Paul Holmquist, a faculty member in the Columbia College Chicago Department of Creative Arts Therapies as well as the department’s  academic manager/coordinator,  will lead a workshop on “Deepened Dynamics” as part of a day of workshops about the application of Laban Movement Analysis to theatre, dance, and other disciplines. Called Learn Laban, the event takes place at Columbia College Chicago, 624 S. Michigan, room 1105, in downtown Chicago. The cost is $50 per workshop, or $130 for all three workshops. The Department of Creative Arts Therapies is part of Columbia College Chicago’s School of Fine and Performing Arts, which also includes the departments of Theatre, Music, Dance, Art + Design, Fashion Studies, Photography, and Business & Entrepreneurship.

Holmquist received a Graduate Laban Certificate in Movement Analysis from Columbia College Chicago in 2005. “I find the material extremely applicable to work on the stage as a director and actor,” says Holmquist. “[Laban Movement Analysis] offers us a straightforward language when talking about movement that I find indispensable when creating a complex, movement-based theatrical production. . . . The core theory I refer to when I work, and at the heart of many of the therapeutic methods we teach in LMA application, is the concept of Effort Modulation. Through rehearsal and performance, and in therapeutic process with a trained performing arts therapist, we can purposefully and meaningfully adjust our movement approach to a situation. Where once we didn’t know any other way of managing a challenging circumstance without pressing and punching our way through it, with practice, one finds a solution might also lie in floating or gliding.  A mindful modulation of effort qualities opens up our options.”

Adds Holmquist: “For over 30 years, our department has housed the only Dance/Movement Therapy and Counseling program in the Midwest approved by the American Dance Therapy Association. In the Fall of 2016, we’ll start our first class of graduate students pursuing their MA in Drama Therapy and Counseling, coordinated with the educational requirements set by the North American Drama Therapy Association. This is an exciting moment for the department, offering a new professional pathway for Columbia students seeking careers in the performing arts!” For more information on the Drama Therapy & Counseling MA program at Columbia College Chicago, email bbrownholtz@colum.edu, call 312-369-7697, or visit online at www.colum.edu/dcat.

 

Holmquist has also directed a new musical co-authored by Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department alumnus Christopher Walsh. Called Soon I Will Be Invincible, it opens June 11 and runs through July 19 at Lifeline Theatre, 6912 N. Glenwood, in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood. Based on a 2007 novel by Austin Grossman, this world premiere concerns a group of contemporary superheroes seeking to save the world from a devious doctor with a doomsday plan. Both Holmquist and Walsh are Lifeline ensemble members. The show’s cast includes Justine Turner, a 2002 graduate of the Columbia College Theatre Department’s BA Program in Acting. Lifeline managing director Allison Cain is also a Columbia alumna. For tickets, call 773-761-4477 or click here.