On Day One The Vermont OTOA Intensive Group Achieved "BB" in Cup Game!
I'm happy to report that the one week OTOA Vermont Intensive was a grand success! We had an excellent group and together were able to delve into OTOA on a much deeper level with a much wider range of application --an opportunity I have never had before during the regular short-form workshops. With the beautiful hills of Vermont as our backdrop we explored the practical tools and principles of OTOA and experimented with new exercises and new applicability.
Throughout the week we covered the following areas of concentration:
- The Basics: OTOA's Primary Principles, Tools & Technique
- Examination of Content-Driven Thought & The Thinking Body
- Applying OTOA to a “Devised” Work
- The Practice of Watching & Listening
- Time & Space as Creative Mediums
- OTOA as a Creative-Life Practice
Our time in Vermont provided the group with a focused opportunity to participate with GF&CO members in the methods and development of OTOA while also acting as a retreat for refreshing and reviving creative passion.
We also had time to gather one evening for a pot-luck supper and a kitchen-table reading of Ibsen's "Hedda Gabbler," which, the next day, we followed up with OTOA scene study.
Our day began at 9:30am with workshops divided into two sessions each day (Morning and Afternoon), separated by three hours of down time to enjoy the delicious organic lunches provided to us by The Putney School and time, for being outdoors, reading, exercising, napping, contemplating, exploring the Putney area or for OTOA prep work.
We were able to take full advantage of the tranquil surroundings including an invigorating hike up Putney Mountain.
Overall it was an exceptional week of OTOA based learning and a sea-change of growth for OTOA's future development.
Here are a few testimonials from participants:
| "[OTOA is] a creative practice technique that can be utilized throughout life and it embodies the concept that increments of content-filled thought can inform increments of content-driven gesture and shape, which creates a meaningful way to manifest a sequence of actions throughout the dimensions of time and space. Attending this Intensive provided me an incredibly valuable, empowering, and transformative experience."
- Jeffery Parry, Musician-Actor-Artist-Philosopher
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 "I found that...applying OTOA to every moment of the week-long residency forced me to become more intimate with my own thoughts and opinions, especially those that are artistic and creative. I learned... about my own creative-life practice."
- Stephanie Regina, Artist
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 "OTOA provides the artist with time to investigate what their incremental thoughts are, connecting with a shape, and providing the artist with [physical] action to get to that next incremental thought. If that thought was not a true/honest increment, the artist is gifted with time to go backwards, through the increments of thought that took them there to begin with."
- Clara F. Pagone, Artist
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I'm inspired to take the insights from this week in Vermont and to start building a broader platform for OTOA, as well as a more active year of ongoing workshops for 2016 (which we will be announcing in December - January).
I will be able to put into practice the new OTOA exercises we explored in VT at my upcoming OTOA workshop in Santa Barbara in October, where I will be leading a workshop at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA on October 15, 2015.
The invitation to lead the workshop at Westmont grew out of my trip to the International Shakespeare Festival in Bitola, Macedonia in 2013, where I led an OTOA Workshops to Biltola student actors plus a collection of International actors performing in the festival, and that is where I had the good fortune to meet American Theater Director, John Blondell. John is a Professor of Theatre Arts and the Chair of the Theatre Arts Department at Westmont.
Preceding my time at Westmont, I will be in LA for the remount of SONG FROM THE UPROAR, the original multi-media opera I directed and co-collaborated on with composer Missy Mazzoli, ---where all the movement-choreography of all the singers was created entirely with OTOA!
SFTU premiered at The Kitchen in NYC 2012 and is being remounted in Los Angeles this October, 2015 as a co-production with Beth Morrison Projects and LA Opera.
It is a great honor to be invited to Westmont as well as to be remounting SFTU At REDCAT in LA. Both are tremendous opportunities to share the artistry and strengths of OTOA.
As OTOA continues to lead the way in my creative-life practice, I look forward to sharing what comes next.
With Joy & Inspiration
Gia
OTOA Founder & Master Teacher
