2015
ACTIVITIES & EVENTS
NEW VISIONS, NEW MISSIONS, NEW HORIZONS
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
We’ve been on a journey…
During the last 12 years that I have been developing and applying One-Thought-One-Action (OTOA) as a Professional Stage Director, the 8 years that I have been leading OTOA Workshops as Founder & Master teacher, and over the last 5 years that I have been running Gia Forakis & Company (GF&CO) as Artistic Director of a theater production company, it’s become very clear that the same OTOA principles that bring clarity and enrichment to the staged event are just as meaningful when applied to individual and collective activities that take place off of the stage and outside of the rehearsal room.
This year we will take the first steps towards transforming GF&CO’s identity from being known as a Theater Production Company into being more solidly identified as a Studio-Lab for the OTOA technique.
Since the founding of GF&CO in 2011, again and again I have found myself brought up short when the only way forward was to “walk the OTOA walk”--one (increment of) thought and one (component of) of action at a time! No matter what proverbial "hat" I was wearing, a daily OTOA practice became essential.
This journey of reflection, discovery, and confrontation, has led to a revitalizing new perspective, a dynamic new vision ,and a series of exhilarating new changes within GF&CO and OTOA, where our focus will be to link these two entities more directly into a studio-lab with a wider range of artistic foci.
Where GF&CO began as a forum for engaging audiences with new avenues of theatre-making through the exploratory lens and innovative technique of OTOA, we now see it as a platform for engaging the public in a larger array of OTOA forums and practices.
Where OTOA began as a technique for enriching the tools and techniques of performers and directors for a more physically engaged mode of story-telling, we now see a broader scope of OTOA applications. In these ways we see a more vital way to serve our community (and to expand our network) by sharing what we think is one of our most valuable commodities: the OTOA technique.
GF&CO members, past and present, have found the principles of OTOA to be fundamental tools for enhancing their craft as well as a versatile perspective for: maintaining longevity in their field, pragmatic administrative application, untangling professional, personal or artistic road-blocks, and as a basic support for the daily discipline of a creative practice in any field and for any enterprise.
We have been developing new workshops that bring the wider range of benefits found in the principles of OTOA into a curriculum of Creative Life Practice studies.
OTOA's practice of incremental thought and action is the preliminary step that manages all our goals, no matter what the project, big or small, quotidian or visionary.
OTOA has been the central operating principle behind GF&CO, artistically and administratively, since its inception. And in an age where multi-tasking challenges our depth of attention and the enrichment of our connections, we see that OTOA is the best 'product' we have to offer to the public and to one another."
- Gia Forakis,
Brooklyn, NY, March, 2015
The GF&CO OTOA VERMONT SUMMER INTENSIVE
AUGUST 16 - 22
PUTNEY, VERMONT
GF&CO was built upon an ensemble of theater artists dedicated to the principles and investigation of putting One-Thought-One-Action -into action, and through GF&CO the further development and experimentation of the technique has continued to grow. The Vermont Summer Intensive will provide an occasion for new and old OTOA participants to work with GF&CO members in the established methods of OTOA as well as contribute to its further development.
The VT Intensive will be a week long period of study and exploration for OTOA veterans and novices alike, set in the beautiful hills of Putney, Vermont, on the campus of The Putney School. This intensive study will offer a deeper penetration and focus into the OTOA Technique than has ever been offered before. We will review the practical tools and principles of OTOA, and experiment with new exercises and applications within a broader context.The VT Intensive will provide an opportunity to participate with GF&CO members in the methods and development of OTOA. It is also meant as a focused retreat for refreshing and reviving creative passion, as well as explore questions of craft and career as we consider our artistic life-practice. And all set in the tranquil surrounding of Vermont's green mountains
Click Here for details and to determine whether you qualify
to join us on this exceptional week of study, lab-like examination of OTOA and Creative Life-Practice.
