**All workshops are on Saturdays from 10 am - 2 pm (3 hours of class, 1 hour for lunch/private writing time) at the SPLAB! unless otherwise noted**

Performance - February 8, 1997
Performance Basics: Learning to use your VOICE; Paul Nelson
Learn and practice the basics of spokenword performance. Invigorating exercises to get you going, helpful tips on bringing your work to LIFE!
Bring at least one original work to perform.
Limit: 20 students

Writing - February 22, 1997
The Poem Before I Could Speak: Writing from the Gut; Danika Dinsmore, MFA
What was the first poem before there was language? Explore sounds & words as things. Exercises include writing to external stimulation & visualization of words as objects.
Bring paper, writing instrument, & an open mind.
Limit: 20 students

Performance - March 8, 1997
The Making of an Event: poetic performance & techniques to achieve it; Paul Hunter
Use of memorization, structure, timing & pacing, and ordering image. Techniques will work for any speaking occasion -- though for poets, exercises & discussion will have special focus, & may outline an aesthetic for weighing the effectiveness of one's work.
Bring a poem or two of your own (or a short favorite poem of someone else's), pencil & paper, wear a favorite T-shirt.
Limit: 20 students

Writing - March 22, 1997 (from 2 pm - 6 pm)
Writes of Passage; Vicky Edmonds
For writers of all levels of experience to use the art and practice of writing as an opportunity for looking deeper into issues that are unresolved in our lives. Bring paper & writing instrument.
Limit: 20 students

Performance - April 5, 1997
Using Subtext in Performance; Sean Sarringar
The role of subtext, where it comes from, how to use it as a device to enrich the performance of any material, as well as how to recognize it when it occurs. Expand the parameters of your work and achieve better results!
Bring short works for critique, a copy of Old Man and the Sea (or at least be familiar with the story)
No limit on class size

Writing - April 19th, 1997
Luminous Details: Writing from Sense-Impressions & Memories; Chuck Pirtle, MFA, PhD
We will use a variety of exercises designed to help you get more specific, concrete images--vivid particulars--into your writing. We will look at a number of short source texts as examples and models.
Bring a photograph of yourself and/or a family member at an earlier age.
No limit on class size

Performance - May 3, 1997: Instructor / Description TBA
Writing - May 17: Rebecca Bush-Pirtle, MFA / Description TBA
Performance - June 7: Paul Nelson / Audio & Video recording your performances in the SPLAB! studio - class critique following
Writing - July 12: Steve Potter, MFA / The Elements of Humor
Performance - July 19: Merilene Murphy / Writing Peace & Acting On The Words: Poetry Performance Collaboration as Completion
Writing - July 26: Instructor / Description TBA

Danika Dinsmore - poet, teacher, editor; MFA in Writing and Poetics from the Naropa Institute in Boulder, CO; work has appeared in New Censorship, Bombay Gin, 13th Moon, Chain, and the Woodfrogs in Chaos anthology; Director of the NorthWest SPokenword LAB; book forthcoming this spring entitled traffic.

Vicky Edmonds - writer and teacher who uses the written and spoken word as an inroad to healing and an alternative to acting out; published books include: Inside Voices, used to the dark, once drunk/opening; has taught at treatment centers, homeless shelters, late night programs and prisons.

Paul Hunter - books include Pullman, Mockingbird, & Belongings; 15 years teaching humanities at a private college-prep school; 1988 King County Arts Commission grant to develop full-length play, poetry has appeared in Bloomsbury Review, Poetry Northwest, The Raven Chronicles, and elsewhere.

Paul Nelson - 16-year radio veteran, award-winning journalist, poet, hosts/produces It Plays in Peoria Productions’ community radio programs. Poetry has been published in Nobody's Orphan Child, Paper Boat Press, Eat Your Mind & the Woodfrogs in Chaos anthology; first book released in 1996: We Don’t Celebrate Halloween in Cuba & Other Stories from Auburn.

Chuck Pirtle - MFA from the Naropa Institute, PhD from the University of Iowa; taught at Iowa and Naropa & has led writing workshops in the Colorado State Prisons; chapbooks include Regarding the Landscape and Talaria.

Sean Sarringar - a veteran musician, producer, and performance artist -- winner in the finals of the Seattle Poetry Slam at the OK Hotel. Hosted the Seattle Experimental Performance Art Showcase in 1996.