2024 Workshop Viewpoints, Suzuki, and Composition
Ellen Lauren was a founding member and co-artistic director along with Anne Bogart of the renowned SITI Company based in New York City. For over 30 years she toured nationally and internationally as a leading performer in SITI’s original devised works, classic plays from the Western canon and collaborations with a number of artists including : Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Martha Graham Dance Company, visual artist Ann Hamilton Elizabeth Streb Extreme Action Dance and New York City Opera among others.
As the head of SITI’s educational programming, she has taught at over 300 schools, companies, universities, and festivals around the world. She also designed and taught the New York based studios, SITI’s bi-annual Conservatory, and SITI’s annual Training Intensive at Skidmore College each summer for over 30 years.
Ms. Lauren is an Associate Artist with the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) led by Tadashi Suzuki based in Toga Mura Village, Japan. Since 1989 she has performed around the world with SCOT in Dionysus (Agave), Oedipus (Jocasta), Waiting for Romeo (Juliet), King Lear (Goneril), and Electra (Clytemnestra).
She regularly teaches on behalf of Tadashi Suzuki and SCOT at the Toga International Summer Training Camp, a program she attended as a student in 1981, and went on to lead beginning in 2006.
She is a founding member of the International Consortium on Suzuki Training and produced “Transformation through Training: 2017 International Symposium on SCOT and the Suzuki Training” at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. She produced SCOT’s last US performances of their world-renowned Trojan Women at the symposium.
Ms. Lauren has been an ongoing faculty member at The Juilliard School of Drama at Lincoln Center for over 23 years. She directed Iphigenia and Other Daughters(Juilliard Group 43), Trojan Women (Juilliard Group 47) and Oresteia (Group 53). In addition she directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the TFT MFA program at UCLA.
Representative guest faculty and workshops include: Ladder Arts in Budapest R.Evolución Latina San Juan and New York, TEAC National Academy Helsinki, Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Carlos Universidad and Vertiço in Madrid, Soif Compagnie Paris, Maastricht Academy, Windsor University, Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, INCITE at Carriage Works in Sydney, St Edwards University, Moscow Art Theatre, Sfumato Theatre Bulgaria, Iceland National Academy, Smashing Times Human Rights and Theatre Festival in Dublin, Casa Teatro de Bogotá, Beijing Academy, Center Theatre Activity Milan, UC Los Angeles, Ohio State, Western Michigan, Fordham, University San Diego Old Globe Theatre The New School, and Columbia University in New York, among others.
Ms. Lauren has been a resident Company member at the Alley Theater, Houston Texas, StageWest, and the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre
She was the first recipient of the Theatre Communications Group’s Fox Fellowship for Distinguished Achievement. She is published in American Theatre Magazine (“In Search of Stillness”).
Scott Cumming’s book, Remaking American Theater: Charles Mee, Anne Bogart and the SITI Company(Cambridge Studies in American Theatre and Drama), was published in 2010, and in 2018 Mr. Cummings released a chapter in his book, Actors’ Actors, published by Palgrave MacMillan, about Ms. Lauren’s career and practice.