Performance Workshop with Tim Miller
Sun, Nov 15, 12–3 pm
Mon–Thu, Nov 16–19, 6–9 pm
Sat, Nov 21, 12–3pm
$150 regular / $125 YBCA Member
Purchase the Sun, Nov 15 workshop date to receive admission to the entire week-long workshop. You will then receive workshop instructions by email.
The goal of this workshop is to share a variety of strategies to create original performances from the tremendous energies and stories that are present in our lives. Using personal memories and myths as a jumping off point, participants will see where a deep sense of personal history creates performances that leap out from the body onto the stage or the page. Participants are asked to bring their hearts and brains, hopes and fears. The workshop will address key questions of queer identity and will culminate in a public Bay Area premiere performance at YBCA.
Workshop Information:
Where does the workshop take place? What is the time commitment?
The workshop will take place in YBCA’s Forum. The workshop will consist of 7 three-hour sessions in YBCA’s Forum, where participants will work closely with Tim Miller developing a performance piece to be premiered on Sunday, November 22.
The workshop sessions will take place on the following dates and times:
Sun, Nov 15, 12–3 pm
Mon–Thu, Nov 16–19, 6–9 pm
Sat, Nov 21, 12–3pm
Who can participate in the workshop?
The workshop is open to all individuals willing to delve into personal and political themes in the creation of the culminating performance. Please note that queer themes will be emphasized.
Is performance experience necessary?
Experience is welcome but by no means necessary.
How do I enroll in the workshop?
Enrollment in the week-long workshop will be guaranteed by purchasing a ticket to the Sun, Nov 15 workshop event. Following your purchasing of the ticket, you will receive a confirmation e-mail with details around the whole scope of the workshop.
To whom should I direct any further questions I have?
E-mail Performing Arts Assistant, Macklin Kowal at mkowal@ybca.org.
RELATED EVENTS
Sun Nov 22, 2009: Tim Miller Workshop Performance
$15 Regular / $10 Member/Student/Teacher/Senior
A
singular opportunity to experience the collective work of local artists
working intensively with Tim Miller during his residency at YBCA.
Performance to be followed by a community conversation with the
artists.
Fri–Sat, Nov 20–21, 2009: Tim
Miller: Lay of the Land • $25 Regular / $20 Member/Student/Teacher/Senior
Tim Miller
Tim Miller is an internationally acclaimed performance artist. Miller's creative work as a performer and writer explores the artistic, spiritual and political topography of his identity as a gay man. Hailed for his humor and passion, Miller has tackled this challenge in such pieces as Postwar (1982), Cost of Living (1983), Democracy in America (1984), Buddy Systems (1985), Some Golden States (1987), Stretch Marks (1989), Sex/Love/Stories (1991), My Queer Body (1992), Naked Breath (1994), Fruit Cocktail (1996), Shirts & Skin (1997), Glory Box (1999), Us (2003) and 1001 Beds (2006). Miller's performances have been presented all over North America, Australia, and Europe in such prestigious venues as Yale Repertory Theatre, the Institute of Contemporary Art (London), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He is the author of the books Shirts & Skin, Body Blows and 1001 Beds, which won the 2007 Lambda Literary Award for best book in Drama–Theatre. His solo theater works have been published in the play collections O Solo Homo and Sharing the Delirium. Miller’s newest book 1001 Beds, an anthology of his performances, essays and journals, was published by University of Wisconsin Press in 2006. Miller has taught performance at UCLA, NYU, the School of Theology at Claremont and at universities all over the US. He is a co-founder of two of the most influential performance spaces in the United States: Performance Space 122 on Manhattan's Lower East Side and Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, CA.
Miller has received numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1990, Miller was awarded a NEA Solo Performer Fellowship, which was overturned under political pressure from the Bush White House because of the gay themes of Miller's work. Miller and three other artists, the so-called "NEA 4", successfully sued the federal government with the help of the ACLU for violation of their First Amendment rights and won a settlement where the government paid them the amount of the defunded grants and all court costs. Though the Supreme Court of the United States decided in 1998 to overturn part of Miller's case and determined that "standards of decency" are constitutional criterion for federal funding of the arts, Miller vows "to continue fighting for freedom of expression for fierce diverse voices."
Since 1999, Miller has focused his creative and political work on marriage equality and addressing the injustices facing lesbian and gay couples in America. Glory Box and US are funny, sexy, and politically charged explorations of same-sex marriage and the struggle for immigration rights for lesbian and gay bi-national couples. They recount the trials Miller has been forced to undergo in trying to keep his Australian partner in the United States. Says Miller, "I want the pieces to conjure for the audience a site for the placing of memories, hopes, and dreams of gay people's extraordinary potential for love." After a nine-year stint in New York City, in 1987 Miller returned home to Los Angeles, California where he was born and raised. He currently lives there with his partner, Alistair, in Venice Beach.