Movement Workshop Group

Dance Theater, Comedy and Live Rock Music for an Inspired Psychic State
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About Us
 
A Movement Workshop Group (MWG) performance is a truly singular experience. Physical acting harmonizes with choreography, while touching and often humorous text complements an unstoppable live rock band. An audience member can expect to hear great music, laugh out loud, be moved to tears, dance in the aisles, and ultimately leave the theater feeling inspired.

 

Co-founded in 2005 by Leslie Guyton and Liza Hostetler-Ingalls, MWG is a company of dancers, actors, and musicians who coalesce to create distinct theatre pieces that not only provide an evening of entertainment but also provoke thought and lift the audience to higher, more inspired psychic states.

 

The work is collaborative, drawing inspiration from many different choreographers, writers, musicians, and the performers themselves. Together, they invite the audience into their world: a place where questions are asked without judgment and the imagination can run free. This joining of artistic voices makes the Movement Workshop Group a unique creative force.

 

In order to build a common vocabulary and to clearly communicate pieces that demand multi-talented performers, the company trains intensively in both dance and acting and continues to evolve a unique methodology. As active members of the New York artist community, MWG holds training workshops in Graham modern dance technique, different forms of actor training, and its own improvisation and composition technique.

 






 

Works to Date:

Black Feathers (2005)
Dust to Dust (2006)
Moontides in 23,149 Parts (2008)

Wanderlust (2011)


 

The first of their collaborations was Black Feathers (2005), which premiered at John Hancock Hall in Boston. Black Feathers explored 1950's gender conflict. 


Following the success of Black Feathers, Guyton and Hostetler-Ingalls formed the Movement Workshop Group, a dance theater company dedicated to creating original dance theater hybrid productions.


Their first work with the group was Dust to Dust (2006), which was performed as part of the Destination Dance program at The Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center. Through this piece, the group examined the desperation of those currently affected by the American healthcare crisis through the aesthetic lens of the Depression-era American Dustbowl.


In February 2008, the Movement Workshop Group was commissioned to participate in a night of works in progress at the Dixon Place performance laboratory space in New York City, as part of Michael Burke’s Moving Men series. There they presented 20 minutes of Moontides.  MWG then expanded Moontides to a full-length piece and toured it in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia in Fall 2008.


The group recently premiered Wanderlust in Boston at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center and in New York as a part of La MaMa Moves! and the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity.  Earlier versions of Wanderlust have been presented in NYC as a part of Body Blend at Dixon Place, Hatch Performance Series, First Layer Festival, in Boston at the ART's Club Oberon and Mayfair, and Montauk, NY.