New(to)Town offers physical theatre training for all

We sat down to talk with the brilliant minds behind the New(to)Town Collective. Their goal? To provide accessible, experimental workshops (Training Jams) and to cross-pollinate amongst communities in and out of Vancouver. A few of its founders — Anjela Magpantay, Davey Calderon, and Avyen von Waldenburg — told us about the work they do in the community, how they came to be, and where they plan to go.

How was New(to)Town Collective born?

New(to)Town Collective really started before we knew we were New(to)Town Collective. We were a bunch of theatre students who were either close to graduating, or had graduated, and wanted to create an environment for ourselves where we could keep jamming on ideas that we’ve learned from SFU and other instructors. We were always gathering in coffee shops until 2am and one day we were like, “Let’s just go into the studio and do the thing that we were trained to do and actually do it on our feet.”

Why the name “New(to)Town Collective”?

For research on Donut Holes in Orbit by Prince Gomolvilas, one of our early projects, we would walk through Chinatown and we went to New Town Bakery and we were joking “what about New Town Bakery?” and I said “What about New to Town?” Putting the (to) between “New” and “Town” brought about the idea that the show was about how people that felt very outside of the current society always feel new to town. And once we did create the collective, all four of us, (there was also a fifth member call Eddy Van Wyk), when all five of us first started we still loved the name because it meant that it was a culminating of people from different walks of life. A lot of people felt like they’re not part of a community living in Vancouver.

What does New(to)Town Collective do?

We hold a series of workshops, usually four because there’s four of us, so that there is room for us to co-facilitate, but also have a break. It’s drop-in style, so you don’t have to attend every week, you can just come in. It’s like going to the gym, really. If Avyen’s teaching clowning, for example, you know that he’s teaching clowning because it’s on the website. We’ve done a lot of work in social media to tell potential participants that this is going to be the workshop this week. So you come in, do clowning and then after three hours we finish and next week is totally something different or can be, if we wanted it to be, a continuation of the workshop previous.

What do your workshops or “Training Jams” look like?

Essentially, Training Jams are performance laboratories. There’s a space, all four of us are there. People come in. We have what we call a check-in, where each person says something about themselves, something that might be affecting them that day, what have you. Then, the lead facilitator, usually two people or one of us, will start the exercises. We go through the exercise that we’ve learned and adapt it to the group. If in the middle of those exercises, we see individuals or groups of people doing something spontaneous in the moment, we will react and adjust accordingly. If it feels like the energy of the group is going there, and if it feels like it’s useful to the idea, we’ll go in that direction.

We don’t do scenes or monologues, but we’ve had workshops called ‘Progressive Performance’ which is kind of something different from Training Jams. It’s to develop something that you’re working on like a monologue, a poem, a script, or any curiosity you might have. We have training jams, we also have Progressive Performance and we also have pop-up training jams. They happen in partnership with festivals. We’ve had a partnership with Vines Festival that happens in August and we’ve recently had a partnership with Diwali in BC last fall.

What makes your style of training unique?

We’re pulling on the things that are already there for the individual who does come in and is willing to play. The whole concept of acting training for us is a lot of undoing of the extra things that we put on ourselves from society. We’re just assisting by giving them a kind reminder of like “hey, you actually have this, and what about this, and your elbows doing something, why don’t you extend that because it feels like your body wants to go somewhere.” That’s how we work as a collective. Our role in the artistic community is quite unique because our main focus is training and no other theatre company really does that. They focus on producing shows. We’re focused on providing space for artists to cross-pollinate and to stay warm.

Who can attend a Training Jam?

We can provide Training Jams for anyone and everyone. It’s a space of no pressure; social masks off. We’ve seen a transition from students who were curious and just wanted to stay warm to folks from the non-artistic community who were curious about what we do and that are curious about physical expression. We’ve had people from different walks of life attend because they want to experience something new without having to drop a couple hundred dollars. It’s interesting because it has attracted a lot of people that are new to town. We’ve had some really interesting participants — an animator, a social worker and even some retirees. If you’re alive, you’re a performer (laughter).

How much does it cost to attend a Training Jam?

Its all by donation. One of the things that was a problem for us as young emerging artists is that training is expensive. Dancers are able to come to dance class, they stay warm, and that’s how they get employed. But for actors they’re just like, “Yeah, you’re done school. Go and get a job.” One of the most humbling things about this performance training is that you know you don’t have everything even though you’ve finished school, you’ve finished a workshop, you’ve paid for an instructor, but you’re not necessarily finished your work. Part of our mandate is to help the artists who are struggling to keep training. All the funding we get comes from donations. Sometimes we produce work for festivals. All of the donations go towards ASL interpreters, application fees, space rentals.

You mentioned that some of your donations go towards ASL interpreters. How do you incorporate accessibility into your work?

We’ve had folks from the Deaf community attend our workshops and that’s largely influenced how we change the structure of the workshop. It was a huge learning process because we advertise our training as accessible as much as possible. We do our very best with the resources that we have and we have worked with an ASL interpreters before. Working with an ASL interpreter is very different from just preparing a workshop. Usually we just sit down and talk about the workshop we want to facilitate and that’s it. But with an ASL interpreter there comes a lot of thought and exact timing. The biggest thing for us is that we really try to make a safe space of presence. It doesn’t matter what your skill level is, it doesn’t matter what your body is in the space.We just ask you to try and be present with us in the space. We try to encourage that type of energy and time with each other even if it’s only three hours.

What’s in the future for New(to)Town Collective?

Touring beyond (Metro Vancouver) would be super cool. Internationally. We’re all emerging professionals and we’ve met people from all over the world who are interested in the work we do and don’t have anything like it where they are from. We’re really excited to keep connecting with different communities here in Vancouver.

Don’t miss New(to)Town’s next Training Jam series with guest facilitator Raïna von Waldenburg on February 25th, 5-8pm and March 4th, 5-8pm. Then one led by us on March 11th, 5-8pm. This round of Training Jams are at the Playwrights Theatre Centre (739 Gore Ave)!