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Rivka Eckert
Theatre-maker, Activist, EducatorRivka Eckert is a community cultural development theatre-maker using performing arts as a means of cross-cultural communication. She received her M.F.A in Theatre for Youth from Arizona State University and her B.A. in Theatre Education and Writing, Literature and Publishing from Emerson College. Eckert has taught Theatre and English in prisons, high schools, and middle schools and worked with the Peace Corps in Samoa and Liberia. As an Assistant Professor in the Theatre and Dance Department at SUNY Potsdam, Eckert teaches Theatre and Community, Devising Theatre, Applied Theatre, Directing, Acting/Scene Study, Pivotal Playwrights, and Play Interpretation and Analysis. She is currently working with Potsdam Public Library on Breaking Barriers: A Community Play Reading Series. Eckert organizes SUNY Potsdam's Plays Across Prison Walls Festival, which has been running since 2018. View a recording of the 2019 project, or watch the recorded virtual performances from 2020 (Thursday, 11/19, Friday, 11/20, and Sat. 11/21. Eckert directed Caryl Churchill's Love and Information, opened Nov. 2019. She is workshopping North Country Bound, an ethnographic performance based on interviews with retired correctional officers and staff, which had a virtual staged reading in March 2021. Her current book project, Into Abolition: A Guidebook for Liberatory Theatre-making Practices, explores theatre-making as disruption to capitalism -- highlighting theatre projects/programs in prisons, higher education, the foster care system, and the health care system.
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Breaking Barriers: A Community Play Reading Series Spring/Summer 2022
Breaking Barriers is a four-part series looking at issues that are controversial and central to the North Country community through the lens of theatre arts.
Actors will read scripts in the style of a staged or choral reading, reading from music stands with spoken stage directions. Following the readings, there will be a conversation between Breaking Barriers creators, participants and community organization liaisons meant to engage in the themes, concerns, and impact of the play.
To learn more about Breaking Barriers and its creation and purpose, visit https://potsdamlibrary.org/new-ppl-play-series-breaks.../
This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and administered by the St. Lawrence County Arts Council.
Listen to Rivka's interview on North Country Public Radio, talking about the project!
More details/information about each reading can be found here:
April 8th: St Lawrence Valley Renewal House // Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive
April 22nd: Adirondack Diversity Initiative // Vincent Terrell Durham's Polar Bears, Black Bears and Prairie-fringed Orchids
May 6th: Associated Colleges of the St Lawrence Valley // Kirsten Greenidge's Baltimore
June 10th: John Brown Lives! // Elaine Kuracina's Curios and Crinolines
Actors will read scripts in the style of a staged or choral reading, reading from music stands with spoken stage directions. Following the readings, there will be a conversation between Breaking Barriers creators, participants and community organization liaisons meant to engage in the themes, concerns, and impact of the play.
To learn more about Breaking Barriers and its creation and purpose, visit https://potsdamlibrary.org/new-ppl-play-series-breaks.../
This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and administered by the St. Lawrence County Arts Council.
Listen to Rivka's interview on North Country Public Radio, talking about the project!
More details/information about each reading can be found here:
April 8th: St Lawrence Valley Renewal House // Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive
April 22nd: Adirondack Diversity Initiative // Vincent Terrell Durham's Polar Bears, Black Bears and Prairie-fringed Orchids
May 6th: Associated Colleges of the St Lawrence Valley // Kirsten Greenidge's Baltimore
June 10th: John Brown Lives! // Elaine Kuracina's Curios and Crinolines
Plays ACross the Walls 2021: Nov. 18-22
Assistant Professor Rivka Eckert and the Department of Theatre and Dance at SUNY Potsdam present Plays Across the Walls, a play festival of nine short plays by playwrights from across the globe. The free Plays Across the Walls Festival will run from November 18-21 at the Black Box Theater in SUNY Potsdam’s Performing Arts Center. A free community show will also be held at the Potsdam Public Library on November 22, 2021 at 7:30 p.m.
Admission to the festival is free, and run-time for each program is approximately 50 minutes. Each night features different performances. To reserve a free ticket, register through https://sunypotsdam.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dnEwVM5M7MqA9jo or use the QR code on the fliers.
Admission to the festival is free, and run-time for each program is approximately 50 minutes. Each night features different performances. To reserve a free ticket, register through https://sunypotsdam.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dnEwVM5M7MqA9jo or use the QR code on the fliers.
North Country Bound
Listen Jody Tosti's interview with Rivka on North Country Kitchen Table Conversations on North Country Bound and the ripple impact of correctional communities on the people who work there. (March 2021)
Based on interviews with retired correctional officers, staff, and administration, this piece of ethnotheatre explores the impact of correctional facilities on rural communities through the perspectives of five characters. After rescheduling due to COVID-19, the virtual staged reading took place on March 26, 2021. Click here to view the reading.
Feature on Plays Across the Walls 2020 in NNY360 |
Read the Watertown Daily Times and Northern New York Newspapers' feature on Rivka's work with Plays Across the Walls, 2020. The interview includes a description of the project and the pivot from teaching playwriting inside Riverview Correctional Facility to an online offering.
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Teaching in the time of Pandemic
Check out the feature on Rivka Rocchio from SUNY Potsdam on how COVID-19 has impacted teaching performance/movement-based courses.
-- Photo credit and article by Jason Hunter
"This “New Normal” is also about the local community for Rocchio. The people living on her street in Potsdam recently started an email chain to connect every house and help each other out. “There are quite a few elderly people who live alone, so we’re looking out for them. To me, I’m struck by the framing of this as a global and hyper local community commitment,” she said. “We have to ALL commit to the restrictions of the moment, and to the belief that through our joint responses we will move past the crisis. There is not a person on the planet who is not experiencing some anxiety, anticipatory grief, or disruption from COVID-19. When has the human race been uniformly called up to bind together, and responded?”
-- Photo credit and article by Jason Hunter
"This “New Normal” is also about the local community for Rocchio. The people living on her street in Potsdam recently started an email chain to connect every house and help each other out. “There are quite a few elderly people who live alone, so we’re looking out for them. To me, I’m struck by the framing of this as a global and hyper local community commitment,” she said. “We have to ALL commit to the restrictions of the moment, and to the belief that through our joint responses we will move past the crisis. There is not a person on the planet who is not experiencing some anxiety, anticipatory grief, or disruption from COVID-19. When has the human race been uniformly called up to bind together, and responded?”
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Rivka is now a 200 hour certified Kripalu Vinyasa Yoga Teacher after completing the summer program at the Kripalu School of Yoga.
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DOCCS Support for Theatre Across Prison Walls Programming
Click here for a Press Release from NY DOCCS on the drama group at Riverview Correctional Facility.
Teaching Artist Journal: Volume 15, 2017 - Issue 3-4: Free Time: Inquiries Into Prison Arts Education
Click for free access to "Theatre Across Prison Walls: Using Democratizing Theatre Methodologies to Subvert Carceral Control"
Rocchio taught a master class on developing autoethnographic storytelling towards ensemble performance
Photo Credit: Peter Merts
2017 Spring Projects!
Click here to read about the Applied Theatre course partnering inmates at St. Lawrence Correctional Facility and SUNY Potsdam students.
In April 2017, Rocchio organized and advised SUNY Potsdam's One Act Play Festival focused on women playwrights and issues of social and racial justice.
Click here to read about the Applied Theatre course partnering inmates at St. Lawrence Correctional Facility and SUNY Potsdam students.
In April 2017, Rocchio organized and advised SUNY Potsdam's One Act Play Festival focused on women playwrights and issues of social and racial justice.
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This summer, Rocchio is teaching Devised Theatre inside Ogdensburg Correctional Facility in upstate New York. The class will be a new offering for the men currently incarcerated, and the first time theatre will be offered as a course.
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Howlround Blogspace:
Click here to read Rivka's latest article on pedagogy and activism in Introduction to Acting coursework.
Click here to read Rivka's latest article on pedagogy and activism in Introduction to Acting coursework.
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On September 23rd, Rocchio presented in NYC at the 2016 Performing the World conference around ideas of power, gender, and prison-based theatre. |
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Read the latest missive on creative drama and yoga with kindergartners! It is featured on the TYA/USA blog.
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Theatre across prison walls featured on ASUNow's website
Photo Credit: Deanna Dent |
check out the story here! |
ARIZONA HUMANITIES ANNOUNCES 2015 HUMANITIES AWARDS -- ROCCHIO CHOSEN FOR 2015 RISING STAR AWARD
Award recipients were honored Friday, November 13 at the North Mountain Visitors Center in Phoenix, AZ
PHOENIX, AZ – Arizona Humanities is delighted to announce the recipients of the 2015 Humanities Awards. The public attended the awards celebration on Friday, November 13, 2015 from 4:30 – 7:00 p.m. at the picturesque North Mountain Visitor Center, 12950 N. 7th St. Phoenix, AZ 85022. Marshall Shore, Arizona’s Hip Historian was the emcee and host for the evening. The program included a presentation by the Veterans Heritage Project, entertainment by spoken word artist Truth B. Told, and music with famed local jazz pianist Charles Lewis and his trio. Guests enjoyed appetizers and beverages, and the opportunity to bid on wonderful silent auction gifts for the holidays.
Award recipients were honored Friday, November 13 at the North Mountain Visitors Center in Phoenix, AZ
PHOENIX, AZ – Arizona Humanities is delighted to announce the recipients of the 2015 Humanities Awards. The public attended the awards celebration on Friday, November 13, 2015 from 4:30 – 7:00 p.m. at the picturesque North Mountain Visitor Center, 12950 N. 7th St. Phoenix, AZ 85022. Marshall Shore, Arizona’s Hip Historian was the emcee and host for the evening. The program included a presentation by the Veterans Heritage Project, entertainment by spoken word artist Truth B. Told, and music with famed local jazz pianist Charles Lewis and his trio. Guests enjoyed appetizers and beverages, and the opportunity to bid on wonderful silent auction gifts for the holidays.
THEATRE ACROSS PRISON WALLS RECEIVES $1000 GRANT FROM THE POLLINATION PROJECT |
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FEATURED IN THE HUFFINGTON POST! Excited to announce that Theatre Across Prison Walls just received a $1000 seed grant from The Pollination Project. Check out their grant making program and read more about our award HERE!
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Volunteer of the Year from Eyman State Prison
Pictured are Greg Fizer- Warden Florence State Prison, Rivka Rocchio, and James O'Neill- Warden Eyman State Prison
October 3rd -- Rivka was awarded Education Volunteer of the Year award from Arizona Department of Corrections ASPC-Eyman in appreciation of her commitment and dedication.
Rivka teaches weekly drama courses on Cook Unit at Eyman State Prison and is working on a new theatre project called Theatre Across Prison Walls. The project is a collaborative partnership between inmates and students at Arizona State University and will culminate in a performance inside Eyman Prison on November 24.
Rivka teaches weekly drama courses on Cook Unit at Eyman State Prison and is working on a new theatre project called Theatre Across Prison Walls. The project is a collaborative partnership between inmates and students at Arizona State University and will culminate in a performance inside Eyman Prison on November 24.
Rivka has been named a 2015/16 Spirit of Service Scholar!
The Spirit of Service Scholars initiative honors outstanding students interested in pursuing careers in the public and non-profit sector. Scholars receive a scholarship, and mentorship from high-profile practitioners and leaders, and education on core topics for public service through seven Saturday seminars. This initiative seeks to help create the next generation of public service leaders who will transform the non-profit and government sectors at all levels.
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Check out the latest digital storytelling project Rivka completed as the resident artist at Tumbleweed Center for Youth Development. The video is an ethnographic look at the spectrum of services Tumbleweed offers to homeless youth (between the ages of 12-25) in Maricopa County, AZ. |
Rivka Rocchio was awarded the Arjit Guha Student Advocacy Award for her work in arts-in-corrections. The award ceremony took place at the Arizona State University Art Museum.
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A White Woman’s Guide to Teaching in A Men’s Prison
Read Rivka's latest article on TYA/USA's blog on how to use theatre in cross cultural situations. |
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Rivka is now a certified kids' yoga teacher after completing Rainbow Kids' Yoga teaching certification training.
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Check out this article in Howlround co-written with Ashley Laverty on the challenges of collaboration: Clobberation: Clobbering through a Collaboratively-Built Touring Show
Rivka Rocchio named 2015 MLK Student Servant Leader by Arizona State University. Here's a video of the event. Check out Rocchio's speech here.
