The Watermill Center

Caught a case of Hamptons cabin fever? Well put on some snow boots and head over to the Watermill Center to check out the exciting winter programs that are happening right now. Offering classes, tours, and educational experiences that will inspire you to kick the winter blues, the Watermill Center is is an interdisciplinary laboratory for the arts and humanities. Founded by theatre and visual artist Robert Wilson as a place for young and emerging artists to work, learn, create, and grow with each other, Watermill integrates performing arts practice with resources from the humanities, research from the sciences, and inspiration from the visual arts. Watermill is unique within the global landscape of experimental theatrical performance, and regularly convenes the brightest minds from all disciplines to do, in Wilson’s words, “what no one else is doing.”

Image Credit: Film still of Hélène Patarot in The Mahabharata (1989), courtesy of the artist.

Workshop: A Tale to Tell with Hélène Patarot: A Tale to Tell with Hélène Patarot took place on February 21, 11:00am – 5:00pm

Through this playful, imaginative, and process-driven workshop participants combined acting, writing and directing as they develop stories using elements from their own life, specifically based on objects they share with the group that have special meaning for them (such as family photographs, diaries and letters, clothes, personal treasures, etc.). The participants learned to construct and present aspects of their own life story, taking concrete objects as a starting point to trigger creative imagination. The workshop was lead by Hélène Patarot, a French actress born in Vietnam. She will be in residence at The Watermill Center from February 10 through March 7 working on a documentary theatre piece exploring the story of her father who was a child soldier in a French army school in Vietnam in 1939.

About Hélène Patarot
Hélène Patarot was born in Haïphong, Vietnam in 1954 and moved to Fance shortly after. She has lived in London where she worked with Theatre de Complicite and Simon McBurney, Annie Casteldine, Greg Thomson, James Kerr, Rose English, Vanessa Redgrave, and Avalon TV. She has also worked in France with Peter Brook, Dan Jemmet, Lucian Pintillier, Karelle Prignaud, and Lilo Baur. Patarot has acted in The Bone, The Mahabaratha, Tierno Bokar, and designed costumes for The Magic Flute. Lately, she has been creating a devised theater piece in a prison titled “je suis une femme helas”. She has recently completed a cooking degree and will create a devised theater piece / restaurant project in Nice with Irina Brook.

Image Credit: Blue Books One Green (2010) by Mary Ellen Bartley

Open Studio with Mary Ellen Bartley on February 28, 3:00 – 5:00pm
Mary Ellen Bartley will present her work influenced by and created while in residence at The Center. Bartley will make a set of photographs using books from the Watermill Study Library as subjects. The photographs will be used to create a book of books, whose format and edition are yet to be determined. Mary Ellen Bartley is an American artist who was born in the Bronx and currently lives and works in Wainscott, NY. Bartley is known for her photographs that explore the tactile and formal qualities of the printed book and their potential for abstraction. Make a reservation for Mary Ellen Bartley’s Open Studio HERE.

Tour of The Building, Grounds, and Collection on February 28, 2:00pm

Walk through history with a tour of The Watermill Center to explore our building, grounds, gardens, collection and study library. Situated on eight-acres of land, The Watermill Center is surrounded by verdant lawns and outdoor sculpture, meditation and rooftop gardens.

The Watermill Collection contains over 8,000 pieces and is highly personal and eclectic, ranging widely across all continents from the stone age to the present. Housed in a place where performers, thinkers, artists and scientists from different cultures and disciplines come to collaborate, the art, the Collection itself, does the same.

Make a reservation for the February 28 tour HERE.

Photo by Lesley Leslie-Spinks