Faculty Information:
The Creativity Workshop is based in New York City and is taught around the world. It was established in 1993 by writer Shelley Berc and multimedia artist Alejandro Fogel to provide an alternative to traditional forms of education and thinking. The organization is dedicated to teaching individuals and groups about their creative processes.

Shelley Berc
Shelley Berc is a novelist and playwright. Her awards include two year Pew/TCG National Theatre Artists Residency grant for $100,000, two Lila Wallace/Readers Digest awards, a TCG Artists Residency travel grant, McKnight Fellowship, National Jewish Culture Playwriting award, Rockefeller/Bellagio Fellowship, NEA Opera/Music librettist fellowship, and an Outer Critics Circle nomination for best off-Broadway play. Her plays and dance texts have been performed in such venues as the American Repertory Theatre, Yale Rep, CSC, Portland Stage, Walker Arts Center, Tanglewood, Festival d'Avignon and the Edinburgh Festival. Her plays include A Girls Guide to the Divine Comedy, Dual Heads, Burn Out, Shooting Shiva, and To Dance the Memory of Angels. Rameau's Nephew, based on Diderot's work, was jointly written with director Andrei Belgrader and performed in 1990 at CSC Rep which also premiered their version of Scapin starring Stanley Tucci. It was nominated for best play of the year in 1990 by the Outer Critics Circle Award. The American Repertory Theatre produced her adaptations of Lulu,The Imaginary Invalid, and Servant of Two Masters and commissioned her to write a radical new musical, Ubu Rock based on Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi.
Berc’s novel, The Shape of Wilderness, was published by Coffee House Press in 1995. The New York Times called it "a vividly imagined parable...a strange and potent book...a fantastical world of unusual sensuality and invention". She has a new novella dante/A Girl's Own Guide to the Divine Comedy which is serialized in Exquisite Corpse, a journal edited by Andrei Codrescu. Berc also has her own regular column at the Corpse, Postcards from Shelley, which is an ongoing account of her travels all over the world. Her plays and essays have been published by Performing Arts Journal, Johns Hopkins Press, TCG Press, Yale Theater Magazine, Her fiction and poetry have also been published in BOMB, LitKit, among other publications and presses. Berc was Professor of the International Writing Program and the Iowa Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa from 1985-2000.

Alejandro Fogel
Alejandro Fogel is a multimedia artist working in painting, writing, installations, video, travel-performance, and digital art. He has exhibited his work in galleries and museums in Argentina, Bulgaria, Cuba, France, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, United States and Germany.
Since he had his first experience of the Andes, Mr. Fogel became deeply involved with the history and art of Pre-Columbian cultures and subsequently the roots of individuals in culture and the legacy of heritage. Since 1995 he has been creating art works that follow the footsteps of his father's journey from a Hassidic youth in Transylvania through the years of the Holocaust in labor camps and in hiding and his subsequent emigration to Argentina where Fogel was born.
Alejandro Fogel has received many awards and honors. He was a Fellow and a 2 year artist-in-residence of the Institute of Current World Affairs. He was an artist in residency at the Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy. He was selected by The Rolex Award for Enterprise in Geneva, Switzerland, which included the publication of his project The Inkas Road. His awards are numerous; they include, the Arche Biennal Award in Painting, the National Endowment for the Arts of Argentina First Prize in Painting, The Pio Collivadino Award at the Argentine National Gallery of Art, and the Richard Wagner International Association Award in Painting.
Alejandro Fogel worked with the Argentine Commission of Visual Arts helping to develop a native folk artists archive. He also established and taught a series of visual arts workshops for indigenous cultures living in remote areas of the Andes and Patagonia.
Alejandro Fogel's works are in museums and public and private collections in Argentina, United States, France, Brazil, Uruguay, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and Canada.

Other Activities:
Thursday, July 3, 2008: Arrival. Free day
Time for you to settle in and relax.

Friday, July 4: First day of workshop
Introduction to the hows and whys of the Creativity Workshop. Exercises in relaxation technique and guided visualization. Visualization: writing and drawing using the myth of the hero’s journey as our framework. Automatic Drawing exercise: Finding our hidden imagery. Exercise in ‘show and tell’ as a means of honing our natural storytelling styles and retrieving childhood memories to spark ideas. Instructor talks about famous writers, scientists, artists and their sources of inspiration, and how we can use some of those same sources.

Saturday, July 5:
Relaxation exercise followed by a visualization using map making. Map making as a way to find, chart, and tell fictional stories and true life experiences. Exercise in Automatic Writing. How automatic writing allows you to brainstorm and create in new and surprising ways. How we can use automatic writing to get over creative blocks and discover new ways of developing and editing work, while avoiding self-censorship. Why alternating between writing and drawing aids us in developing creative flexibility. The Interview: Listening and experiencing a life outside our own. How listening is as important as doing in creative work.

Sunday, July 6:
Today's visualization exercise uses letter writing as a way to explore voice in writing. Miniature Theatre: an exercise in storytelling with found objects. Automatic Writing continues with Writing in Groups. How writing and/or drawing with others can stimulate our imaginations and expand our points of view. Topics of instructors' talks may include: the importance of play and the need to value the creative process over product. Enforced Cafe-Sitting: the art of relaxed observation. How to carve out time for creativity in a busy schedule. How to do on-going creative work in a short modules of time? How we can use luck and coincidence to jump start creative projects. Creative freedom requires discipline: Developing daily practice.

Monday, July 7:
Today's visualization is The Myth of the Other: imagining ourselves living a parallel life. The imagination's magic phrase: What If. Autobiographical exercise: 'Trips to the Past:' Using a foreign environment to spark and sharpen memories of home.
Exercise exploring how to focus on the details of your environment using photography, writing and drawing. Importance of detail in making creative work come alive. Finding inspiration in the world around us. Topics of instructors talks may include: honoring our innate creativity and how to rekindle fearless imagination.

Tuesday, July 8:
Visualization exercise using maps and legends to tell our stories. Automatic drawing and writing exercises continue. How to be our own trickster and transform ourselves and our creative ventures. Exercise using postcards. Cafe exercise: Writing, drawing or photography to search for characters. Exercise in stimulating our perceptive abilities and discover and use images from the unconscious. Instructor talk: How to get over creative blocks and the fear of failure. Making our home and work environments inspiring for the imagination.

NOTE: There are no classes on the final 2 days of the workshop. These days are free for participants to put to active use the various techniques learned in the workshop and to explore the cultural, historical and natural riches of each location and its people. It is suggested you make your sightseeing plans during your stay and not before you come to allow for flexibility in your itinerary. Most excursions are available with very little time in advance.
Excursions are not included.

FREE DAY: Wednesday, July 9 - Suggested visit:
Take a guided tour to follow Kafka's steps through Prague.
or
Take a guided tour of Jewish Prague.
or
Visit Theresienstadt, Concentration Camp.

FREE DAY: Thursday, July 10 - Suggested visit:
Visit the Bohemian countryside of quaint villages and castles.
or
Go to Karlsbad - famous watering spa of the Victorians.

Friday, July 11: Departure

Facility Information:
BUDGET:
$1,850 (Includes tuition and 8 nights accommodation sharing a room and sharing a bathroom and continental breakfast at Hostel U Melunu or similar. It is a 30 minute walk or 15 minute subway ride from Hostel U Melunu to the classroom).

STANDARD PLUS:
$2,650 (Includes tuition and 8 nights accommodation in a single room with private bathroom, buffet breakfast included, no air conditioning, at Hotel Royal Esprit (3) or similar).

SUPERIOR:
$2,950 (Includes tuition and 8 nights accommodation in a single room with private bathroom, buffet breakfast and air conditioning included, at Hotel Pariz (4 ) or similar).

Notes:
includes tuition and 8 night accommodations

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