Newsletter
Association for Anthroposophic Speech Arts in North America
|
Association for Anthroposophic Speech Arts in North America
|
|
|
Creative Speech North America Association for Anthroposophic Speech Arts in North America Newsletter Winter 2005/2006
We spent parts of each day practicing and parts in discussion, including a meeting of the Association for Creative Speech North America.
Our working together was an exercise. Not surprisingly, it called on a combination of artistic and social skills. We had been through a difficult process in selecting the text, and that cut short the preparation time for some of us, so there were varying degrees of familiarity with the poem as we started to work on it. Add to that the urgency of knowing we were scheduled to stand up and perform it somehow a few days later, and a certain rush to form was understandable. On the other hand, there was also the strong need to break up form, play, and do something fresh that would catch the ear of the listener directly.
In the end we presented the text in a way that divided it between individual voices, groups of voices and all the voices together, with the changes happening rapidly and unpredictably. In places we used a cascade effect (overlapping repetition by several voices of a sound or word), an echo effect (repetition by a different voice of a word or phrase), a carpet effect (a pulsing beat of certain selected words under the text), and a background of selected sounds accompanying the text. Ask someone who was there for impressions. One thing did happen: coming from different starting places, we managed to hold on together long enough to breathe life into this one poem.
It is difficult to report on the content of our conversations, and certainly impossible to give a word for word account. I have chosen a stream-of-consciousness approach, recalling whatever strands of conversation I can. They reflect my experience, not anyone else’s, so please bear with me.
The theme was adult education, and although that would seem to define some boundaries in what we discussed, in fact we moved swiftly from one topic to another, and each idea, problem or question we touched on seemed to invite a potentially deeper exploration. Alas, for that we would have needed much more time.
...
experience described: so few people grasp the significance of being
users of the word ... the continuing and urgent challenge of conveying this
significance to our students ... ... ideas: when we nurture or educate another person (as per Steiner’s presentation of the pedagogical law in the curative course), the part of us (body) we are working out of affects the next-down of the other person ... for example, a mother’s etheric body influences the physical body of a young child, an adult’s astral influences the developing etheric of the growing child, a teacher’s ego influences the astral body of the teenager ... but what do we do when, lacking as yet a spirit self, we attempt to educate our own ego, or come face to face with the ego of the adult student? ... We can only include those spiritual beings in our work who have developed a spirit self ...
... Great poets are conduits for such beings, and so it becomes clear how important it is to choose to work with poetry that can measure up to this purpose ... the genius of language — where and how to comprehend or experience it ...
... idea: the difficult and mysterious part of this is that when we search for traces of this genius we are receiving a sense impression of something that is supersensible ...
... experience described: Youth Speaks in San Francisco ... the sense that people are really talking to each other this way ... speaking and also listening ... what does this tell us about our social future? ...
... observations: the range of abilities that people carry in them today ... recognition of each other, and the fact that recognition by another can be an igniting point ...
... questions: change and evolution ... can we talk about creative speech evolving since its beginning? ... do we have (already) an 'old style'? ... when we hear someone speaking, what is it that convinces us that this is it? ...when is the thing alive? ... when is it in movement? ... where is the past, where the future? ...
... reflections on our own practice together ... chaos and form ... is there a danger to rush into form too soon? ... certainly predictability is not good ... how can we create chaos? Dionysus and Apollo ... holiness is not necessary ... humor brings joy ... we need to be purposeful without a predictable outcome ... we need to be open to what people beyond our circles are exploring and doing ...
There was certainly a lot more, but I hope this gives a sense of what went on. Christa Macbeth ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Speech in North American Waldorf Schools: Financial Support
I would like to once again remind colleagues that there is a grant support for Speech and Drama in Waldorf Schools in the West. Founded in 1994, this project has as its primary goal to support the speech component integral to Waldorf education. Areas of application include artistic speech work with classes, individual teachers, the faculty meeting, parents, staff, and, if the length of the visits allow, individual students. Carried by fully trained speech artists with the requisite pedagogical background, these speech visits are intended to support the teachers’ pedagogical intentions at each stage, and thus dovetail with the rest of the curriculum.
The grant will cover 50% of first-time visits, and 35-50% of subsequent visits, depending on the number of weeks. In any case, additional work with the faculty (for example: professional development days) as well as parent/community presentations will be covered at 50%. This essentially funds a school's 'thinking time', i.e. allows the speech work to grow at a school that is still working out how to carry it financially in the long run. This means that during the time of benefiting from the grant beyond the initial speech block, the school is expected to be in a process of integrating the expense into its budget. It has been suggested that a school create two separate budget lines for this: one for classroom application and one for faculty development. Parent education could constitute a third item.
This grant continues to be applicable to Waldorf schools in North America (the project’s name, Speech and Drama in Waldorf Schools on the West, has been changed to reflect its reference specifically to N. America, i.e. ‘west of Europe’!
If you are interested in doing a speech visit at a school that needs this funding in order to have you: Requests should be directed by your contact person at the school to Helen Lubin at ph/fax (916) 966 5749; HelenLubin@aol.com. Then, once you and they have confirmed dates and honorarium, they send this to me. Following completion of your speech work, the school sends me a copy of your invoice, pays you in full, and receives the grant portion as a reimbursement.
I have been responsible for cultivating and maintaining the grant since its beginnings (i.e. grant writing, reporting, etc.). It is my hope that this can be a help -- both to speech artists with pedagogical background and to interested schools – in developing this essential component of human development and of Waldorf education.
Please feel free to contact me for further conversation about this. Helen Lubin
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Anthroposophic Therapeutic Speech Training in Great Britain
The Anthroposophic Therapeutic Speech Training in Great Britain will graduate its first class this spring in Stroud, England. Brenda Ratcliffe and Molly McIntyre have carried the course with the help and guidance of many colleagues, including Dietrich von Bonin, Karin Hege, Dr. Bettina Lohn and Donald Phillips. Donald Phillips was also instrumental in the initial efforts to establish the training.
This is a two-year, part-time training, composed of three spring sessions of three weeks and two summer sessions of six weeks. Each spring session began with a one-week conference at the Artemis School of Speech and Drama with Dietrich von Bonin. The course then moved to Stourbridge or Stroud to join our eurythmy colleagues. Medical content is shared with the Therapeutic Eurythmy course, with lectures primarily from Dr. James Dyson and Dr. Frank Mulder. There have also been lectures on Embryology (Rev. Pearl Goodwin), Child Development (Dr. Bettina Lohn), Cancer (Dr. Brode von Laue) and Curative Education (Dr. Maria van den Berg)
The course content has been quite rich. There has been extensive exploration and practical work with the sounds and exercises. Course participants did individual research and presentations on anatomy and physiology with guidance from Dr. Bettina Lohn. Brenda Ratcliffe focused work on the rhythms. Molly McIntyre, who in addition to holding a diploma in Speech Formation is a speech and language pathologist, presented workshops on stuttering, articulation, voice and sensory-motor skills. Moti Shaltiel offered a seminar on sensory integration work. Week-long workshops were given by Helen Lubin on pedagogical aspects of our work and Sophia van Dijk on psychiatric work. Karin Hege proved to be a special guide for the course and came several times to work on exercises, speech and eurythmy, and the therapeutic process. She has been a godmother for this first class. Every session also offered artistic speech work, eurythmy and tutorials.
The course carriers are working with the Medical Section on Goetheanum endorsement of the course.
The inaugural class has six members: Piotr Bujak (Poland), Lavinia Dent (England) Andrea Flack (England), Judith Gillett (England), Sylvie Roberge (Canada) and Katherine Thivierge (United States). The closing ceremony will be on Maundy Thursday in Stroud. Karin Hege will give the address.
Contact Brenda Ratcliffe (44 Witten Street, Stourbridge, West Midlands DY8 3YE, England; ratcliffedabj@beinternet.com) or Molly McIntyre (McintyreSpeech@comcast.net) for information on the next course, to begin Spring, 2007. Katherine Thivierge
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Please send your dues of $20 for calendar year 2006 to: Katherine Thivierge, P.O. Box 1547, Southgate, MI 48195. We intentionally keep the dues amount low to encourage a broad membership, and also welcome further contributions to support the work. Creative Speech North America does not itself have independent tax exempt status, but contributions for Creative Speech North America can be made through the Anthroposophical Society in America and through the Rudolf Steiner Foundation for tax purposes. Membership in Creative Speech North America is open to all who have been granted a diploma in Speech Formation recognized by the Section for the Arts of Eurythmy, Speech and Music at the Goetheanum, and the friends group is open to all who want to support the speech work.
Katherine Thivierge, Treasurer ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ As always, we are grateful to those who make our work possible through donations. A major source of funding continues to be contributions made through the Anthroposophical Society.
Income Donations $1,312 Interest Income $ 40
TOTAL INCOME $1,352
Expenses Administrative $ 39 Conference 2005 $4,070 Donation $ 50
TOTAL EXPENSES $4,159
NET INCOME $(2,807)
Our main expense was our professional development conference (see article on page 1). This included assisting members with travel, accommodation and other expenses to enable their attendance at our conference this past summer and the Anthroposophical Society conference following, at which the speech artists performed. Support was offered only as needed, but it is our situation that without financial assistance, many of our members would not be able to attend. We have the resources to cover this year’s deficit.
Katherine Thivierge, Treasurer ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Many of the speech artists in North America have for years been dissatisfied with the name of our organization. “The Speech Association” was not truly descriptive of what we are. It has been a long process to find a name which does describe us, with many suggestions and conversations.
Based upon the response of the membership, we have adopted the name: Creative Speech North America, with a sub-title, Association for Anthroposophic Speech Arts in North America.
We are still getting accustomed to our new name. It used to be so easy to simply say “The Association” when referring to our organization. Using the initials is entirely unsatisfactory, especially for those who hold the word and meaning so dear. We will find our way!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Leila Allen (Sebastopol, CA) Leila finished work as a high school drama teacher last Spring in order to focus on developing her Anthroposophic Therapeutic Speech (ATS) practice. In November of 2003 Dr. Patricia Gans, MD, Anne Cook, Therapeutic Eurythmist, and Leila opened a new, “Therapeutikum” in Sebastopol, California. It is called, “The Pleiades Center-Anthroposophic Health Care.” The Pleiades Center currently offer patients Anthroposophic Medicine, ATS, Therapeutic Eurythmy, Anthoposophic Nursing, Therapeutic Singing, Rhythmic Massage and Hauschka Facial Treatments. There has been a real desire in the community to have such a center and it has grown very quickly!
Leila is at the very beginning of her work with ATS and is continually amazed at how successful this artistic therapy is! It can be frustrating that we do not have a book of therapeutic exercises given directly by Steiner, in which we can look up an illness and find out what we “should do”. Yet, it is exciting to be challenged to be innovative, constantly searching and discovering the right exercise or poem for both the individual and the illness.
Christine Burke (Ventura, CA) Christine has moved to Ventura, California after completing her training at Artemis School of Speech and Drama in England (formerly The Speech School). Her final year comprised three major programs: The Story of Tuan Mac Cairill - An Irish folk tale marking the passage from the old gods to the new one. What is Woman? Who am I? - An exploration, celebration and affirmation through poetry of the divine feminine, women, wisdom and words - poetry by and about women. Voicing Mysteries - A selection of short, one-act plays from Thornton Wilder’s “The Angel That Troubled the Waters and Other Plays”. (Because she was the only graduate in 2005, two third-year students joined her for the drama).
Christine is looking forward to working more in the theatre and finding new ways to combine the fruits of her training with the work of Michael Chekhov. She is planning to begin teaching classes in creative speech as soon as she finds a suitable space in which to do so.
Meeting many of her new colleagues at the Anthroposophical Society’s “Being Awake” conference in August 2005, with its performance of “Thou Orb Aloft Full Dazzling” by Walt Whitman inspires Christina to continue questioning the art of what we conceptually call “Speech Formation”. The spirit of playing with the words and images opened up the space and it seemed that everyone would have liked to continue (that is, if it wasn’t so humid). She truly looks forward to working with her new colleagues again—soon!
Helen Lubin (Fair Oaks, CA) From her base in Fair Oaks, Helen continues her work with Speech and Drama in Waldorf Schools in North America (formerly “in the West”), now in its 12th year. Due to some schools’ financial crises, and Helen’s being in town more due to a teaching commitment to a 3rd/4th-year speech student, the traveling pace has been tempered. Some intermittent teaching at Rudolf Steiner College rounds out the local scope. This all dovetails well with her having (rather nervously) agreed in late summer 2004 to become the new translator and editor of Anthroposophy Worldwide (10 issues/year).
This configuration of activities follows on a full and fully enjoyable summer of teaching in 10 different courses at Rudolf Steiner College, a week of teaching and precious colleagueship (and a visit with a godson) in Stroud, England in the training for Anthroposophic Therapeutic Speech, and then the Speech Meet followed by the Society conference in Ann Arbor.
A new addition is work with a small group in Portland: friends of speech, of varying provenance (a high school humanities teacher, a puppeteer, the board president of the Portland Waldorf School, a neurologist, and a grades teacher who comes down from Whidbey Island). They have asked to meet five times a year, which will be approximated until summer 2006, and then reviewed. While in Portland Helen also enjoys working with the eurythmy students.
At the end of October, the Portland visit included joining a small group for a performance that was part of the conference preceding the AGM of the Anthroposophical Society. This was an adaptation of the chapter ‘Poetry in Buchenwald’ in Jacques Lusseyran’s book The Pollution of the I. Having begun to work on this a while ago, the group then asked Helen to join them. This was an intriguing collaboration of a narrator (Lusseyran, speaking in the present), a puppeteer (playing the four men in Lusseyran’s account, i.e., in the past), a eurythmist (performing the poetry referred to in the chapter) and the speaker for the eurythmy. This was an exciting work in progress – with prospects of being developed further.
A pilot speech intensive, perhaps merging into a program that would serve as the first year of training for anyone who wanted to continue (elsewhere, for the time being), is on the drawing board.
Carlos Geronimo (Hudson, New York) Carlos, a Brazilian who completed his training at Artemis in England, has come to the States to work at the Triform Community. He spent last Christmas and New Year in Paris, before going to England and Portugal—it was great!
Carlos is a house parent at Triform, and also teaching drama, telling stories and starting doing a bit of Anthroposophic Therapeutic Speech, working one-on-one, following the thread he started in Brazil with individuals from all walks of life. He finds that he still needs to learn, improve more and more without sacrificing the experienced actor/storyteller/voice coach/poetry reciter and Gregorian chanter. Carlos is eager to get in touch with colleagues (carlosgeronimo@hotmail.com).
Patricia Smith (North Vancouver, BC) The work at Cascadia goes on, becoming ever-larger and many-facetted. This year the community bought a large new residence, near its day centre. Kaspar House community moved at the beginning of August, and the residential companions was doubled from 2 to 4. It was an amazing amount of work, as they had to renovate (sprinkler system, alarms, all the bells and whistles….) and do lots of paperwork to fulfill licensing requirements. But now it has settled down, and it’s a lovely house community, full of life, light and good humour. In October 2005, they hosted their first meeting of the Camphill Association of North America, and it was a wonderful day when members of all of the communities – and representatives of their provincial ministry - were present for the official opening of the new house.
The proximity to the day centre means that the community can also host some people for meals who are staying overnight with the caretaker at the day centre. In spring the backyard garden will be planted as the centre’s vegetable garden.
Meanwhile Cascadia has started a modest seminar for new and not so new coworkers, and their West Coast Institute for Studies in Anthroposophy has also begun to offer foundation courses in addition to the Early Childhood Training, which has been going for over 10 years. In addition to hosting local courses (Meteorology, Christology, Astronomy, Visual Arts, Parsival) people will be invited from further afield. In February 2006, they are looking forward to a performance of “The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily” and accompanying “playshop” with Glen Williamson and Laurie Portocarrero. This ties in with Cascadia’s work with the fairytale, with hopes for a culmination in a pageant at Michaelmas 2006.
In October Patricia and Ruth Tschannen (eurythmist) accompanied 11 companions from the two British Columbia communities, representing the Cascadia Bell Choir at a gala Camphill fundraiser in San Francisco, and in December they produced their annual “Cascadia Christmas” concert, with speech, story, eurythmy and music,
Patricia and Ruth are involved in all of these things, and where possible, the eurythmy and speech arts accompany all these activities. Patricia’s time has been taken up quite a bit with administration, but as these initiatives grow, it is now possible to hand some things on to others so that her teaching and therapy possibilities increase.
Katherine Thivierge (Detroit area, MI) Katherine taught creative speech in the Oakland Steiner School to grades one through four in the autumn of 2005, which was made possible by a grant from Speech and Drama in Waldorf Schools in the West. (See Helen Lubin’s article on page 2.) As a result of that contact in the school, she is now teaching speech and French in grades one through eight—quite a challenge with French that has laid dormant for decades!
Katherine continues as the speech artist for the Austin Eurythmy Ensemble. The Ensemble took a year off for 2004/5, but is actively working again. The premier of the new evening program was in Austin, Texas, in December, with a European tour in the works for autumn, 2006. The program includes a Japanese tale, poetry of Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda and Mary Oliver, and music of Ginestera, Avo Pärt and the Hungarian composer, Fazil Say.
Jeremiah Turner (San Francisco, CA) Jeremiah performed an original poem at the Ann Arbor Being Awake conference which received an enthusiastic response. This performance has opened many doors (mostly inner and some outer) for Jeremiah and led to conversations with many including members of the Executive Council about the future.
Jeremiah will be doing a Speech workshop at the Kolisko conference in Hyderabad, India in January 2006 and working with the Waldorf school there. He is very excited and honored to go!
Jeremiah plays character roles in two independent films coming out in 2006! One is a horror film in which he plays a French jack o'lantern. In the other, a film noir, he plays a bumbling Russian gangster. (Don't worry, he reports that he is not quitting his day job!) He is student teaching in an inner city public high school and teaching drama at the Santa Cruz Waldorf High School. It has been quite an experience for him. The public school reminds him of where he went to middle school and was the only 'white' person in the class. It is quite something to experience how racial segregation works in today in American public schools. According to author Jonathan Kozol, racial segregation and the resulting inequity of resources in education are far worse today than 50 years ago before Brown vs. Board of Education. So the question for him is how we work to overcome this divide.
Jeremiah is working on a book of original poetry (stuff like the piece he performed in Ann Arbor). He is having two poems that he wrote for 'little people' illustrated into children's books. These should be out in 2006. He promises to keep us posted.
Check out his new website http://jeremiahturner.com. It is still under construction (by Jesse Osmer) but has a picture and some audio. He is interested in what people think. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The Speech School of North America
Three students are currently finishing their training in Creative Speech here in America and are busy preparing for their final graduation performances in May, 2006. They each will then receive diploma from the Goetheanum through the Speech School of North America. The three are Jennifer Kleinbach of Spring Valley, New York, and Sarah Hyde and Alice Pratt from the Freeport, Maine area. All three have been actively studying speech for many years.
Sarah Hyde has an MA in English and has completed the Waldorf Teacher Training at Antioch in addition to completing the Sacred Service Program at the School of Spiritual Psychology. She is co-founder and leader of Two Roads, a nonprofit group that organizes wilderness retreats that are designed to support healing and strengthening of the heart forces through nature, poetry, conversation and active listening.
Alice Pratt is a Waldorf school graduate, has a BA in Drama and Movement, and completed the Antioch Waldorf Early Childhood program. She worked as an Early Childhood teacher for a few years before moving to England to study at the Artemis School of Speech and Drama.
Jennifer Kleinbach is also a Waldorf School graduate. She studied languages at University, completed Foundation Studies and the Goethean Science Program at Rudolf Steiner College, and then Eurythmy Training in Spring Valley. She is now on the faculty of Eurythmy School there and has been performing with the Eurythmy Spring Valley Touring Group.
There are two graduation performances scheduled. The first, in Freeport, Maine will be on Sunday May 14, 2006, and the second, in Spring Valley. will be on Saturday May 20, 2006. Please join us for this celebration of their work and the Speech School of North America. Contact Craig Giddens in Freeport (207.353.4126) and Michael Steinreuck in Spring Valley (845.371.8762) for more information regarding the performances. Craig Giddens for the Faculty
Poem from Jeremiah Turner Hey You
I see you shine Like the halo around Che Guevara’s head
You make me wanna speak with the dead Or with the living
For that matter
“Matter is never without spirit
Spirit is never without matter”
So what’s the matter?
You make me wanna holler
In a sleepy, hungry hollow
I see people in houses
standing on their heads they’re ready
Chanting OM but nobody’s home Just a gigolo singing,
“I ain’t got nobody, nobody,” No body As their brethren roam
sleep in doorways and alleyways and call cardboard ‘home’
singing, “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
a long way from home”
Ach du,
What ails thee?
what IS the matter?
Materialism has got you and I in a schism
Trying to honeycomb hideout in a jellyroll jizm
Running a rat race
chasing after Chesire cheese
Unreality incorporated has got you squidged in a squeeze
Got you and I in their grid down on our knees trying to please
Please don’t hurt me please
No money, no milk and honey that’s how it beez
Skidrowing the last logs of sacred trees
To built a mansion and a yacht- some rich man’s schiff
Don’t worry, be Happy-- Loman, not Biff
Suck the juice out the orange and leave the peel to rot
As in Willy Loman
Sacked and Looted like the Greeks and the Romans Who at least had art But that’s been cut right out of our souls
Like a surgeon does a heart
Budgets slashed! Everything must go!
Pundits perverted, experted trying to tell us
That art is just a product and the heart is just a pump
It doesn’t actually feel
You’re trying to convince me that this corazon doesn’t feel? Just a mechanical muscle,
you know the raw deal
For how else can they coerce and co-opt
Kids to pack steel for real?
Be all the you can be out on the killing field
Rocking gats and glocks from the block to Iraq
When you are longer allowed to think or feel,
What’s to stop you from becoming a cog or a wheel
in a blind machine? From killing or being killed to level the future field
For some developers wet dream real estate deal…
Hell yeah, the human heart can be hardened!
Yet it can also feel
As an organ of perception
It can lie and it can steal
But it can open
Like the promise
Like lips on a kiss
Rose red on a black cross caress
Blood wine thorn prick
Runneth o’er grail cup
As the wild eyed lover says,
“You fill me... up.”
— Jeremiah Turner
Council of Creative Speech North America
Helen Lubin, Chairperson/Western Regional Representative P. O. Box 1384, Fair Oaks, CA 95628 916.966.5749 phone and fax; helenlubin@aol.com
Katherine Thivierge, Treasurer/Recording Secretary P.O. Box 1547, Southgate, Ml 48195 734.558.4909; fax 734.574.6215, speechart@earthlink.net
Leila Allen, 6565 First Street, Forestville, CA 95436 Leila@arteverywhere.org
Molly McIntyre, McintyreSpeech@comcast.net
|
|
Copyright © 2004
Creative Speech North America
|
