Lady in the Tower

A pedagogical experiment by AnomalousCo

Created in collaboration with students at Dixie State University Department of Theatre and a team of teaching artists - Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva, Janette Hough, Alexei Syssoyev, and Philip Salata - under the direction of Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva

Performance

The Project

A devised work of drama, aerial dance, and music, Lady in the Tower took as its text “Yonec,” a tale in verse by the 12th century French poet, Marie de France.

The guiding principle was practice-based investigation into the development of a cohesive “imagisitic theatre” pedagogy for the 21st century, built upon a synthesis of 20th century European and American schools of performer training, and the exploration of a collaborative approach to teaching and performance-making.

Training, making, rehearsing

The academic framework for the production was a two-semester, three-course sequence of technique classes, supported by laboratory hours and rehearsal time. Dr. Syssoyeva conceived and led the project, working in close collaboration with teaching artists Alexei Syssoyev, specialist in Russian expressive movement, French mime, stage combat, period styles, theatrical clown, rhythmics, and partnering acrobatics; Janette Hough, specialist in aerial dance and physical theatre; and Philip Salata, specialist in European traditions of devised physical theatre and a former performer-creator and teacher at the Work Center of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards.