2026 ATME Pre-Con
Transformation and Translation: Connecting Forms, Bodies, and Communities
July 22 & 23 , 2026 at Towson University's Center for the Arts
Note: The Pre-Con is prior to the ATHE Conference and held at a separate location
Come play, participate, collaborate, and join us in the exploration of connecting forms, bodies, and communities in their interconnected nature in both practical and theoretical ways. We will be presenting an ATME Lifetime Achievement Award to featured artist Bill Bowers, who will be leading a workshop and performing.
Pre-Conference Fee covers participation in all events: sessions and discussions, workshop with Bill Bowers, happy hour snacks, performance by Bill Bowers, and an ATME t-shirt
Weds July 22 9am - 8pm
Thurs July 23 9am - 12pm
Registration Closes July 10
Registration for ATME Members: $75
Registration for non-ATME Members: $125
Registration for students: $30
If you are an ATME member, be sure to log in to view your rate below.
Participants:
Please plan to bring a lunch, water bottle (a water fountain is on site), bring clothes to move in (you may wish to bring layers), bring indoor dance/movement shoes or be prepared to work barefoot, and a journal and pen/pencil.
Presenters and Topics (in alpha order)
Program Page Here
- What the Body Carries: Sustainable Practice for Theatre Artists - Sarah Gitenstein & Avi Vodnoy Wolf
- Translating the Body; SHamzeh as Embodied Practice, Memory and Movement - Shahrzad Hamzeh
- The Puppet Teaches the Actor, the Actor Teaches the Puppet: Parallel Exercises in Physical Storytelling - Jaron Aviv Hollander
- Transitions in Meyerhold's Etudes: Why they Matter - Marianne Kubik
- Setting a Strong Foundation, LIterally - Andrès López
- Human Connection Through the Language of Intimacy Direction - Cara Rawlings
- Building Trust & Presence: Contact Improvisation Training for Young Theatre Artists - Nigel Semaj
- How to Make Gravity Our New Best Friend - Billy Siegenfeld
- Falling Together: Clown & Contact Improvisation as a Practice for Listening, Actor Training, and Ensemble Attunement - Chelsea Thaler
- Express Yourself Intergenerational Play - Latrice Young
Special Performance by Bill Bowers of his show BETWEEN US
BETWEEN US is a collection of stories curated from all of Bill’s solo plays. Think of BETWEEN US as an “unplugged concert” of stories with and without words.
I will watch, hear, feel Bill Bowers whenever and wherever I can for the rest of my life. He is wit, joy, wisdom, compassion incarnate, and his physicality is the closest any of us will come to flying without wings.
~CHERRY JONES