Not the Same Old Story: A Writing and Meditation Workshop with Juanita Rockwell

Saturday, 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM PST

December 5, 2020
Online

Schedule: 1 session
Class dates: December 5, 2020
Class length: 4 hours (4 hours total)
Class size: 19 students maximum
Tuition: $95
Prerequisite: None! Open to all adults 18 and older

This one-day workshop will focus on challenging our habitual thinking about narrative. Participants will be introduced to principles of connecting the stories we tell in our creative work, the stories society tells us, and the stories we tell ourselves. 

We’ll begin by looking at our default mode, examining our assumptions about the story, and how those assumptions limit our creativity and connectedness and explore one possible alternative narrative model among many. You will learn a simple meditation practice that supports your connection to open awareness, reinvesting the power of your attention in the natural resourcefulness and creativity of your being. Bringing these writing and meditation principles together, you will learn to identify how to interrupt the habits that we mistake for truths.

This one day workshop will introduce principles which will be explored in an extended weekly workshop, at a later date.

Juanita Rockwell is a writer and director with over one hundred works of theatre, opera, radio, multimedia, puppetry, music theater, dance theater, and site-specific projects presented on five continents. Recent projects include the opera libretto for Backwards from Winter (composer Douglas Knehans, at Ablaze Records) which premiered at Symphony Space in 2018, produced by The Center for Contemporary Opera; followed by a second production by IHOS Foundation Amsterdam at the Dark MOFO festival in Tasmania, AU. In 2019, Rockwell wrote the libretto for The Suitcase/Der Koffer (composer Ljiljana Jovanović) and directed the premiere mini-tour including performances at An die Musik LIVE (Baltimore), Rep Stage/Horowitz Center for the Arts (Columbia, MD), and Howard University (DC). 

Other produced writing includes the play with songs Between Trains with composer Chas Marsh (Blue Moon Plays); libretto and direction for The World is Round, from Gertrude Stein with composer James Sellars (Hog River Music); the translation/adaptation of Playing Dead from Bros. Presnyakov (Center for International Theatre Development digital publication); and the site-specific audio promenade performance The Circle (banishedproductions.bandcamp.com). 

In the 1990’s she was artistic director of Hartford’s Company One Theater, directing professional premieres of early work by Suzan-Lori Parks, Paula Vogel, Donna DiNovelli, Erik Ehn, and Rachel Sheinkin. She has also directed in venues from NYC to Budapest to São Paolo.

As founding director of Towson University’s M.F.A. in Theatre Program, Juanita created a rigorous multidisciplinary laboratory environment training the self-generative artist, where she is now Professor Emerita. She is also faculty in the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing at Wilkes University, and a Presenter with The 3 Doors, an international educational organization dedicated to transforming lives through meditation practices grounded in the Tibetan Bön Buddhist tradition. Awards include a Marion Fellowship in the Visual and Performing Arts; a Rubys Artist Project Grant; a Fulbright in Costa Rica, and funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and National Public Radio. Writing residencies include Ucross (WY), The Studios at Key West (FL), Virginia Center for the Creative Arts/VCCA (VA), Playa (OR), and a Scientific Delirium Madness residency at Djerassi (CA).