WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION:

This three-day workshop intensive offers a rare opportunity for professional and emerging performance-based artists to immerse themselves in innovative dramaturgical practices, with a special focus on land-based methodologies. Led by Mexican-Canadian artist Carlos Rivera, participants will explore how ideas, images, and movement can converge to shape resonant, story-driven performance work.

Rooted in Carlos’s interdisciplinary background across dance, theatre, and conceptual creation, the workshop combines hands-on exploration with critical reflection. Artists will gain practical tools to develop thematic clarity, articulate their creative vision, and strengthen narrative cohesion through movement.

Open to participants from all backgrounds, this workshop provides a creative space to generate new ideas or deepen existing projects. Participants will also gain insight into Carlos’s approach to working with the stories and lived experiences of racialized communities.

Participants will work individually and collectively, guided by land-based dramaturgical approaches and supported by research-based frameworks from leading artists and scholars who have shaped this evolving field.

Throughout the week, participants will:

• Explore land-based dramaturgical tools through embodied practice

• Engage in group discussions about the ideas presented.

• Develop a creation statement to anchor their artistic process.

• Engage with academic and artistic resources to expand their conceptual lens.

• Receive feedback from Carlos and peers to deepen their work.

• Connect with a community of artists committed to rigorous, collective process.

INSTRUCTOR BIO

Carlos Rivera Martinez is a performing artist originally from Mexico City and based in Montreal.  He specializes in conceptualizing, creating, producing, directing, and executing projects in  dance, theatre, and performance art. Carlos is a Nahua with deep roots in the Sierra Norte  region of Puebla, Mexico. 

He graduated from the Mexico City Dance School under the Mexico City Ministry of Culture  and from the Choreographic Research Center of the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBAL). He  completed courses, workshops, and diploma programs at the National Center for Research  and Development in Dance (CENIDI-Danza), the National Center for the Arts, and INBAL’s  professional dance schools. He received a fellowship from the Fund for Culture and the Arts,  participating in the Mexico-Canada Artist Residency Program at the Banff Centre for the Arts in  1999 and 2000. 

Carlos collaborated for sixteen years with Red Sky Performance, where he worked as an  associate artist, performer, rehearsal director, stage director, and co-choreographer on  numerous productions and toured Europe, Asia, Oceania, and North America. 

He studied theatre at the National Theatre School of Canada, graduating in 2018, and earned  an MFA in Theatre Directing from the Department of Theatre at the University of Ottawa. Carlos  has collaborated on artistic projects with various companies within the Mexican and Canadian  artistic and cultural diaspora, including: Grupo Propuesta, Ballet Folklórico de México,  Compañía de Teatro Nahual de México, Minotauro Danza Contemporánea, Yumare Arte  Escénico, Raven Spirit Dance, Lemon Tree Creations, MT Space Theatre, Vancouver Opera,  Jaberi Dance Theatre, Electric Company, The Chimera Project, and Micro-Scope Productions,  among others. 

Carlos has been a member of the academic staff at various arts education institutions, such as  the National School of Folkloric Dance (Mexico), the University of Ottawa (as an assistant  professor), the Banff Centre for the Arts (as a faculty member in the Indigenous Arts program),  and Bishop’s University (as a visiting artist) and University of Kansas ( visiting artists). He has  taught master classes at universities, institutes, and educational organizations in Mexico,  China, Costa Rica, the United States, and Canada.