Workshop for Potential Movement is a body-based performance company in Philadelphia creating original works that challenge the potential of dance and theater.
Artistic Director Kathryn TeBordo collaborates with artists across disciplines for every project, and is currently working with poet/performer Laura Neuman and a cast of eight to make ferocious and heartbreaking dances out of centimeters.
2009-2010 season activities are supported by membership at NEXUS/ foundation for today’s art, and the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival’s artist-in-residence program.
HISTORY
Formed in 2003, Workshop for Potential Movement has produced nine new works, received funding from The Leeway Foundation and Philadelphia Cultural Fund, enjoyed a New Edge Mix Residency at the CEC, and toured to New York. It has received press from Dance Magazine, The Philadephia Inquirer, City Paper, and was named “Up-and-Comer” by Philadelphia Weekly in 2006. Select performances include Tapestry Theater’s Female Funny Fest, Williamsburg Art neXus (NYC), nEW Festival, Painted Bride’s Destination: PHL, and Philadelphia Live Arts Festival (2004, 2006, 2008 & 2009). Major works include AFTER FANTASTIC (2008), SPEAK! MASCOT (2006), and MEET YOUR REPLACEMENT (2005).
MISSION
Workshop for Potential Movement creates new collisions of dance and theater; and incubates programs that make the performing arts matter to more people through innovative community involvement.
PEOPLE
Kathryn TeBordo, Artistic Director, is a choreographer and performer and the founder of Workshop for Potential Movement. Together with founding members Debra Disbrow and Betsy Herbert, she co-wrote and performed in the comedies SPEAK! MASCOT (2006) and MEET YOUR REPLACEMENT (2005). Other recent projects include dancing with devynn emory/ beast productions, and performing in the dancefilm Wanna Kiss Myself by J. Makary and in The Show Must Go On by Jerome Bel. Kathryn has been educated at Bard College and SUNY Brockport. In 2002, Kathryn took part in Deborah Hay’s Solo Performance Commissioning Project, where she learned and adapted Beauty. Kathryn is one of six American artists accepted into the broadly international DanceWEB Europe Scholarship Programme, gaining full access to the 2009 ImPulsTanz Festival in Vienna. She currently serves on the advisory board of Dance/USA Philadelphia, and lives with her husband Christian, a novelist, in Center City. potentiallymoving.org
Debra Disbrow, Founding Member, is a writer, performer, and movement artist. She has originated a number of works for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival including Brinksmanship, Live Girls, and an adaptation of The Trial with Bad Penny Productions, an ensemble based theater company; and movement piece P’s & Q’s with Lee Etzold and Mauri Walton. She has worked as an actor for such companies as Theatre Exile, Act II Playhouse, Theater Rumpus, and a national physical theatre tour with Enchantment Theater Company. Her one- woman play These are the Deb Tapes was seen at the 2003 Fringe Festival and at the Walnut Street Studio 5. She holds an MFA in theater from Naropa University.
Betsy Herbert, Founding Member, is a writer and performer; her most recent work includes Sleep Study, a solo show which ran at the Walnut Street Theatre Studio 5 in the 2004. Betsy regularly performed comedy with Philadelphia’s all-female improve group, Thirteen Skirts. She has over 7 years of improv theatre experience, having worked in the past with Philadelphia’s two most successful troupes: Comedy Sportz and Lunch Lady Doris. She has been a regular at Tapestry Theatre’s Female Funny Fest for its final four years and was invited to participate in the stand-up adventure Die Actor, Die.
Elizabeth Stevens, Dramaturg, is pretty and amazing. Check back soon to learn more about her.
ASSOCIATE ARTISTS
Emily Abruzzi
Aram Aghazarian
Vivian Appler
Micah Bedrosian
Brandon Beston
Corinna Burns
colleen catherine connelly
David Disbrow
Jesse Delaney
Meghan Durham Wall
Devynn Emory
Kevin Francis
Sarah Gladwin Camp
Greg Holt
Willa Jaffe
Jung-Eun Kim
Dorothea Lasky
Christy Lee
Ky Mettler
Maria Moller
Shannon Murphy
Micheline Murphy-McManus
Laura Neuman
Sara Nye
Dawn Pratson
Naomi Pressman
Thom Roland
Matt Sharp
Christian TeBordo
Timothy TeBordo
Mauri Walton
Alexis Brie Wildau
Christina Zani
Julianna Zinkle