Ben Spatz

Ben Spatz


Ben has over ten years of experience as a director, performer, and leader of theatrical research. He is the founder and leader of Urban Research Theater, which began in Wroclaw, Poland in 2004 and is now active in New York City. Ben is also a doctoral student at the CUNY Graduate Center and a teaching fellow at Brooklyn College. He offers workshops in song-based performance practice in New York City and beyond.


Website: http://www.urbanresearchtheater.com


Posts by Ben Spatz:



    Yuval Ron Ensemble: Expedition in Spain (June 2010)

    AN INVITATION FROM THE YUVAL RON ENSEMBLE: Dear friends, I am writing to invite you to come with me on an extraordinary musical journey to the historical land of Andalusia, where Jews, Muslims, Christians and Gypsies created the fiery Andalusi and Flamenco music and dance styles. THIS JUNE, we will spend time with the Gypsy musicians and ... [ READ MORE ]

    URT Workshops in Jan. (NYC)

    Urban Research Theater will offer two intensive one-day workshops in January. RIVER OF SONG Led by Ben Spatz Monday, 12pm-5pm January 4, 2009 PHYSICAL TRAINING FOR ACTORS Led by Massimiliano Balduzzi Monday, 12pm-5pm January 11, 2009 Both workshops will take place at Brooklyn College. The fee is $50 for either workshop or $75 for both. For more information, please visit: www.urbanresearchtheater.com With specific questions or to secure a ... [ READ MORE ]

    Workshops w/ Roberta Carreri (NYC)

    More information: [link] ... [ READ MORE ]

    What do you practice?

    This site is getting between ten and thirty unique hits per day, but most people who visit are not leaving comments. I wonder why. People are reading my “starting points” post, but not responding to it. Are the questions too broad? Too theoretical? Does it sound academic? Or esoteric? Part of the purpose of this forum ... [ READ MORE ]

    “Conversations Around Choreography” (London)

    Siobhan Davies, choreographer and artistic director of Siobhan Davies Studios, invites eminent artists from outside the world of dance to discuss creative process. Theatre, music, poetry and fiction, visual art, ceramics, playwrighting, performance, and more. ... [ READ MORE ]

    URT Showing 12/6 (NYC)

    In August, Urban Research Theater began work on a new untitled performance project. Currently in the early stages of development, the piece is evolving out of original text, songs, and physical actions within an open-ended narrative frame. In this project, we attempt to integrate techniques from several lines of long-term performance research into a theatrical ... [ READ MORE ]

    What is technique?

    This week I will participate in the “Performance as Research” working group at the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) conference in Puerto Rico. The paper I have been developing for this working group turns on the notion of TECHNIQUE, which I now realize is probably going to be central to my dissertation as well. ... [ READ MORE ]

    Radio interview with Thomas Richards

    http://radiowroclove.pl/?p=5565 This is quite nice… and what crazy music in the background! [Part1] [Part2] [Part3] ... [ READ MORE ]

    Grotowski Symposium in Boston

    Emerson College in Boston, MA will host a day of Grotowski-related events on October 30. More info: [pdf] ... [ READ MORE ]

    Collective Arts Think Tank

    I have sometimes been heard to complain that the artistic production culture in New York City is excessively product-oriented, to the extreme detriment of the quality of this work. I now realize that an element of this issue, which I’ve never consciously thought of before, has been the lack of a strong, principled stand on ... [ READ MORE ]