Tanya Kane-Parry

Click Here for Video Excerpts of Prior Productions

Click Here for Opera del Espacio Website and Opera del Espacio YouTube

More information and images from recent projects and activities immediately follows this curriculum vitae.

• American Communities Program Fellowship, Spring 2024 to support research on the developement of La Panza Monologues in collaboration with Women's, Gender and Sexualities Studies
• Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity (RSCA) Award, Spring 2024 to direct La Panza Monologues in collaboration with Women's, Gender and Sexualities Studies
• Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity (RSCA) Award, Spring 2021 for the development of Dreaming of Our Future
• Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity (RSCA) Award, Fall 2019
• Aurora Foundation Challenge Grant 2015/16: studied Butoh with Master Teachers in Japan
• ATHE Innovative Teaching Award/KCACTF Region VIII, 2014
• GSE Rotary Program to Mexico, March/April 2004
• Partner of the Americas: Sponsored trip to attend Experimenta 5 Theatre Festival/Conference in Rosario and to conduct workshops with students of the National University of Tucuman and professional performers at La Baulera Cultural Center (Argentina), December 2002.
• NEA/TCG Theatre Director Finalist, 2001
• Certificate of Excellence in Teaching, awarded by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2000
• Federick Loewe Fellowship, Stage Directors & Choreographers Foundation, 1997 & 1998

• Kennedy Center American Theatre Festival (KCACTF) Region 8 - led workshop "Using Viewpoints for Staging," 2020
• Imagining America National Gathering; Presentation on new devised play about DACA and immigration, 2019
• Opera Ára ("Opera Now"), Guest Speaker on New Opera, Teatre Lliure, Barcelona, Nov, 2014
• Directors Lab West, Guest Panelist, "Working Internationally" 2014
• ATHE/ATME Panel Participant, “Atomic Dancing”; paper, video and live performance presentation, Aug. 2013
• Directors Lab West, Alumni Committee, 2009.
• Viewpoints Workshop Facilitator: Guest Artist Mary Overlie at the Directors Lab West, May 2005
• Co-coordinator of Viewpoints Intensive at CSU Summer Arts with guests Mary Overlie, Anne Bogart, SITI company members and Nina Martin, June/July 2004.

• TCG online interview: Traveling & Working Abroad

• BFA Acting NYU, Tisch School of the Arts: Circle-in-the-Square and the Experimental Theatre Wing
• MFA Directing UMass/Amherst
• The Viewpoints: Mary Overlie and Wendall Beavers (Experimental Theatre Wing/NYU)                               
• American Mime Theater Company directed by Paul Curtis (Company Member 1991-1993) 
• Dance & Movement: Modern, Postmodern, Contact Improvisation, Stage Combat, Martial Arts
• Directing: Joseph Chaikin and Jean-Claude Van Italie/ The Living Theater: Judith Malina  
• Commedia del Arte and Mask: Guy Friexe & Erhardt Steifel of the Theatre du Soliel           
• Roy Hart Theatre/Experimental Vocal Technique: Richard Armstrong          
• Tight Rope Walking: Philipe Petit/ Clown: Dale Scott/ Circus: Hoovey Burgess                     
• Linklater Vocal Technique: Andrea Haring (Circle-in-the-Square)     
• Stanislavsky, Boleslavsky and Hagen Acting Methodology: Alan Langdon (Circle-in-the-Square)

LANGUAGES: Fluent Spanish and French: conversational Portuguese and Russian

Comments on works directed by Ms. Kane-Parry:

 Space: The Final Frontier: “The cumulative effect of all this is that of an academic treatise straining to be enhanced by the kinetic power of design and dance. That goal is frequently met, thanks to the evocative quality of Kane-Parry's choreography, and the way the bodies collide and seem to roll through each other.”  - Steven Leigh Morris, LA Weekly

The Way of Water by Caridad Svich, adapted by Opera del Espacio: “In L.A.'s site-specific production of Caridad Svich'sThe Way of Water, Opera del Espacio is making the disaster tangible -- and implicating the audience in the event. You might even find yourself pouring an oil-like liquid onto the actors or helping to load company members into body bags by the end of the performance.” – Sarah Taylor Ellis, LA Weekly

Tosca Jumps! “In this striking distillation by Tanya Kane-Parry of Puccini's operatic masterpiece, the music is abridged, the lyrics are lip-synched, and the performers borrow fascinating movement that seems to range from Chinese opera through contemporary street dance. Supertitles- a new opera convention -add typographic humor to the work and allow modern obscenities to replace pages of libretto.”  - Dany Margolies, Critic's Pick, Backstage West

Supreme Being “Text and images wash over you…meaning emerges from the show’s recombinant associations and repetitions” – Philip Brandes, Los Angeles Times

Romeo and/y Juliet(a) “Goes to extremes (with) undaunted vision” – Luis Reyes, LA Weekly

Romeo and/y Juliet(a) “Director Tanya Kane-Parry abstracts the Bard’s scenario through diverse performance art tactics: gender-bending, outsized sound effects, anachronistic asides”  - David Nichols, Los Angeles Times

Romeo and/y Juliet(a) “It is an exciting, individualistic approach… in the manner of a Cubist painting, with glimmering flashes of action and dialogue, with a bit of Dadaism thrown in. [Kane-Parry’s] tempos and rhythms are impeccable…The piece is full of insightful action and is fascinating from beginning to end.” – T.H. McCulloh, Back Stage West

Romeo and/y Juliet(a) “Emphasizing dance and movement over dialogue, the piece — relayed in Spanglish — juxtaposes Shakespeare’s basic plot and fragments of his text with contemporary street speech and images. Performers cavort in and around trash cans while, now and then, someone appears in spiked, thigh-high patent leather boots/ erotic gambols/ recurrent slamming of bodies against walls.” – Deborah Klugman, LA Weekly

The Cure “Juxtaposes ordinary things in strange ways but invests them with a sense of utter familiarity” – Martin Washburn, The Village Voice

The Cure “Underlying outrageousness beneath a surface of deliberate, restrained and controlled emotional truth and subtlety…mysterious…compelling” – Richard Foreman, Playwright/Director

Trojan Women “Ballsy…you applaud the effrontery each time…can’t take your eyes off it for a minute…hardy souls are in for a treat” – Eric Grode, Backstage

Romeo and/y Juliet(a) “Modern theatre seems old fashioned when compared to this production…To say this production is surreal is an understatement. It’s more of a fracprism, where the original is divided into dozens of pieces that seem to have been squeezed through a multi-layered prism, refracting a distant image of the original, but creating a whole new entity in the process… Here, director Tanya Kane-Parry is experimenting with a style that takes a lot of guts to even attempt, let alone pull it off. What emerges from her imagination is part dream, part nightmare, half–fantasy, half-wish, layered onto a tale that begins with hatred between two families and results in the ultimate end for the protagonists… [Kane-Parry] knocks your socks off with something wild and off-beat.”   – Jose Luis, ReviewPlays.com