Co-Lab Creative Retreat: A collective laboratory to play, practice and perform

Join us at Confluence Arts Center for a five day journey into a collaborative performance making process. Rooted in theater and dance practices, together we’ll activate creative tools we already hold, learn new ones, and expand the possibilities of live performance. Recognizing the cross over between the dance and theater worlds, we are interested in how these processes can be in creative and collaborative exchange. Uplifting values of embodiment, experimentation, compassionate listening to self/other/nature, we will honor our intersectionalities and collective expertise as we strengthen our creative practices in community.

Devising is a way to create new works of art within a community by the process of dialogue, reflection, expressive movement, playfulness, sharing stories, sound, composition, and improvisation. Together we’ll explore, generate, and expand our devising skills, through co-creating a performance that honors our individual and shared creative lineages. Join us in our “collective laboratory” barn space, to “Col-lab” and restore in the natural inspiration of the Oregon countryside. Let's connect to the joy of moving, making art, voicing our truths and living life fully as ourselves in each present moment.

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General Schedule:

Arrival Tuesday evening Aug 1: Gather for dinner, intentions, landing

Weds Aug 2 - Friday August 4: Building, creating, exploring

Sat. Aug 5: Performance sharing for local community

Sunday August 6: Closing circle, self/community care, reflections and meal

Meet the facilitators:

Shanti Rose (they/them) is a white, non-binary, genderqueer, creator born and living in the Deep South on Timucua and Seminole land. It is this landscape of lived experience that continues to return them to a growing edge of community-care through art, education, and healing practice. Shanti specializes in interactive facilitation, ritual performance, and devised theatre. Their work is rooted in community engagement, unlearning white-supremacy culture and practicing multiple art forms as an act of re-membering. They have found deep meaning and growth in  linking the past and present through co-creating community, deconstructing dominant histories, and excavating ancestral stories. Shanti is thrilled to be hosted by Confluence Arts Center this summer and is looking forward to hearing your stories and supporting your creations.

Andre Ignacio Dimapilis (he/him) is a Filipinx-American culture-bearing performance artist, sound facilitator, and peaceful warrior.  His art-making in theatre, sound, movement, text, building relationships and rituals are in harmony with the truths that he lives as Filipinx-American, a male person of color (POC), living in the current times working towards social and racial justice. Andre has been devising theatre since 2010 in diverse communities (youth, elders, multidisciplinary artists, filipinx-americans, indigenous filipinx artists) all over the US and in Rwanda. He creates art focused on presenting stories of the human experience and engaging audiences to think critically about the world around us. Andre is the founder of Kalayaan Sound, LLC. Kalayaan is the Filipinx word for freedom, using the healing power of sound from indigenous and traditional instruments for participants to re-connect and re-member the freedom of their spirit. Andre infuses ancestral wisdom and indigenous knowledge for participants to listen with their body, connect with spirit, and have clear intentions during sound therapy sessions for a personalized and meaningful experience. Follow him on instagram @kalayaansoundllc. Rise up yo divine purpose-8+

Brianna Taylor (she/her) is a white multidisciplinary movement artist, choreographer, facilitator, and bodyworker born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. Her work as an artist and educator is rooted in collaboration and community care, improvisation and experimentation, and practices of listening to and honoring the wisdom of the body. She is activated by the journey of storytelling through the intersections of movement, language and sound. Accessing ancestral memory, healing her lineages and repair are integral components of her her creative work, and she is committed to the ongoing process of learning, un-learning and un-doing the ways systems of oppression have prioritized whiteness. Brianna carries a rich movement and dance making history that has been deeply enriched by the study of many forms including Modern/Contemporary, West African and Afro-Cuban dance, Improvisation, Yoga, Tai Chi, Salsa, Flamenco, Butoh, and various somatic practices. Her performance and teaching work have been shared around and outside the U.S., and her facilitation reflects an eclectic blend of her moving, creative and performance history. She honors all of the teachers she’s had the privilege to learn from along the way. Brianna believes that movement and creative practice holds rich possibility for us to connect deeper to ourselves and each other, and she aims to facilitate spaces that uplift and celebrate our wholeness.

Pricing Tiers:

Below is a pricing tier structure that considers basic costs of food, overhead, facilitation, and equity. We invite you to consider these tiers and what’s possible within your current financial situation, and choose the amount you are able to offer at this time. The amount you offer does not have to be one of these exact numbers, but rather we’ve included these tiers in full transparency in alignment with our values of equity and community care. We’ve included the ‘Green Bottle Sliding Scale*’ model to support your consideration of what you can offer to participate in this retreat.

1 tier: ($390) includes food and basic overhead costs

2 tier: ($1230) includes food, facilitation and overhead costs

3 tier: ($1650) includes food, facilitation, overhead costs and land steward reparations

4 tier: ($2075) includes food, facilitation, overhead costs, land steward reparations, and support of BIPOC and TGNC participants.

If you need to pay less than this tier system, no participants will be turned away. However, if this is a need for you we ask that you please contact Confluence Arts Center directly to create an accessible financial plan in conversation with our team. We are open to skill sharing, resource exchange, and community investment opportunities in an effort to divest from capitalism and create liberated means for survival outside of oppressive financial structures.

We highly encourage those who are able to solicit institutions of power and philanthropic funding sources to contribute to our full tier amount through grants, training funds, conference fees etc. We can offer training hours to folx who work within academic institutions and arts education organizations. By calling on these systems of power to pay their fair share it allows us to remain in alignment with our values of equity, community-care, and reparations for those communities that have been exploited and historically marginalized.

* Alexis J. Cunningfolk is the creator of the Green Bottle Sliding Scale. Please see their website for in depth explorations around financial liberation.