Final audition P.A.R.T.S. May 7 -12 2013 - Program

180 candidates are participating to the Final audition for the school year 2013-14. They have all been chosen at one of the 31 pre-selections (see separate article). While participation to a pre-selection costs 10 euro, the Final audition is free of charge. The goal of the Final audition is to offer all participants a solid and exciting learning experience, totally in line with the ambitions of the school. Regardless a candidate is (not) chosen as a student, the Final audition aims to be an event they will not slightly forget.

The Final audition opens with a welcome to all, and a presentation of teachers, jury members, staff and audition team, on Tuesday May 7, 9:30 am.

For the first round the 180 participants will be divided in six groups of 30 persons. Each group will follow the same programme from Tuesday May 7 until Friday May 10.
The dance and theatre classes will be taught by PARTS faculty or by regular teachers in PARTS.Francesca Caroti, who has worked for 14 years with William Forsythe in Ballet Frankfurt and The Forsythe Company, will teach a ballet class, with Aldo Martinig on the piano.
Dominique Duszynski, who was a member of Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal from 1983 to 1992, teaches one of the three contemporary technique classes. Dominique is a core group teacher of PARTS since its opening in 1995.
A second contemporary technique class is taught by Prue Lang, former dancer of the Ballet Frankfurt from 1999, who is now working as an independent choreographer. In the next school year Prue will teach for the first time Improvisation Technologies in PARTS.
Samuel Wentz will teach the third contemporary technique class. He joined the Trisha Brown Company in 2009. The audition classes are his first classes for PARTS, but will definitely not be the last ones.
An improvisation session will be conducted by faculty member David Zambrano. David is a monumental figure in the international dance community, and his teaching, performing and choreographing have influenced many dancers.

During the first round all the participants will have three sessions of 90 minutes each on learning phrase material of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Drumming (1998). The sessions are conducted by three Rosas dancers, who all have studied in PARTS in the 1990’s: Marta Coronado (joined Rosas in 1998 and is dancing Drumming until present), Clinton Stringer (2000-2009 with Rosas) and Taka Shamoto (1997-2007 with Rosas, later also Needcompany and Fieldworks).

The repertoire sessions are concluded by dancing the phrase material for Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and the jury.

Besides the dance classes there are three other tasks to be fulfilled:

- all participants present a solo of one minute. No importance whether it is a solo choreographed on them, or a personal creation;

- a theatre session is organised in small groups. The class is conducted by faculty member Tiago Rodrigues, who’s company Mundo Perfeito is performing these days Rodrigues’ Três dedos abaixo do joelho in the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, and teacher Carly Wijs, who has a long standing career as an actress, working with Guy Cassiers, Jan Lauwers, Josse De Pauw, Wim Vandekeybus, and others;

- a writing session, where all candidates are asked to personally comment in writing a text of general cultural, social or political interest.

By Friday afternoon the jury will make a first selection. The jury of the first round is composed of Anne-Linn Akselsen, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (director), Christine De Smedt, Libby Farr, Femke Gyselinck, Salva Sanchis, Gabriël Schenker, Jakub Truszkowski and Theo Van Rompay (president of the jury).

For the second round the remaining candidates are divided over four groups. All four groups have a long working session of four hours, starting late afternoon on Friday, May 10. The goal is to create a new one minute solo. Before the session starts everyone gets a personalised task. Each group will be coached by Anne-Linn Akselsen, Christine De Smedt, Salva Sanchis or Jakub Truszkowski. They will help the dancers to articulate their solo. All solos will be danced for the jury on Sunday May 12, as the last part of the Final audition.

Further there will be a new theatre session during the second round. Tiago Rodrigues will give short and sharp tasks, to be performed in front of the full jury. While in the first round the participants had to present a theatre text, which they had to learn by heart in the week before the Final audition, in the second round the focus is more on instant decision making and playing together.

Two technique classes complete the second round.
Faculty member Libby Farr teaches a ballet class. Libby has a solid teachers experience since many years, besides PARTS working regularly in Die Etage (Berlin), S.E.A.D. (Salzburg), and ImpulsTanz (Vienna), and for the dance companies of Pina Bausch, Angelin Preljocaj, Wim Vandekeybus, and others.
Faculty member David Hernandez teaches the final contemporary class. David worked frequently as choreographer, dancer, composer, pedagogue and dramaturge for his own company Edward and/or with Meg Stuart, Christine De Smedt, Brice Leroux, Rebecca Murgi, Anouk Van Dijk, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, and others. David has been a core professor at PARTS since 1995, teaching technique, composition and improvisation, rhythm and dance and repertory projects.

In between the classes and rehearsals all the groups will have collective talks, moderated by the choreographers (and former PARTS students) Ula Sickle and Andros Zins-Browne.

Information sessions about PARTS and the life at school, with Steven De Belder and Eva Vanhole, are as well organized during the weekend.

Last but not least: on Saturday and Sunday the PARTS cooking team will serve a typical macrobiotic food meal to all participants.

The Final audition ends on Sunday May 12, 7 pm.
The final jury will be composed of Anne-Linn Akselsen, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (director), Christine De Smedt, Salva Sanchis, Jakub Truszkowski, and Theo Van Rompay (president of the jury).
They will select 50 students.

The results are communicated to the participants on Wednesday, May 15.

All participants can have an individual feedback on the Final audition, via a private phone conversation with a jury member, between May 20 and June 7, 2013.

(May 6, 2013)

April 2013: PARTS goes back to the seventies

 In April, the PARTS students dive again into the New York dance scene, this time through two repertoire and reconstruction projects that go back to the Seventies.

A group of 12 students works on ‘Solo Olos’ by Trisha Brown, from 1975. The British dance historian Ramsay Burt gave a one-week seminar on the art historical context of Brown’s work in the 60s and 70s. Then Diane Madden comes to work on ‘Solo Olos’ with the dancers. The Trisha Brown repertoire is a regular part of the curriculum of the 3rd year, but it is only the second time we work with a different piece than the evergreen ‘Set and Reset’.

Diane Madden has been involved with the Trisha Brown Company since 1980, as dancer, rehearsal director and artistic assistant. She has been a guest teacher at PARTS several times. (see here for an extended bio of Diane Madden and Ramsay Burt).
Trisha Brown on Solo Olos: “’Solo Olos’ is a three phrase dance which goes forwards and backwards. A fifth dancer in the audience begins to call out to the individual dancers by name and with an instruction as to whether to reverse or to branch or go into another phrase according to whatever choreographic diagram the caller has in mind. The dancers are in this kind of suspended situation where they must be ready to go forwards or backwards or sideways at a given moment. The caller/choreographer is putting that phrase into juxtaposition with itself and pulling the dancers in and out of duets and trios and combinations. Her calls are not known to us before it happens. It is just the whole choreographic device gambit put on display.”
www.trishabrowncompany.org

14 other students are involved in a workshop on ‘Continuous Project Altered Daily, a project by Yvonne Rainer from 1970. The project is directed by Christophe Wavelet and Xavier Le Roy, and it is organised in collaboration with the Brussels art school ERG. 10 young visual artists studying at ERG are also implied in the project. The workshop also has a number of remarkable guest lecturers, such as Dirk Snauwaert (Wiels), Babette Mangolte (film maker from New York), Philippe-Alain Michaux (curator at Centre Pompidou), Raphael Pirenne (art historian), Berno Odo Polzer (dramaturge and curator), Paul Sztulman (art historian), Camille Pageard (art historian ) and Catherine David (curator).
Sally Banes on CPAD: “CP – AD took its name from a sculptural work of Robert Morris in which the daily alteration of the work – an arrangement of earth and metal in a garage – was put on view (after being altered) for spectators. In CP-AD, Rainer’s concern was to make an ongoing performance that would change during and between performances, using various aspects of the working process of dance-making: learning, rehearsing, marking, working out and running through material; and dancing the material in a finished performance style. (from ‘Terpsichore in sneakers. Post-modern dance’)
Christophe Wavelet and Xavier Le Roy have been working on CPAD since 1996, first as members of the Quatuor Albrecht Knust. They both have been regular guest teachers at PARTS. See extended bios for Christophe Wavelet ad Xavier Le Roy.

The results of the Yvonne Rainer workshop will be presented to the public during three informal showings at the Kaaitheaterstudios in Brussels, on Thursday May 2 (20.30), Friday May 3 (18.00) and Saturday May 4 (18.00).
Entrance is free but reservation is required, through tickets@kaaitheater.be or 02 201 59 59
www.erg.be
www.xavierleroy.com

The foreign adventure of the P.A.R.T.S. students

In a few days, the students will return to Brussels, after a two months' stay in Senegal and America. They have had an inspiring, challenging and enriching time, which you can read all about on their blog www.partsacrosscontinents.blogspot.be.
The program they followed there was just as variated and rich as their adventures. You can find an overview of it underneath.

Program students in New York and Vermont 

Week 1 (7-11 January)
Morning: class Gwen Welliver at Eden's Expressway
Afternoon: rehearsal/NY visit/Performance program with John Jasperse, Jenn Joy, Miguel Gutierrez, Walter Dundervill, Luciana Achugar, Anna Sperber
Saturday: performance program with John Jasperse
Sunday: book launch by André Lepecki at MOMA

Week 2 (14-18 January)
Morning: Trisha Brown class & repertory with Elena Demyanenko at Red Bean Studio
Afternoon: Trisha Brown rehearsals at BAM with Diane Madden, Carolyn Lucas and TBDC dancers

Week 3 (21-25 January)
Morning: Trisha Brown class & repertoire with Mariah Maloney at Gibney Dance Center
Afternoon: Trisha Brown workshop composition and improvisation with Lisa Kraus at Gibney Dance Center

Week 4 (28 January - 1 February)
Morning: classes at Movement Research with Janet Panetta and Barbara Mahler
Afternoon: workshop DD Dorvillier at PS1/MOMA
extra on Tusday: dress rehearsal of Trisha Brown Company at BAM
extra on Thursday: seminar with RoseLee Goldberg at Performa office
Saturday: seminar with André Lepecki

Week 4 (4-8 February)
Morning: classes at Movement Research (Janet Panetta, Barbara Mahler)
Afternoon: workshop DD Dorvillier at PS1/MOMA
Sunday: Departure to Vermont

Week 5 (11-15 February):
Workshop Steve Paxton & Lisa Nelson in their studio at Mad Brook Farm, East Charleston, VT
Saturday: visit to the Bread and Puppet Theater

Week 6 (18-22 February):
Workshop Steve Paxton & Lisa Nelson
Friday: Open Studio
Saturday: return to New York
Sunday: return to Brussels

Program students in Senegal

Week 1
Dec. 29: departure, with stopover and visit to Lisbon
Dec. 30 – Jan 1: getting to know the place and the environment, visits to the village...
Jan 2: visit to Dakar and the Scéno Urbaines project
Jan 3-4: full day of dance classes with Germaine Acogny (technique Germaine Acogny), Ramatoulaye Sarr (Sabar traditional Senegalese dance) and Bertrand Saky Tchébé (traditional dance form Ivory Coast)
Jan 5: excursion

Week 2
Jan 7-11: full day of dance classes with Germaine Acogny, Ramatoulye Sarr, Patrick Acogny (contemporary African dance) and Martin Kilvady (Western contemporary dance)
Jan 12: seminar with Abdou Khadre Lo on politics and economy in Senegal, visit and participation to the Scéno Urbaines project in Dakar

Week 3
Jan 14-18
Mornings: dance classes with Patrick Acogny and Martin Kilvady
Afternoons: creative projects set up by the students, coached by Martin Kilvady, Benjamin Vandewalle, Patrick Acogny and Longa Fo.
Jan 19 excursion

Week 4
Jan 21-25
Mornings: dance class with Martin Kilvady
Afternoons: creative projects
Jan 26: seminar on the history of African dance by Longa Fo

Week 5
Jan 28 – Feb 1
Mornings: dance classes with Martin Kilvady and Patrick Acogny
Afternoons: creative projects, concluded by a showing on Friday
Feb. 2: excursion

Week 6
Feb. 4-8
Mornings: dance classes with Francesco Scavetta (contemporary)
Afternoons: second series of creative projects set up by the students, coached by Francesco Scavetta, Patrick Acogny and Longa Fo.
Feb. 9: seminar on contemporary visual art in Africa by Koyo Kouoh

Week 7
Feb. 11-15
Mornings: dance classes with Francesco Scavetta and Patrick Acogny
Afternoons: creative projects
Feb. 16: seminar on agriculture in Senegal at the ngo Îles de paix in Dakar, plus excursion

Week 8
Feb. 18-22
Mornings: dance classes with Francesco Scavetta, Patrick Acogny and Bertrand Saky Tchébé
Afternoons: creative projects, concluded by a public presentation
Feb. 23: return to Brussels

Open Fridays for candidate students – November 2012, March – April – May 2013

Throughout the academic year, P.A.R.T.S. will open its doors on certain Fridays for young dancers interested in participating in the auditions. On such days, the school shows its daily routine: one can see students and teachers working together in specific courses, and get information about the school and the auditions. You will be able to be present during the classes, but it is not possible to actively participate in the courses.

The amount of participants is limited, so make sure to register in advance! 

An Open Friday starts, in the morning, with a short introduction. Until 12.50 you will be able to attend the technical classes (ballet and/or contemporary dance) of the Research Cycle. More details on timing and location will follow once you subscribed for the Open Friday of your choice.

It will, occasionally, also be possible to partly witness the afternoon workshops, but that will only shortly in advance be communicated to the people who registered for that day.

Attention: please make sure to be present on time! For practical reasons, it is not possible to admit people that arrive late.

You can send an e-mail to eva@parts.be to enroll. Do not forget to mention the date of your preference!

The Open Fridays will take place on the following days, with the following classes:

16 November: Studio Practice with Martin Kilvady

23 November: Studio Practice with Martin Kilvady – Classical with Libby Farr

15 March: Studio Practice with Rasmus Ölme - fully booked

22 March: Studio Practice with Rasmus Ölme - fully booked

12 April: Studio Practice with Salva Sanchis - fully booked

19 April: Studio Practice with Salva Sanchis

26 April: Studio Practice with Salva Sanchis

3 May: Studio Practice with Salva Sanchis

Performing Arts Training

Definition

With the three-year program Performing Arts Training PARTS offers an intensive education in contemporary dance.  The art of dance is seen as a collective
performing art. The individual education of the dance artist takes place in dialogue with the collective of students and with an audience. As performing arts, both music and theatre are the necessary references through which the relevance of dance can be completely realised. The art of dance develops in the world of today, with the knowledge of the past and a view on the future, which is why theoretical education is an important part of the training program.

 At the end of the three-year trajectory, there will be dancers and choreographers who can combine a very solid technical and physical capacity with the force of imagination and a personal and autonomous artistic voice. A student who graduates from the Performing Arts Training is ready to take his/her place in the labour market. But s/he also has the necessary theoretical and dance-technical capacities to continue with a research-based specialisation in dance.

Number of years, frequency, student population

The trajectory of the Training Cycle is extended from two to three years and is re-baptised as Performing Arts Training. This responds to a recommendation of the review committee (“The commission proposes to consider exploring whether the program can be spread over two cycles of respectively three and two (or one) years”, report visitation commission PARTS 2010, p 34 (p. 48 in the original Dutch version)

The trajectory will start only every three years. In any given year either only the first year Training, the second year Training or the third year Training will be active, after which the three-year cycle will be restarted.

Each school year starts beginning of September and is concluded by the end of June.

The three-year Training cycle will start with 50 students. The target group are students aged 18 to 22 at the start of the program. A specific prior dance education is not required but it will be a strong advantage to have one, especially in the perspective of the large number of candidates.

Structure of the three years

Each year of the program has a specific focus,respectively Tools (1^eyear ), Process (2^nd year) and Performance (3^rd year).

Tools : in the first year, the technical foundations for a dance practice are developed. A regular morning block  starts with an hour of yoga, followed by technical classes in ballet and contemporary dance. Basic courses in improvisation, composition, repertoire
study, singing, rhythm and theatre are essential building blocks. General theory and art theory offer perspective and context.

Process : the second year adds an investigative attitude to the programme. By the end of the year, the student becomes more conscious of his/her own relation to the field of performance possibilities. Composition tasks, repertoire study,theatre a.o. make the dancer aware of and trust his/her facilities to steer the own processes.

Performance : the third year takes the step towards  the concrete application of the accumulated knowledge and research. By the end of the Performing Arts Training, the young artists will have reached a point where they can engage in professional productions with their own personal voice and can define research strategies which may be realised in a new phase of education.

Composition of the training programme

Ballet training: the current state of dance can only be fully
understood from its historical development. For the art of Western dance the historical frame of reference is ballet. Its strong structural coherence is of strong interest to us. It offers a good basis and building blocks for an integrated structural approach of dance training.

Contemporarydance techniques: the large volume of contemporary dance technique is built around the postmodern release technique,which is an important but little systematised pillar of both American and European postmodern dance. This broad term  ‘release based ‘ techniques refers to training approaches that investigate movement efficiency, structural and anatomical function in movement and the use of the bodies natural weight in fall and rebound to support and initate moving through space.   The purpose of these physical technologies is to increase the range of movement possibilities, bring greater clarity in line and form, and initiate a more personal movement vocabulary and expressivity.   Corresponding techniques
taught in the Training  program combine elements from martial arts training, developing a strong physical and energetic center from which the movement material can freely travel  sequentially through the rest of the body.  Many of the classes include physical explorations and improvisation as a part of the technical training  and deepen the experience  of the individual’s physical movement possibilities.  Others continue to investigate phrase material. Due to the limited systematisation of the release technique, the specific choice of teachers gains strongly in importance. The teachers offer a diversity of approaches. The school seeks to establish an organic balance between diversity and continuity.

Improvisation: the study of improvisation starts with the Improvisation Technologies, developed by William Forsythe. This method is spatially and conceptually oriented. Later on, a more organic, intuitive and impulsive method to create movement patterns is offered, as developed by David Zambrano. In other
workshops, including Contact Improvisation, students are confronted with dancing together, using touch and contact between two or more bodies.

Composition: the composition workshops start from the material developed by the student. First there is the establishment of a ‘vocabulary’, then the introduction of and experimentation with techniques to make variations in time and space with this basic material. Students investigate how the material that has been generated can be structured with techniques of construction and deconstruction. In a later phase, the focus is on the relation between dance and music.

The compositional knowledge can be fully applied in the creation of a solo and a duet.

In the final phase of the Training programme choreographer Jonathan Burrows will lead the composition workshop as an intensive self-research, which finds its way into the many personal works by the students.

Repertoire: the study of repertoire is a confrontation with an artistic vocabulary of a specific artist. PARTS makes maximal use of the opportunities to study the body of work of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. Next to this, also Trisha Brown’s repertory will be offered to each generation of PARTS students. Occasionally, also the work of Pina Bausch and William Forsythe and of a younger generation of choreographers can be included in the programme. It
is a challenge for the students to get involved with and express themselves in a strong, highly developed and appealing vocabulary.

Guest choreographers: through workshops with guest choreographers,the program touches a wide field of approaches, in which the technique, composition and dramaturgy of the invited artist are confronted with the personal position of the students.

Bodystudies: the daily yoga class is an important complement to the dance training. PARTS offers Hatha yoga. Together with workshops shiatsu and the anatomy classes this field offers an approach toward the body and mind that refers both to the theoretical and practical western approach and to the
holistic Eastern philosophies and traditions. The goal is to strengthen the physical and mental capacities and stamina of the dancers.

Music: each piece of music sets different challenges to the choreographer. Because dance and music often use similar structural mechanism, the study of music is a fundamental tool to activate the analytical thinking. The active practice of music is developed through singing and rhythm classes.

Theatre: in the theatre workshops the students learn to present the totality of their personality to the audience, without fear. Working with language, performing roles and the play with ‘the lie’ has a liberating effect. It enlarges the focus of their performing tools.

Theory: if the student wants to be a professionally active artist, s/he now needs to be much more than only the performer of somebody else’s ideas. Thinking must be trained as much as the body. The theory classes follow two main lines: on the one hand
‘a confrontation with the arts’, on the other ‘a history of thinking’. Our approach does not aim for a compendium of philosophy or sociology, and neither a chronological overview of theatre or visual art. The goal is to have the students taste what ‘theory’ can be, to offer them methods, perspectives, materials with which they can go to work themselves in reading and reflection.

Personal work: PARTS offers maximum space and guidance to investigate and develop one’s creative identity. This approach is integral to many classes and workshops, and becomes evident in the opportunities for individual coaching and the presentation of personal work to an audience. A
first cornerstone is the task to create a solo and a duet. In a second phase personal work is collective research work in small groups, autonomously defined by the students themselves. A mentor follows and comments the work process, but does not steer it.

Rehearsals and performances: The transition from a learning process to a public presentation is important. PARTS organises many performance moments, for small and large audiences, in the educational and the professional contexts, in Belgium and abroad.

Formats of work

Teaching hours: the vast majority of the regular study time is spent in contact hours. In the 1^st year, the contact hours amount to approx 95% of the study time; in the 2^nd year approx. 90%, in the 3^rd year approx. 75%. The classes are taught to groups between min. 10 and max. 25 students.

Frequency: The morning classes are taught on a daily basis (yoga, technique classes). The afternoon programme is reserved for (dance) workshops, theory and music analysis. These are offered in concentrated blocks of one to five weeks. Only a few classes are offered with a weekly rhythm, in the morning or afternoon: singing, rhythm and anatomy.

Trajectories:  Because all classes and workshops are offered to several groups (between two and five groups), a course can have different teachers and also different content formats. This can lead to individually adapted study tracks.

Students cannot freely choose between different courses or teachers. The navigation between the different possibilities occurs under the supervision of the pedagogical coordinator, who takes into account the individual desires of the students and balances this with their different level of prior education.

Individual tasks: next to the volume of contact hours each student has to fulfil a large amount of personal tasks over the course of three years. These are part of the individual study track.

Portfolio: upon graduation, each student will have constructed a personal portfolio, which will consist of at least the following: a solo created with full artistic autonomy, a duet guided by mentors (where either the solo or the duet are accompanied by live music), the public performance of a repertoire work by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, participation in a creation by a guest choreographer, the participation in a collective creation with several other students.

Study load

Study load: the total amount of study time is approx. 1150 hours per year. Most of these are contact hours . There is also a limited
volume of facultative hours. If one adds up the time spent on tasks in the evenings and weekends, the total study load is approx 1600 hours per year.

Teachers and guidance

Teachers:
PARTS has no teachers with a permanent contract. The vast majority of teachers work as freelancers. They are from Belgium and mainly from abroad. They are not necessarily holders of a pedagogical diploma, but they can offer a rich experience as artists.

Since 1995 PARTS composes its team of teachers like a curator makes an exhibition, film festival or theatre season: looking for information which is relevant to the moment, with knowledge of the past and an eye for expected developments in the arts.

Based on 17 years of experience PARTS will start from 2013 onwards with a Faculty, i.e. a group of teachers who take responsibility during three years for the training of one specific generation. For instance, from September 2013: Generation XI will be for three years supervised by Faculty 2013-2016. Next to the Faculty there will be still place for many guest teachers, just as we have done during previous years.

The Faculty 2013-2016 will be announced by January 2013, together with the details of the 1^st year program of the renewed Training cycle.

Guidance of students: the varied presence of a large amount of very diverse teachers puts a lot of responsibility on the side of the institution to guarantee the direction, cohesion and performance of the program. A pedagogical co-ordinator follows all the students on a daily basis, through the witnessing of classes, dialogue with teachers and students, and reporting to the evaluation commission.

Personal
mentors:  for all the creative work (creation of solo, duet, collective personal work) the student can choose a mentor, who can be linked to the school or be external to it. Ideally the mentor is an artist who can offer contextualisation and push the student further in his/her investigation.

(July
2012)

 Book publication: P.A.R.TS. - Documenting ten years of contemporary dance education