunday, bringing a touch of Mardi-Gras, a taste of Brazilian Carnivale, and a spectacle of a Venitian Masquerade - Russian ancient style, with bears, pancakes, games and performances, culminating in the burning of Madame Maslenitsa, a scarecrow effigy of the winter!

To find out more, check out our CALENDAR.

January came and went... with a bang!!!

2007-02-01T16:14:00.000-08:00

Wow, where to begin - it was a FULL month, new trainings, Slava Polunin, Onofrio Colucci, Old New Year, and a trip to the East Coast for Bryan and Olya with a wonderful visit to the Double Edge Theatre.

M. Chekhov workshop with Robert was short and effective, very inspiring and useful for our process. Well, how could it not be, Misha was a wizzard, and so are we, wizzards in the making.

Commedia with John Achorn is god-sent, coupled with a visit of Slava's Snowshow to LA (most of us saw the show at least twice) and Slava's company, we've been goofing off, buffoning, clowning and laughing our bellies off. Life is good, ladies and gents!

Old New Year... what can we tell ya, it was a RIOT!!! Over 400 guests on the COLDEST DAY in LA HISTORY (it was freezing) gathered to party like it's 2099.

We performed inside and outside, dipped into rituals, literally. We actually had a pool of cold water for an ancient ceremony of throwing water at midnight out of the old pots and pans). We burned old X-mas trees to keep warm, and danced and sang the night away, till 4am.

A Trip to Double Edge was memorable. Yes, America has a living theatre! It's live, and people live there, and they live doing theatre. Beautiful farm on 105 acres of sprawling New England land, with rolling hills and a jewel of a pond - is their home. The training and performing facilities are a dream for any physical theatre group. We spent about an hour talking with Matthew Glassman, managing director and an actor, and another 3 looking at the archives - performance tapes, photographs, reviews, etc. Rich imaginations and generous hearts reside at the Farm!

Reflections on ARTEL

2007-01-09T14:55:00.000-08:00

A seriously cool, seemingly underground LA TACO website, which seems to gravitate towards posting colorful pictures of grafitti covering numerous LA walls, uncluding our theatre's, though it also posts reviews of events, restaurants, music, theater and more, had this to say about our last Gogol-Mogol (well... our first Gogol-Mogol):

The advertisement said ‘ARTEL’ would perform songs, poems, etudes and compositions in English and, most importantly to me, Russian. I yearned for the show to fire-up, and the performers to shoot me straight to paradiseka with one lick or two of their caressing, yet ardent, native tongue. But in the tradition of the Grotowski and Gardzienice theater groups from Poland, this Laboratory Ensemble didn’t want me to go anywhere…they wanted me to stay right there with them, using one unlikely trick to keep us cemented to our seats: They didn’t say a word. READ MORE

January Developments

2006-12-28T15:07:00.000-08:00

We are creating and hosting a number of activities. Details for Public Events are on our Calendar.

January 2nd - Commedia Dell'Arte with John Achorn. 6-week workshop begins. Open to invited theatre artists.

January 4th - Meeting with Slava Polunin (Slava SnowShow), a living example of human artistic potential, open to all Los Angeles Theatre Practitioners.

January 6th-13th - BODYWORKS ACTOR TRAINING CENTER continues with the next installement of Grotowski inspired workshops - BUILDING RIVERS, - a corporeal investigation into the foundations of the actor's craft with Bryan Brown. Open to all Los Angeles Theatre Practitioners

January 7th - One-day Michael Chekhov workshop with Robert Allen. Artel only.

January 13th - 4th Annual Russian New Year Celebration with Gogol-Mogol II presentation. Open to the PUBLIC.

Click HERE for all pix from December's Gogol-Mogol TeaRoom Performance Salon by Artel.

Valerie McCann in a solo work-in-progress, inspired by Bulgakov's Margarita.

What are we up to in December?

2006-11-29T12:02:00.000-08:00

We are gearing up for a series of small performances based on the Russian tradition of Kolyada*, an age-old celebration of Winter Solstice, as well as beginning to offer physical training to the public at our Body|Works Studio, commencing with Bryan Brown's Freedom Bound Workshop.

*Kolyada (Kohl-YAH-da) - The Winter Solstice.
The word has similar roots with the Roman word "calendae" which meant the first 10 days of any month, as well as the word "Kolo" or wheel (Koleso, in Russian) - much like the word "Yule" is an Anglo-Saxon word for wheel. The holiday was filled with revelry. Processions of people masked like animals and cross-dressers roamed the village. Often they were accompanied by a "goat"- a goat's head, either real or (usually) made and stuffed on a stick. The person holding the "goat" would be covered by a blanket to play the part. Sometimes a child on horseback - symbol of the reborn sun - would accompany them; the horse was often played by two young men in horses costumes. One of the wenders would carry a spinning solar symbol, internally lit by a candle, on a stick. Later, after Christianity entered the scene, the spinning "sun" became a star. See more at this link of Slavic Holidays.

Visit to Odin Teatret, September 2006

2006-11-21T16:21:00.000-08:00

Coming back from Odin Teatret in October was expectedly propitious. The history of a theatrical ensemble existing for over 40 years, which is still creatively instigating transformation with the system of performance barters in various 3rd world countries and beyond, with the social engagement in their hometown of Holstebro, with the development of a sense of community of the ancient order, with the deep investigation of the art of the performer, - is beyond inspiring, it's purpose-affirming for our group.

We are like baby elephants looking up to Matriarchs: Odin, Gardzienice, Maly Teatr, Derevo. It's an exciting time, Artel is living in the throat of the sociopathic America, in the region of Los Angeles, which spins Maya's tales, like the media siren-slut that she is. Oh, America, you greedily destroy nature, culture, memory, in the name of the bottom line, as those bottoms are getting fatter and fatter!

Who are We?

2006-09-13T10:23:00.000-07:00

We are (in alphabetagamma order): Betsy Moore, Bryan Brown, Ilana Turner, Keirin Brown, Olga Petrakova (aka Istelle Petra) , Valerie McCann (in absentia).

Birthday Announcement

2006-09-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

We are working on our website, and meanwhile we are blogging. We shall grow from here.

Artel was born on March 15, 2006 at 7:29pm.

Artel Primer

2006-03-15T21:13:00.000-08:00

ARTEL артель

1. a labor collective, historically, artels were semi-formal associations for various enterprises: fishing, mining, commerce, collections of loaders, loggers, thieves, beggars, etc. 2. a cooperative association, a commune of democratically-minded artists. 3. American Russian Theatre Ensemble Laboratory

OUR MISSION

Artel is a theater laboratory for continuous research into the potentials of the human being and the craft of performative expression. Through specific engagement with the histories and cultures of Russia and America we aim to create performances that provide space for deeper reflection on our shared human experience.

Artel was founded in Los Angeles in March 2006. Taking as a starting point models from European and Russian theater studios (such as those created by Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Chekhov and Grotowski), Artel is dedicated to the responsibility and citizenship of the actor through engagement with the tradition of artistic practice and theatre craft. As a laboratory, we spend much of our process discovering connections between impulse, spirit and expression, investigating the roots of the performance tradition on which we stand while uncovering new ways of challenging and expanding the role of theater in society. By focusing our lens on Russian culture and themes, Artel researches and re-imagines theatrically the histories and cultures of the USA and Russia in efforts to bring the audience and performers into a visceral and sensorial experience of innate human questions. Our devising is a quilt-like gathering of our physical based laboratory research, our cultural research and our literary research.

By hosting dialogues (after our performances and in our creative home) we create a space for deeper investigation of the sources for our performance material which simultaneously builds community as well as challenges and ignites our theatrical work to evolve. We aim for our theatre to be an instrument that can entice audiences back into the theater, entice audiences out of the theater, entice audiences to share their own creativity, entice communities to come together and mutually reveal new perspectives on social and cultural understanding through active dialogue and experiential knowledge.

Performances

Piece for Schiele, a site specific 10 minute meditation on life of Egon Schiele at Papadakis Gallery, San Pedro, July 23, 2006

Bulgakov Raw, an original experimental performance, August 2006. Held at our residential theater, Artworks on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles, Bulgakov Raw was free to the public. The local community was invited to join us on a traveling adventure through the essence and soul of Mikhail Bulgakov and his time. We reached out to the audience, literally moving them during the performance through rooms, hallways, outdoors, rooftop views and the theater, evoking a heightened sense of engagement and experience.

Kolyada, a 10 minute performance that toured throughout the month of December in 2006. We traveled to the Electric Lodge in Venice on Dec. 4th for a night of Max 10 performances, the Ford Amphitheater on Dec. 6th in Los Angeles to support fellow Los Angeles company, Zoo District, in their fundraising campaign and finally, back to our theater for Gogol Mogol TeaRoom Salon I. This piece was based on the Russian tradition of Kolyada, an age-old cultural celebration of the Winter Solstice. We engaged our audiences by leading them through the experience of this ancient ritual through nontraditional storytelling and interpretation: songs, masks, mythical characters and very few words, of which were both Russian and English. Our various locations allowed us interaction with several different Los Angeles communities.

Rumpus, at Nighthawks, the first ever installment of a monthly salon at Bootleg Theater in Echo Park, March 19, 2007. Artel was invited to perform a 10-15 minute piece based on the Nighthawks chosen theme of the classic children's tale, "Where the Wild Things Are”. This performance challenged our imaginations to create the atmospheres and characters of the story through heightened physical and rhythmic use of our bodies and 6 foot long sticks.

War Machine, a Butoh Surge Street Performance, Saturday March 17, 2007 in Hollywood was a collaboration between Artel members Olya and Bryan and Butoh Dance performers Corpus Delecti. For an afternoon, both companies paraded Butoh inspired costumes, make-up, and movements throughout the streets of Los Angeles, as part of a larger protest against American Imperialism, evoking a visceral experience for all spectators. Artel offered our studio as a home for all the performers to meet, plan and collaborate.

We Play Devil's Advocate (Variation #50) [LA version], Highways Performance Space, part of the curated evening by Heidi Carlsen on April 6 and 7, 2007. This installment of our Bulgakov material was a culmination of our physical training, research and compositions over the previous 13 months. The performance connected us to the space and the Highways community. Artel established an important relation with Leo Garcia, the space’s Artistic Director which resulted in our being invited to perform there again.

We Play Devil’s Advocate (Variation #50) [SF version], part of the Fool’s Fury Ensemble Theater Festival, April 21 and 22, 2007 at the Traveling Jewish Theater in San Francisco. A revised second installment of the Bulgakov material allowing Artel to further its goals of forging contacts with West Coast artists, theaters and community.

Going Green Fundraiser The Litte Red School House, Hollywood, May 12, 2007. Artel was invited to provide guests with entertaining drum beats and chants as well as thought provoking guest interaction. Taking the recent fires in Griffith Park and our ongoing environmental concerns, characters, rhythms and songs were devised from an ensemble created post-apocolyptic, mutated human reality.

Glass Windows, A site specific two person improvisational exercises on witches, femininity and play at Annie Appel studios, San Pedro, August 5, 2007.

Nevesta, August 2007, Highways Performance Space, with Hiedi Carlsen once again curating. A short solo work-in-progress created and performed by Olya Petrakova on ancient Russian Wedding customs and the bride as ghost.

Variation #50 [snippet], Arden 2 Gallery, Costa Mesa. A gallery opening and farewell to Teatr Zar at which Artel was asked to perform a short segment of their work-in-progress. This presentation allowed us to share our work with Teatr Zar, building more potential for future collaborations. Our presentation also allowed our work to be seen by donors, scholars and artists that would not have seen it otherwise, many of whom then made plans to see the full presentation a few days later. Most importantly this presentation cemented our relationship with our fiscal umbrella, Arden 2.

Variation #50 (the memorable adventures during the legendary times of Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov), Highways Performance Space, December 7 and 8, 2007. Our first individual evening at this venue was a full length version of Artel's Bulgakov material. We played to oversold houses and greatly increased our audience and community base.

Gogol-Mogol TeaRoom Salon

Thank you, thank you, thank you!! for the most enjoyable evening we have had in years. So many poeple forget that art and theatre is for people to meet and.. if possible .. to have fun! You Guys are fantastic!
- J Klass/ Arden 2

To further our mission of being a laboratory that not only expands the theatrical craft but also the role of theater in society by building and sustaining a community based on active dialogue, mutual revelation, joy and play, Artel created the Gogol-Mogol TeaRoom Salon. These are seasonal nights of theatrical experimentation. Often revolving around old Russian calendar celebrations, the evenings are an opportunity to share etudes and test experiments from our laboratory with an audience while encouraging audience creativity through shared barter of songs, stories, dances, or impressions. The format of the evenings continues to develop, allowing on one evening for local musicians to be highlighted by playing after the performance and barters, on another for local Non-Profits to be highlighted in a short speech about their cause, or still on another, for an old New Year's celebration to be partying til dawn, burning old christmas trees and dowsing guests with water from a giant pool! Our core goal remains the same, to challenge the boundaries of theater and the performer/spectator relationship, to question what community is and how it meets, and to invigorate our daily lives with fresh perspectives on Los Angeles culture.

The vivid and comical tales are subversive for Hollywood, because they don’t spoon feed audiences with a beginning, nor tuck lethargic and overstuffed souls to bed with an end. “What are you revolutionaries doing in Hollywood?” I asked Bryan. He explains, “Our work in LA is necessary. In a town where people are isolated, we offer a space to build community.” Community seems the right word. - LATaco.com

Gogol Mogol Tea Room I, included a presentation of songs, dances, drafts, etudes, and compositions by Artel company members on December 13, 2006 at Artworks Theater. Artel’s performance was followed by a series of barter performances: audience members had an opportunity to perform a song, piece of music, dance, poem, or to teach Artel members a traditional dance, song or poem from their respective cultures and histories. The barters were primarily stories and christmas carols.

Russian Old New Year, Artel co-hosted a celebration of the traditional Russian holiday on January 13, 2007 with Milla Nova, a Russian community event planner. Over 400 guests brought food and drink, music and dancing shoes, and apparently Moscow Weather with them to the parking lot and three studios on an absolutely Freezing Night in Los Angeles! Combined with Gogol Mogol Tea Room II, Artel members performed inside and outside, led Russian and non-Russian community members through rituals, songs and provided an open stage for performances by guests. This resulted in a night of songs, dances, poetry and story readings, dead christmas tree burnings, and midnight dowsings of water from the giant pool in the parking lot!

I can't remember when we had a more perfect night. Thank you for inviting us to a wonderful performance/happening with the coolest people. ARTEL has really inspired us to explore and expand our meaning of community. - T Tanabe

Maslenitsa Carnival celebrated Russian "Forgiveness" Sunday of the "Maslenitsa" Pancake Week and was Artel's Gogol Mogol TeaRoom III on February 18, 2007. Led by Artel and Milla Nova, this activity was conducted at Artworks and entertained and invigorated adults and children, Russian and American, through traditional games, pancakes and other traditional foods, a ritualistic "Down with Winter" parade around the neighborhood as the sunset, and performances by Artel accompanied by a guest pianist from the USC graduate program playing selections from Prokoviev's sonatas. A few local Russian musicians performed songs in between the Artel etudes and the evening ended with local indie musicians performing a set of original music. The evening rain precluded the community from the burning of Madame Maslenitsa but the day's celebrations enabled all to share in the creation of a traditional Russian carnival with a non-conventional approach.

Gogol Mogol Tea Room IV was held at Artworks Theater on August 22, 2007 by ARTEL. Etudes from Artel's summer investigations as well as the first experiments in reintegrating Bryan's summer Polish work with Artel culminated in an outrageous Gogol Mogol audience cooking show. We expanded our Gogol Mogol Tea Room to highlight a local Not-for-Profit, CAST, as well as local comedy team, Ten West.

...that was f...ng amazing, you guys have something insanely special.
- B Canning, LA musician

What is a Gogol-Mogol? An egg-based concoction known as Gogol-Mogol, comes in numerous forms with all manner of ingredients. Common to most recipes is egg yolks whipped stiff with sugar; other options include egg white, milk, vanilla, nutmeg, honey, citrus rind, rum or cognac, short crust, berries, fruits and other assorted toppings. Said to help smooth and soothe a singer’s sore throat, a Gogol-Mogol could be just what the doctor ordered on a cold winter’s day.

Artist Exchanges

To stimulate the growth of our theatre practices and those of fellow Los Angeles performers, Artel periodically invites Master Artists to speak, teach and/or work with us in closed or open sessions depending on the time and scope allowed for our meetings. Members of Artel have also traveled to various Theaters and Institutions to learn from and establish relations with International artists.

Stephen Wangh Worksession was Artel’s opportunity to host Master Teacher Stephen Wangh in August 2006. Mr. Wangh conducted the two day work session with Artel and a guest from Austria. Artel’s understanding of Grotowski’s principles and the collective's standards for practice increased. Mr. Wangh is a mentor of Bryan's and author of An Acrobat of the Heart. In July 2008 Artel will co-produce Mr. Wangh’s Teachers Practicum in the Catskill mountains of New York.

Odin Week was Artel members Bryan Brown and Olya Petrakova’s opportunity to work with Odin Teatret in Holstebro, Denmark. The workshops were conducted by members of this world renowned theater company from September 20th through October 1st of 2006. Practical inspiration was gathered for individual and ensemble development as well as an education in administrative and community outreach. National and international contacts were made and there was also Danish press coverage on Bryan, Olya and their work with Artel.

Slava Polunin Talk was a two hour lecture and subsequent Q and A given by Russian clown Slava Polunin of the world famous Slava’s Snowshow on January 4th, 2007, during his tour to Los Angeles. Artel hosted this meeting at our creative home and opened it to all Angelenos interested. Olya Petrakova of Artel translated Slava Polunin’s words of wisdom, artistic clarity and play. This allowed Artel to meet with and connect to a world renowned Russian artist and community who shared a love and fascination with his work.

Double Edge Visit was on January 24, 2007 at the Double Edge Theater Company’s work farm in Ashfield, MA. Olya and Bryan of Artel spent a full day connecting with an East Coast company whose mission has many parallels with that of Artel's, paving the way for future collaboration. This was also an opportunity to research organizational and educational development through Double Edge’s library and archive.

Butoh Dance Intensive was conducted by Shinichi Iova-Koga of InkBoat and involved all Artel members from March 21 through 27, 2007 each day for 5 hours. This opportunity allowed Artel to challenge ourselves physically and cerebrally through a new form. Artel's [via]Corpora also presented a public workshop by Shinichi, Disciplines for the Hidden Body: Imagery, Form and Improvisation on Saturday, March 24, 10-3 PM. This allowed Artel to train and meet with other Los Angeles based physical theater artists.

Atelier and Piesn Kozla, Artel member Bryan Brown traveled to Poland from June 18th through July 30th 2007 to participate in the Atelier, Source Techniques - Techniques of Sources, at the Grotowski Institute as well as a July workshop with Piesn Kozla (Song of Goat). Atelier hosted only 17 people from around the world. Bryan’s involvement with these world renowned companies and trainings forged International relationships and opened possibilities for future collaborations with Artel. This was important in the educational development of all of Artel as Bryan expands our knowledge by leading and sharing with the group the research and discoveries from Atelier and Piesn Kozla.

Commedia class with master teacher John Achorn, one of the first teachers at International Dell’Arte school. Begun on January 2, 2007 (and on hiatus since October 2007) Commedia remains an activity that provides Artel and contemporary Los Angeles comedy team Ten West with an insight and exploration into the old traditions of Commedia and mask work. This class opened its doors to several invited artists on June 26th until its hiatus, expanding the working community of Artel.

ReOrientation with Shinichi was Artel's chance to host Shinichi Iova-Koga for three more days while he was presenting at RedCat. 5 hour daily work allowed us to explore in more depth the unique Butoh based devising style of Mr. Iova-Koga.

Teatr ZAR/Matej Matjeka Workshop was an opportunity to meet and work with the resident company of the Grotowksi Institute at our studio on Nov 24th, 2007. The workshop was 5 hours of physical impulse expression and rhythmic/acrobatic ensemble development. This began five days of meetings and sharings with Teatr Zar, deepened Artel's individual and ensemble work, and created relations for future collaborations. see the Open Doors project.

Community Building

Sometimes there are outreach programs that Artel is invited to participate in (or occasionally generates ourself from necessity) that do not fit into our preexisting formulations of community development. Often these are the greatest ways for us to challenge our notions of theater and our capabilities and capacities as an organization.

Central Hollywood Neighborhood Council Festival, July 14, 2007 in Hollywood. This festival was an opportunity for adults and children alike to come together and celebrate their community. Artel was responsible for a carnival aspect: games and traditional folk songs and dances with children and adults, outrageous atmosphere with costume and masks, etc.

CalArts All School Conference, October 12, 2007, was an invitation by Dean Erik Ehn to speak as panelists to the entire Theater Department of CalArts on community building and theater development. This introduced us to a wider student community and began a discussion of possible future collaboration and relations at CalArts.

The First Los Angeles Physical Theater Arts Festival, Nov 23 - Dec 23, 2007, was presented, produced and hosted by Artel's [via]Corpora at our home theater ArtWorks. Two alternate evenings of local physical theater expanded our community of artists and audiences, introduced new perspectives on theater to the Los Angeles community, and established some important press contacts (most notably with the LA Times). This Festival laid the foundation for future festivals and established Artel and [via]Corpora as a presenting organization.

Network of Ensemble Theaters, a rapidly growing national ensemble theater network of which Artel is a member. Through our affiliation with NET Artel anticipates many exchanges with US companies for touring and worksession purposes. www.net.com

Thanks so much for last night. LOVED THE SHOW!!!!!!! ARTEL must NEVER, I repeat, NEVER, leave L.A.!!!!!
- Frankie Colmane, LA writer/reviewer