Batdorf News

November 2023 catchup

I had the opportunity to present for the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival Empowerment weekend in September. I co-facilitated a workshop titled “On the Road With a Suitcase and a Story” and spoke on the panel “Empowered Women: Taking the Reins of Your Career”. I was very moved and inspired by the entire weekend, and as I will be in LA for 2 months this winter, I was happy to make some new friends in the industry there. After that workshop I have decided to start a new solo… YIKES.

This coming weekend I will be in Seattle presenting on a support group of an LGBTQ+ community that I facilitate with a group that is truly now family. This group and my co-facilitators are dear to my heart- I can’t believe it has been running almost every week since the pandemic (over 2 years now!).

I just booked my flight for India this April, where I will be in Varanasi, getting to know NIRMAN, Irfana Majumdar and the local area for a potential version of “What Dreams?” there in 2025 or potential other projects… I will also have an artist retreat in Mussoorie, India to start work on the solo- I have even lined up a costume designer.

Gulce Oral and I are fundraising and working on “What Dreams/Ne Hayali?” for The Bergama Theatre Festival August 2024. This is an interactive, immersive, theatre event in Asclepieion, an ancient healing site/hospital in Bergama/Pergamon, where women’s histories have been erased. We are meeting with local women there and creating mythologized versions of their stories and elements/qualities revealed through these moving discussions. If you have any cash lying around that you don’t know what to do with, this is a HUGE project and we need some support! As you may know, Turkey is in economic crisis, and our hope has always been to pay women artists and this is even more critical now. (Email me! Or go to this link- my company is called Moleman Productions)

I will also teach a TBT workshop to film and TV actors in June in Istanbul and have an artist retreat for the solo in Assos, Turkey, thanks to SAYE Collective.

It looks like we might FINALLY release the online audio pieces I started long, long ago, January 2024 on a site called BATDORF JUKEBOX. Hopefully followed by the animated video of “The Story of Little Tiny” based on my play “kid” with Marta Juric’s beautiful animation.

May 2023 catchup

I have moved to a home/studio in Honeywood, Ontario! I recently directed Blue: A Rhapsody in Blubber at the Theatre Lab in Florida with Lynn McNutt in May, which went really well and Blue is awaiting touring dates! (see photos below) This July/August Erika is planning a site specific project with Gulce Oral in Asklepion (Turkey) in 2024 (with research there at the Bergama Theatre Festival this summer)! It looks like we may release (crossing all my fingers and toes) some online/audio and video I started in the pandemic and we are still working on this TBT video below… we have more recent interviews to add!

BSI 2023 cancelled

I decided to cancel the BSI this year (sorry… I know there are many out there contacting me that were planning to come!). My various travel projects are growing, which is very exciting, so I am trying to preserve some time in my new country studio… visioning what can happen here!! Stay tuned!

July 2022 catchup

Batdorf did a BSI June 2022 followed by performing at the Geneva Somatics Dance Conference. Before that she was in Turkey after teaching The Batdorf Technique to MFA actors at Florida Atlantic University, April 25-29th, 2022. In Turkey she created a site specific show with Gulce Oral and students from Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University in the ruins of Troy in mid May. After that, Batdorf taught TBT at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, then a workshop in performance creation at the theatre festival in Bergama. (Where the site specific show will be!)

Batdorf is currently the Graduate Program Director of the MFA in theatre at York University, and writing, developing some audio projects and an animated video of one of her plays, hopefully to come out this spring. She has also creating some fun music with her friend and colleague sound designer Richard Feren as The Haunted Palace, her favourite wacky and unexpected pandemic pivot.

Images from Turkey, Blue, music, and online projects to come

Audiences followed performers through the ancient site of Troy and watched short physical monologues. It was called Tabaka, and this is Gulce my collaborator holding our poster!
Lynn McNutt in Blue: A Rhapsody in Blubber at TheatreLab 2023. Written and performed by Lynn McNutt; E Batdorf: Directing; Rob Perry: Lighting, April Soroko: Set/Costume, Glenn Swan: Sound.
We got goofy and “Elder Goth”! Here is Richard and I making music and preparing for our video for The Haunted Palace… and audio dramas coming soon.

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