Push Play: A Workshop on Imagination and the Interview

A one-year interdisciplinary MA program training students in oral history method and theory. www.oralhistory.columbia.edu

Columbia Oral History MA Program

PUSH PLAY: A WORKSHOP ON THE IMAGINATION AND THE INTERVIEW with Liza Zapol and Nicki Pombier Berger 
This hands-on workshop explores the practice of oral history as art. How can we deepen our understanding of memory, prompts, and the interview by engaging other artistic disciplines, such as theatre and performance art? How can we re-imagine the site of the interview itself as art? What can we learn from projects that make artful use of oral history, as source material and as integral to their process? In this workshop, participants will experiment through play: engaging theatrical memory exercises, embodying explorations of the past, improvising and creating scenes. We will discuss our own practices as part of a larger conversation about oral history and creativity. This workshop is open to anyone interested in drawing on creativity and play to inspire, enliven and amplify oral history-based work. 
Liza Zapol is an artist and an oral historian. She creates sound, multimedia and performance on the themes of memory and place, using documentary methods. Liza leads the oral history project at <A HREF="http://www.gvshp.org/_gvshp/index.htm" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation</A>. Liza also works with the <A HREF="http://whitney.org/Education/Community" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Whitney Museum of American Art</A>, where she has conducted interviews and historic research about the Meatpacking District. She teaches Oral History Methods at the New School for Drama. Liza has a MA in Oral History from Columbia University. She trained as an actor at Northwestern University, specialized in physical theater at the <A HREF="http://www.lispa.co.uk/" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">London International School of Performing Arts</A>, and earned a certificate from the <A HREF="http://www.rada.ac.uk/" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts</A>. Liza collaborates with Director Julie Kline to create dynamic <A HREF="http://www.tcg.org/publications/at/issue/featuredstory.cfm?story=3&indexID=43" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">oral history based theater in senior centers</A> in New York. Other theater and dance collaborations include an artist’s residency with iLAND, creating interview-based installations with True Body Project NYC, collaborating with Elevator Repair Service, and co-founding the Combustibles, a physical theater company. She has lectured and consulted widely to create oral history projects, live performance events, and audio materials for museums and cultural institutions.
Nicki Pombier Berger is an oral historian, educator, and interdisciplinary artist. She is part-time faculty member at The New School for Drama and has taught oral history workshops in a wide range of contexts. As oral historian, she works on arts-based community engagement projects, such as A Fierce Kind of Love at Temple University's Institute on Disabilities, where she trained volunteers to interview narrators with intellectual disabilities, and edited content for a multimedia exhibits in Pennsylvania’s State Capitol and Philadelphia’s City Hall. Previously, she designed and produced the TILL Living Legacy Project, an oral history-based professional development film that won the 2015 Innovation Award from the Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers. In 2013, she produced an online multimedia collection of stories from self-advocates with Down syndrome. From 2010-2013, she led several community engagement efforts at the national nonprofit StoryCorps.  As Founding Editor of <A HREF="http://www.underwaternewyork.com/" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Underwater New York</A>, she publishes art, music and writing on the waterways of New York City, and is co-editor of the book, Silent Beaches, Untold Stories: New York City's Forgotten Waterfront (Damiani).  Nicki has an MA in Oral History (Columbia University), an MFA in Writing (Sarah Lawrence College), and a BS in the Foreign Service (Georgetown University). 
*For our oral history workshops, please pay what you can. We suggest $30 for students, recent graduates, or others who are financially constrained, while we suggest that professionals and those with more resources should pay more. All profits from these events go towards our annual merit scholarship for an OHMA students.

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Push Play: A Workshop on Imagination and the Interview

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