Department of Theatre Graduate Cohort Performs New Work at 2023 INVERSE Performance Arts Festival

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The M.F.A graduate cohort in the Department of Theatre presents the collaboratively created performance piece, No one's arK, as a part of the INVERSE Performance Art Festival, at 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4, at the Momentary in Bentonville. Passes for the entire four-day festival are $10 for student and teachers.

Find out more about tickets and full festival schedule.

No one's arK is a work-in-progress about longing and belonging created collectively by all 22 members of the current M.F.A. cohort in the Department of Theatre, including actors, designers, directors, and playwrights. The work began early this semester in a class investigating Collaboration Strategies, which has included a residency with the internationally acclaimed Tectonic Theatre Project. During the residency, members of the Tectonic company have taught M.F.A. students their groundbreaking process of devising and making theatre — "Moment Work."

Moment Work explores the theatrical potential of all the elements of the stage to create strong theatrical and dramatic narratives from the ground up. During the semester, Tectonic teaching artists have led M.F.A. students through a rigorous and thoughtful process of creating individual, self-contained theatrical units (Moments), and then taught them to sequence these units together into theatrical phrases that build narratives and create innovative new work.

M.F.A. playwriting candidate, Basil Parnell-Luetgens, says that the most rewarding part of working with Tectonic and learning the Moment Work technique has been "getting to work creatively with all members of the cohort, no matter what their normal discipline. Having a creative space free from hierarchy really allows for a natural creative flow."

Associate Professor John Walch, who created and teaches the collaboration class, says "the residency with Tectonic has exponentially accelerated the M.F.A. student's growth and now they have a chance to take what they've learned and put it into practice in public. It's a fantastic group of new M.F.A. students—curious and courageous—and this is fantastic opportunity to showcase their work at INVERSE."

After the INVERSE presentation, work on the piece will continue. The Tectonic residency culminates in a final week with their international renowned artistic director Moisés Kaufman. Kaufman will be on campus during the final weeks of class working with the M.F.A. cohort to further explore and refine the performance piece.

About the Performance: No one's arK

What have you longed for? What quests and questions have your longing launched? How do moments of longing shape you?  Using these prompts and training in "Moment Work" in an ongoing residency with the critically acclaimed Tectonic Theatre Project, the Collaboration Cohort explores individual and collective longing. Devised by the members of the Collaboration Cohort, No one's arK invites you aboard an adventure to terra incognito, where personal confessions collide with club conga lines, and paper airplanes fly through turbulence over sound baths of tranquility. Grab your passport for improbable connections and climb aboard—there's room for everyone on No one's arK.

About the Festival

INVERSE is an inclusive performance art platform co-founded by Momentary Curator of Performance Cynthia Post Hunt and Chief Curator and Director of Education of the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art Emma Saperstein. INVERSE strives to foster local dialogue about performance on an international scale and build a community of performance artists and supporters, providing opportunities for performance work to be cultivated in the community.

The 2023 INVERSE Performance Arts Festival showcases the radical stories and experimentation of more than 45 artists, each carrying a unique message of liberation, activism, humor and healing. These artists weave together powerful narratives, using the complex and evasive medium of performance art to provoke thought, challenge societal norms, and ignite conversation. For the six years INVERSE has existed, we have seen the ways performance has created unexpected and uncanny relationships between artists, audience and the world.

About the Department of Theatre: The University of Arkansas Department of Theatre has been providing exciting and affordable theatre for more than 60 years. The department combines a first-rate theatrical education full of hands-on experience with a wide selection of titles to challenge students and the community. The department offers the Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre, a broad spectrum program in the context of a liberal arts education, and the Master of Fine Arts degree in six concentrations: Acting, Directing, Playwriting, Costume Design, Scene Design and Lighting Design. Classes at both undergraduate and graduate levels are focused on providing a strong, professional orientation to theatre performance and technology in conjunction with appropriate research-based coursework in theatre history, dramatic literature and dramatic criticism.

For tickets and full INVERSE festival schedule visit: https://themomentary.org/calendar/inverse/