Master Classes, Residency Workshops, & Commissions

All of our teaching is rooted in our collaborative research, training, and movement based practice to create interdisciplinary performance. We hope to encourage students to explore new generative methods, to create their own work, and to connect with performance through research.

Our work and style are well suited for working with students in dance programs and theater programs, as well as other science and humanities based curriculums that are interested in engaging in interdisciplinary artistic models and broadening ideas about research. If you take an interest in our work, reach out!

 
 

Master Classes

Speaking Onstage for Dancers

Recommended For: High School - Graduate Dancers

Duration: 1.5 hour class - 10 hour class series

This class gives an overview of techniques for performing text from an interdisciplinary perspective. We’ll cover basic vocal techniques including breathing, accessing your different resonators, and a variety of warm ups, as well as guidance with interpreting text from a theater perspective, discussing basics of grammar clues in text and objectives. Throughout the class we will also explore how these techniques and concepts can interact with movement and choreography. 



Incorporating Research Into Developing New Performance

Recommended For: Advanced High School - Graduate Theater or Dance

Duration: 2 hour class - 15 hour class series

In Thank You So Much For Coming’s practice of creating new work, research is central to our process. In this workshop, students will explore some of our techniques to make connections with research and develop material, as well as devise their own techniques. Students should come with research materials that interest them to use a source to generate exercises and actions specific to them.


How TYSMFC Developed...

Recommended For: Advanced High School - Graduate Theater or Dance

Duration: 2 hour class - 10 hour class series

In our generative practice, we’ve developed many exercises and creative prompts that help us put together our performances. In this session we’ll guide students through an intimate look at how we developed one of our works. We will discuss the research that led us to develop certain prompts or exercises, lead the students through those exercises, and have discussions about how those led to material that could be incorporated into a performance. This provides an inside look at our unique practice, and can give students generative tools that they might not otherwise encounter.


Self Producing on a Limited Budget

Recommended For: Undergraduate Theater or Dance

Duration: 1 - 2.5 hour class

When we decided to start making original work in Detroit, we found that the resources available to us were very different then they had been in college, and we had to adapt to a model of low-budget self producing. This applies to festivals, renting space, marketing, etc, etc, etc. With no institution or producer taking care of those aspects of production, we found ways to successfully self-produce our own work. In this workshop, we’ll share our experience of low budget self-producing as early career artists and give useful advice for students who may be interested in self-producing..

Residency Workshops

TYSMFC is available for longer-term Residency Workshop engagements. Our unique method of development is well suited for students to be immersed in over numerous sessions, in which they can more fully explore how they might implement and adapt our methods  in their own projects.

These residencies are flexible and could operate in any number of ways, but they may include: 

  • Helping students create a “seed” of an original performance.

  • Facilitating a collaborative student led performance.

  • An in-depth view into our current work.

  • Mentorship regarding student’s ongoing composition work.

  • Research partnerships with students and faculty. 


Or something else! We’d love to make something unique with you and tailored to your program’s needs.

Commissions

Both members of TYSMFC have experience setting work on performers at the high school, undergrad, and professional levels. Our material offers unusual challenges to performers, and affords an opportunity to perform with a different set of priorities and possibilities than traditional work. We love working with other performers and we’re excited for the chance to make something together! Our work is suitable for dance, theater, and interdisciplinary programs.