About Us
Organizational History
Move Your Tale was founded by Kristin Henn and Felicity Weber Foster in
September of 2007. Since our inception, we have offered classes, camps and public performances throughout Austin and Central Texas
In all of our endeavors, Move Your Tale, strives to provide a
participatory, non-competitive performing arts experience and the opportunity to explore stories and story telling.
EXCITING NEWS!
Move Your Tale is excited to announce a collaboration with ColdTowne Theater!
Since 2007, Move Your Tale has provided a positive, creative, early performing arts experience for
preschool and elementary aged children. Through creative drama,
movement, rhythm and design, we have invited young performers to explore
stories and storytelling.
ColdTowne Theater is
home to an outstanding Comedy Conservatory, training performers in
Improv and Sketch Comedy. They operate as a professional theater and
training center, providing a venue for students to see and create
performance first hand.
Storytelling
and Improvisation naturally complement one another. By combining our
efforts to create a Performing Arts program for Youth, we create a
unique arts experience with an emphasis on playful, positive
collaboration, listening and supporting, creating in the moment and
relating stories that are meaningful both to the teller and to the
listener.
Ultimately,
this will allow us to continue to offer a great performing arts
experience for preschool and elementary aged children, while bringing
our commitment to a positive, challenging and collaborative performing
arts experience to improv training for middle school and high school
students.
We
invite you to take a look at our upcoming spring schedule As we launch
into the upcoming year, we will add classes both on site at ColdTowne
Theater, at our studio on Burnet Road, and at school campuses throughout
Austin. It is our goal to offer a fully integrated program by June of
2012. This program will include classes, camps, and performances for
children both by student and adult performers.
Hooray for Improv for Kids and Teens in Austin!
Please feel free to contact us with any questions that you have!
Staff
Kristin Henn
Kristin oversees all business aspects of Move Your Tale. She is married to the strikingly handsome Jeff Evelyn and has two young daughters. Coincidentally, they're both brilliant storytellers.
Felicity Weber Foster
danced professionally as a member of Tapestry Dance Company for many years in Austin. She is a
certified yoga instructor with experience teaching both children and adults. She
directs our rhythm, yoga and dance components.
Felicity is married to the very talented Brady Foster with whom she shares a delightful toddler daughter. She is taking the fall and early spring off from teaching as her family prepares for a new baby!
Kate Bojanek
is a rock star improviser who brings a wealth of humor and patience to the classroom. In addition to teaching improv to children, Kate teaches Creative Writing through BadgerDog and music to young children through Music Forever Music Together. Kate teaches our musical segments, improv instruction and sketch writing.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is Story Building?
Story
Building describes the collaborative, improvisational process MYT uses to
interpret and communicate the elements of a story. As participants
work together to explore a story, their own experiences and interests
inform their group presentation of the material. This is in contrast
to traditional theatre, which is script based and works toward
producing a final performance guided by a single vision. In our work,
we incorporate improvisation, dance, rhythm design and creative drama into the process.
2. What is Creative Drama?
Creative
Drama is an improvisational,
process-oriented form of drama. Focus is on the experience each
participant has during the activity, working collaboratively or in
turn. This is unlike traditional performance, where the goal is
a polished, public performance.
3. What role does Dance play?
Through simple dance exercises, children learn
to work as a group, to be mindful of their own bodies and those of the
friends they work with. Additionally, dance helps them identify and
follow rhythmic patterns.
4. How is Improv used?
Improv
exercises will be used to teach our students skills about saying saying
yes to each other's creative ideas, about trusting themselves to come
up with fun offers and collaborating to build characters or narratives.
In many ways, improvising teaches performers to trust themselves. There
is no wring answer, just make a choice and tell the story!
5. Is Design always a part of your curriculum?
Many,
though not all of our classes and camps include a Theatrical Design
component. We include this when possible to allow exploration of
another dimension of the environment and characters in the tales we
tell.
6. Where are you located?
We are using two spaces for our classes.
The Austin School of Classical Ballet at 4624 Burnet Road, Austin, Texas and ColdTowne Theater at 4803 Airport Blvd.
7. What should my child wear?
Clothes that are easy to move around in and that can get dirty. We often end up on the floor for one reason or another.
8. At what age should children enroll?
Parent/Child
classes are offered beginning at age 18 months. Classes and camps are
offered for children ages 3 through 16. Check our current schedule to
see which best fits your child's age and interests.
9. How do I enroll my child in your classes or camps?
Write
us at moveyourtale@gmail.com to request registration materials or fill
out and submit the information request forms that follow class and camp
descriptions. NOTE for ELEMENTARY SCHOOL based classes: Elementary
Schools oversee registration for these classes in house, but write us if
you'd like to reserve a spot.
10. How do I contact Move Your Tale?
E-mail us at moveyourtale@gmail.com, or reach us by phone at 512-809-0017.
Or send us a message here:
Feedback we've received from past events:
"This workshop caused participants to step out and think - that’s a good thing."
"Great ideas for working interactively with kids!"
"Kristin has wonderful energy & fresh ideas to adapt to storytelling
We moved! We can do this with kids!"
"Lovely energy & Enthusiasm - Brought back so much I’ve stopped doing!
A refreshing addition to the conference. Finally, something a little different!"
