Theatre Professor to Present at National Conferences

Assistant Professor of Theatre CarlosAlexis Cruz will present at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) annual conference, which will be held in Chicago, August 11-14. Cruz will present the paper, “The Importance of Having a Stage Movement Practitioner: How a theatre program strengthens and benefits from stage movement courses and the teachers that lead them.” He will also moderate a panel on the recent emergence of a strong contemporary Circus Arts scene in Chicago and how it is an example for the United States at large.

Concurrent with the ATHE conference, Cruz will present “Perspectives in Training the Actor-Creator” at the Association of Theatre Movement Educators pre-conference, held in Chicago on August 10 and 11.

Cruz holds an MFA in Physical Theatre (2007) from the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre where he studied a range of movement techniques including Commedia dell’Arte, Laban, Lecoq-based theatre dynamics, Alexander Technique, as well as an extensive voice training in the Linklater voice method. As part of his thesis project, he went on to train Circus Arts and Chinese Acrobatics under the tutelage of Master Coach Lu Yi at the San Francisco Circus Center. He specialized in the disciplines of Aerial Straps(Sangles Aériennes) and Acrobatic Rope(Corde Lise).

Cruz received the 2014 McColl Award from the Arts & Science Council for the creation of “Nouveau Sud, Nouveau Cirque” (“New South, New Circus”), an original cirque-style production that integrated professional circus arts with the “underground” dance, acrobatic, and physical theater languages that thrive within Charlotte’s ethnic communities.