• CPP 2024 instructor, Week One

    ELLEN LAUREN was a founding member and co-artistic director along with Anne Bogart of the renowned SITI Company based in New York City. For over 30 years she toured nationally and internationally as a leading performer in SITI’s original devised works, classic play from the Western canon and collaborations with a number of artists including : Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (Meditations on A Rite of Spring), Martha Graham Dance Company (American Document), visual artist Ann Hamilton (the event of the thread and theatre is a blank page) Elizabeth Streb Extreme Action Dance (Falling & Loving) and New York City Opera (Seven Deadly Sins) among others.

    Performance venues and Festivals include: The Brooklyn Academy of Music, (Opera House, The Harvey, Fisher, Next Wave), Getty Villa, Guthrie Theatre, Park Avenue Armory NYC, Skirball Center, Classic Stage Company, Women’s Project, Miller Theater, Bonn Festival Germany, Melbourne Festival, Iberoamericano Bogotá, seven Humana Festivals at Actors Theatre Louisville, Bobigny94 Festival Paris, Toga International Arts Festival, Theatre Olympics 2019, UCLA Center for the Art of Performance, Yerba Buena Arts Center, Off Center Festival, UNC Chapel Hill Arts Center, Edinburgh Festival, Melbourne Festival, Singapore Festival, Irish Life Festival, Wexner Center, Krannert Center, and the Walker Art Center, New York Live Arts, New York Theatre Workshop, The Public Theater, PS 122, Westbeth Arts Center, Under the Radar Festival, New York City Opera at Lincoln Center, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Joyce Theater.

    As the head of SITI’s educational programming, she has taught at over 300 schools, companies, universities, and festivals around the world. She has also designed and taught the New York based studios, SITI's bi-annual Conservatory, and SITI’s annual Training Intensive at Skidmore College each summer for over 30 years.

    Ms. Lauren is an Associate Artist with the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) led by Tadashi Suzuki based in Toga Mura Village, Japan. Since 1989 she has performed around the world with SCOT in Dionysus (Agave), Oedipus (Jocasta), Waiting for Romeo (Juliet), King Lear (Goneril), and Electra (Clytemnestra). Venues with SCOT include: Kitchijoji Theater Tokyo, Moscow Art Theatre, Teatro Olympico Vicenza, Asti Festival, Toga International Festival, Alexandrinsky Theatre in St Peterburg Russia, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Theatre Olympics Japan, Theatre Olympics in Athens and Delphi, the Olympic Arts Festival in Shizuoka Japan, Santiago Chile, Buenos Aires Festival, Sao Paulo Brazil, The Carnuntum Festival in Vienna, Bogotá Festival, Vienna Festival, Harbor Front Festival Toronto, Istanbul Festival, Festival Mundial Colombia, Singapore Festival, Montpelier France, and the Hong Kong Festival.

    She is a founding member of the International Consortium on Suzuki Training and produced “Transformation through Training: 2017 International Symposium on SCOT and the Suzuki Training" at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. She produced SCOT’s last US performances of their world-renowned Trojan Women at the symposium.

    Ms. Lauren has been an ongoing faculty member at The Juilliard School of Drama at Lincoln Center for over 23 years teaching the Suzuki Method. She has also directed Iphigenia and Other Daughters (Juilliard Group 43), Trojan Women (Juilliard Group 47) and Oresteia (Group 53). In addition she directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the TFT MFA program at UCLA.

    Representative guest faculty and workshops include: Ladder Arts in Budapest R.Evolución Latina San Juan and New York, TEAC National Academy Helsinki, Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Carlos Universidad and Vertiço in Madrid, Soif Compagnie Paris, Maastricht Academy, Windsor University, Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, INCITE at Carriage Works in Sydney, St Edwards University, Moscow Art Theatre, Sfumato Theatre Bulgaria, Iceland National Academy, Smashing Times Human Rights and Theatre Festival in Dublin, Casa Teatro de Bogotá, Beijing Academy, Center Theatre Activity Milan, UC Los Angeles, Ohio State, Western Michigan, Fordham, The New School, and Columbia University in New York, among others.

    She regularly teaches on behalf of Tadashi Suzuki and SCOT at the Toga International Summer Training Camp, a program she attended as a student in 1981, and went on to lead beginning in 2006.

    With SITI Company, Ms Lauren helped create a training program at Outside In Theater Company in Los Angeles to reflect the diverse voices, stories, and communities of the LA area. She has collaborated with Luis Salgado and R.Evolución Latina to create training opportunities for emerging artists in Puerto Rico.

    In the autumn of 2023, she assisted on Project SPACE BRIDGE at La Mama in New York City with Irina Kruzhilina - a program highlighting the stories of displaced Russian youths due to the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

    Ms. Lauren has been a resident Company member at the Alley Theater, Houston Texas (3 years), StageWest (4 years), and the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre (5 years)

    She was the first recipient of the Theatre Communications Group’s Fox Fellowship for Distinguished Achievement. She is published in American Theatre Magazine (“In Search of Stillness”).

    Scott Cumming’s book, Remaking American Theater: Charles Mee, Anne Bogart and the SITI Company (Cambridge Studies in American Theatre and Drama), was published in 2010, and in 2018 Mr. Cummings released a chapter in his book, Actors’ Actors, published by Palgrave MacMillan, about Ms. Lauren’s career and practice.

    She is currently working on her book, The Invisible Body.

  • CPP 2024 instructor, Week Two

    SARAH DOWLING has worked since 2002 with Punchdrunk and was Associate Director on their last show The Burnt City. For Punchdrunk, she created the roles of Lady Macbeth: Sleep No More, Lady Capulet: Romeo and Juliet, Tell Tale Heart: Masque of the Red Death, Dolores Grey: The Drowned Man, and Hecuba: The Burnt City. Parallel to her work with Punchdrunk Sarah runs her own dance theatre company. She has been an Associate Artist at The Royal Opera House and is currently a Studio Wayne McGregor Artist. Sarah also movement directs for film, theatre and opera including: productions at the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, Royal Opera House and films: Cats the Movie, Rebecca, Mary Queen of Scots, Fantastic Beasts and TV series Brave New World.

2024 instructors

images__left: Sarah Dowling in Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City, photo by Julian Abrahams / right: Ellen Lauren, photo by Eric Bondoc

CPP staff

  • CPP Artistic Director

    IVAN VALENTIN TALIJANCIC is a time-based artist and cultural producer, working at the intersection of theater, dance, film, installation art, new media, journalism, curatorial work and education in New York and around the globe. Ivan completed his undergraduate studies in Theater at the University of California, San Diego, and earned his Master of Fine Arts degree at Columbia University in the New York City.

    As a co-founder of WaxFactory, a New York based international multidisciplinary art group, he has created over 20 works works to date, presented at many preeminent venues on four continents. Ivan’s creative output spans a diverse range of art projects ranging from intimate chamber cross-media works at established venues (blind.ness at Performance Space 122 in 2008 & COIL 2010 Festival,) site-specific works at unconventional sites (QUARTET v2.0 at the former cannon factory in Long Island City in 2002,) large-scale immersive productions taking up an entire city block (LADYFROMTHESEAat the Old American Can Factory in Brooklyn in 2001 and 2003,) and feature film (416 MINUTES, shot on location around NYC, and currently in post-production.) His works have twice been featured in annual Worldwide Critics Surveys published by Tanz-Ballet International magazine (Berlin, Germany) -- LADYFROMTHESEA as the "most innovative production of the year", and X - A VIDEO OPERA in 2007 as the "most innovative collaboration" with composer Katharina Rosenberger. His works have been shown at numerous venues throughout the New York City (Lincoln Center, PS122, Abrons Art Center, 3LD Art+Techology Center, Japan Society, Dixon Place, HERE, Soho Rep, The Invisible Dog) and at numerous international venues and festivals including the ICA/Institute for Contemporary Art (London, UK,) Sónar (Barcelona, Spain,) Centre Pompidou (Paris, France,) Gulbenkian Museum (Lisbon, Portugal,) Zürcher Theaterspektakel (Zurich, Switzerland,) Cankarjev Dom (Ljubljana, Slovenia,) FIT/International Theater Festival (Caracas, Venezuela,) Centro Julio Le Parc (Mendoza, Argentina,) Adelaide Festival (Adelaide, Australia) and many others.

    His creative projects have likewise been supported by numerous grants, fellowships and residencies, including Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart, Germany,) Bogliasco Foundation (Genova, Italy,) Emily Harvey Foundation (Venice, Italy,) the Hermitage Artist Retreat (Manasota, FL,) the Marble House Project (Dorset, VT,) and Millay Arts (Austerlitz, NY.)

    In addition to his creative work, Ivan has lectured at many prestigious universities in the United States and abroad: New York University / Tisch School of the Arts; Playwrightds Horizon Theater School’s Devised Theater Program, Barnard College at Columbia University, Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, Princeton University, Brown University, Towson University, Lewis & Clark College, City University of New York, Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg (Stuttgart, Germany,) and Università Ca’ Foscari (Venice, Italy,) among others, and is the Founder of Contemporary Performance Practices, an international summer training program in Croatia. Ivan frequently lends his expertise in the arts to serve on public and private funding and artist residency adjudication panels for institutions such as the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Brooklyn Arts Council, the Bogliasco Foundation, ART/New York, etc. As a journalist, Ivan is a regular arts contributor for BOMB magazine, the Brooklyn Rail, HowlRound and other publications, and currently serves on the selection committee for the Bessies - the New York Dance and Performance Awards.

    Ivan has recently been appointed as the Programme Director for MFA International Theatre Practice and Performance and MA/MFA Collaborative Theatre Making courses at the Rose Bruford College in London, UK.

  • CPP Educational Advisor

    ERIKA LATTA is the artistic co-director and co-founder of WaxFactory in New York City. WaxFactory continues to nurture a hybrid approach, based on unconventional narrative styles, originally dramaturgy, visual and physical rigor, technological experimentation and site-responsive work. With the company, she works as a director, writer, actor, sound designer and educator. As an actor and director she has presented work in international venues and festivals throughout Europe and Latin America creating long lasting partnerships with artists and designers. She holds a BFA in Theater from the University of Washington, and an MFA in Acting from Columbia University.

    Erika is also an associate director of the French trans-media company Begat Theater. For Begat, she co-conceived, directed, designed sound and co-wrote several of Begat productions. Begat Theater’s productions have been awarded numerous grants, co-productions and partnerships, as well as the generous support from FACE (French American Fund for Contemporary Theater). Erika is a member of the Society of Authors (SACD) in France, and she continues to author and co-author many of the original productions for both WaxFactory and Begat Theater.

    Outside her company, she has worked with Felix Barret and Maxine Doyle of Punchdrunk (SLEEP NO MORE), Robert Wilson at the Watermill Center, Anne Bogart (SITI Company), Robert Woodruff, Victor Gautier Martin, Tina Landau, and Chuck Mee , among others.

    Erika has been awarded a number of European performing arts grants and residencies, most notably the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany and the Bogliasco Foundation in Bogliasco, Italy. She continues to work in cinema both as an actor, director and photographer in feature length films, hybrid performance and new media.

    She has studied and trained in modern dance; Viewpoints with Anne Bogart (SITI Company), the Suzuki Method of acting in Toga-Mura, Japan with Robyn Hunt, and at Columbia University with Ellen Lauren.

    Erika was recently a visiting assistant professor at Colgate University, and at the University of North Carolina, School of the Arts, where she taught Viewpoints, the Suzuki Method of Acting, and composition in devised theater.

    Most recently she has performed in WaxFactory’s one-woman show LULU XX directed by Ivan Talijancic at the Connelly Theater in New York, PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER! at the Rubenstein Atrium in Lincoln Center, Punchdrunk's SLEEP NO MORE at the McKittrick Hotel (NYC) and TIME, A FAIR HUSTLER at the Artist Repertory in Portland, Oregon. Her direction of HOPE by Hope Salas, a one woman show was last seen at the Wild Project in New York. Upcoming projects include: HOME a WaxFactory / Begat Theater / Hand2Mouth collaboration, the LULU XX international tour, the direction of STRANGE JOY, ARTIFICIAL EDEN, and the continued tours of HIDDEN STORIES and LA DISPARITION.

    She is currently an Assistant Professor at the School for Contemporary Art at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.

images__left: Ivan V Talijancic, photo by Maria Baranova / right: Erika Latta, photo by Jean Claude Dhien