SPRING
it is just beginning and it may last forever
A weekend intensive that investigates duration performance, asking how long does it go for? what if it lasts forever?
Led by Alice Gosti
when & where
March 22n/ 23rd 10-4pm 2025
How does something stretch enormously? Can something extend without ending? Can it last forever?
Improvisational scores and task based movements will challenge our notions about time and how it can be altered. Durational performance creates the possibility of time and space in a world where both are scarce. We will explore ways to harness the magic of expanding moments, inviting others in while challenging the boundaries of performance and beauty. We will welcome the complexities of attention, entertainment and boredom as allies to our intentions, while we explore infinite time in our practice. From here to eternity.
Alice Gosti Bio
Alice Gosti is a transnational immigrant choreographer, curator and hybrid performance artist who creates site-responsive performance rituals and live art installations that examine how history and politics enter the body and condition how we move and relate. Gosti is also the founder and artistic director of MALACARNE, an all-womxn/nonbinary ensemble committed to co-authoring transformative performance rituals that fight reductive ideas regarding class, sexuality, gender, ability and ethnicity. Born and raised by installation architects in Perugia, Italy, she’s worked between Italy and occupied Duwamish and Coast Salish land (Seattle) since 2008.
Drawing on current and historical social realities, her projects center people made invisible by white-normative power structures, including: immigrants, womxn, trans-activists, Indigenous populations and those experiencing homelessness. Through “How to Become a Partisan,” “Material Deviance in Contemporary American Culture,” “Invisible Womxn” and “Bodies of Water,” she’s investigated fascism, unfettered capitalism, the othering of womxn and Seattle’s complex relationship to water.
Dance Magazine has described Gosti’s work as “unruly yet rigorous, feminine yet rebellious, task-like yet mischievous“, and SeattleDances.org described "How to become a partisan" as, “hypnotic, meditative, and profoundly beautiful, it left you with a certain sense of calm despite the heavy issues at its core.”
COST $200
PLEASE NOTE YOUR SPOT WILL BE HELD ONCE YOU HAVE REGISTERED AND PAID IN FULL!
Limited Scholarships & Subsidies Available
Email Katherine at katherineftgu@gmail.com to request financial support or if you have any other questions.
SUMMER
FOOLISH ENDEAVOR: An INTRO TO CLOWNING
A weekend intensive that develops individual clown characters through ensemble work and play
Led by Lauren Wilson
WHEN & WHERE
SUMMER 2025
DATES TBA
Do you want to make nonsense of all this sense? Have you ever looked in the mirror and thought…what a fool? Do you need more curiosity and spontaneity of self?
Then come join us for a weekend of PLAY !
This exploration of the nature and world of the clown will bring a sense of play back into your work and life. A terribly fun and VERY physical intensive with emphasis on buoyancy, play, sense of humor, and the relationship between clown and audience.
Participants will develop their own unique clown characters through improvisation and ensemble play.
Bring your funny bone, your spontaneity, your willingness and delight, your vulnerability and water and snacks!
LAuren wilson bio
Lauren Wilson is a theatre director, playwright, actor, and teacher, specializing in physical performance styles and ensemble creation. She is Co-Director of the MFA Acting Program at the University of South Carolina.
Lauren was a faculty member at the DellArte International School of Physical Theatre for twelve years, five of them as School Director. At DellArte, Lauren played a key role in the development and evolution of the MFA and Professional Training programs, where she taught physical acting, mask performance, commedia dellarte, voice, movement, clown, and ensemble practice. She began her career as Director of the Blue Heron Youth Theatre in Vashon, WA, and has taught at the State University of New York, Humboldt State University, Zimbabwe Theatre Academy, Portland Actors Conservatory, American Conservatory Theater, and the SpaceEka Artists’ Residency in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Lauren graduated from Reed College and received an MFA in Theatre from Sarah Lawrence College. Her plays are available through Dramatists Play Service, and in the Vintage anthology Laugh Lines.
*Open to individuals of ALL backgrounds. No experience necessary.
COST $200
REGISTRATION OPENS
April 15th, 2025
Limited Scholarships & Subsidies Available
Email Katherine at katherineftgu@gmail.com to request financial support, make payment or if you have any other questions.
FALL
FORM: Language, Body & Breath
A 6 week WORKSHOP THAT EXPLORES THE SPACE BETWEEN MOVEMENT AND STORY
Led by Katherine Murphy Lewis and Andrea Parson
WHEN & WHERE
September 22nd - Oct 27th 2025
Monday’s 6 PM – 8 PM At The Historic Alberta House
What language lives in our bodies? How does breath inform our stories? What happens when we blend our body, breath and language?
In this 6 week series we will blend the body, breath and language to create dynamic stories that move us. Combining the expertise of local Contemporary Dancer Andrea Parson and From the Ground UP’s Artistic Director Katherine Murphy Lewis, we use the combination of personal narrative and movement through dance and physical theater practices.
Throughout these 6 weeks we will dive deep into the process that will help you fully embody your story. Each participant will get to immerse themselves in the process of creating new work through the lens of the body. With approaches that create a unique pathway that leads to risky, personal new work, engaging the whole body.
NOTE: Class will culminate in a showing of pieces developed in the workshop with an invited community.
** NOTE: This process was developed in the rehearsal room during the creation of Andrea’s new work You Can’t Be Serious, directed and dramaturged by Katherine and written and performed by Andrea. After the world premier in fall of 2023 in partnership with BodyVox, currently on tour.
*Open to individuals of all movement backgrounds and levels.
*Recommended for those interested in applying for our 2025 Artist Residency, if you haven’t already trained with us.
COST $200
***Note your registration is not completed until you have paid for the workshop.
Limited Scholarships & Subsidies Available
Email Katherine at katherineftgu@gmail.com to request financial support, make payment or if you have any other questions.