Contact Us

 

   
a  

What Happens There?

The focus of the work at Fantastic Space Enterprises is on developing high levels of performance awareness and an increased freedom with creative expression and play. All the exercises are designed to increase our ability to flow with our inspiration with increased articulation and consciousness; physically, emotionally, and psychologically. All the work encourages the development of primary life skills that nurture our creative awareness and the ability to embody our intuition in a consciously expressive and functional way that benefits both our personal and professional life.

What is the Focus of the Courses?

The courses offered are physically active studies in the psychology and physiology of human performance. They look at the physical, mental, and emotional aspects of our being and at the quality of spirit created among them. The intention is to relax and release holding patterns within ourselves and develop more fluency and articulation with the powerful skills of sensitivity, intellect, and imagination we were born with. By developing more ease and fluency we can enhance our personal and professional performance, and promote a deeper understanding of our human nature and how we share it with others.

How is the Work Done?

The work uses a body centered, humanistic approach that allows each person the privilege of being themselves along with the challenge of facing themselves. It employs bio-kinetic release work with the body and breath to dynamically support us to relax and create a "high stakes low consequence" environment where we can practice and strengthen our relationship with the unknown. It draws upon tools and conventions from the performing arts for frameworks that help us to connect with ourselves and cultivate personal presence in our relationship and communication with others. The methodology supports principal centered self education and the development of our "inner Facilitator/Ringmaster" for ongoing, self authorized personal and professional growth. Each individual is appreciated as being unique and is supported to grow at their own pace within the principles of the work being done. Self authorization and honesty are encouraged within a framework of human respect in all the work and diversity is celebrated as a catalyst for growth.

Who Can Take These Courses?

The courses are for mature, open minded, adventurous, fun loving, self motivated people from all backgrounds and interests who wish to enhance their performance and are looking for the opportunity to step "outside the box" of what is presently familiar to them and create new possibilities of seeing and being; Performing Artists, Professionals, Athletes, and Adventurous Explorers from all walks of Life. They are accessible to all levels of experience and admission requires an interview.

(back to top)

David MacMurray Smith
Philosophical Statement

Over the years that I have worked and taught in various mediums of the performing arts, I have been amazed at the challenges we face in communicating with each other as human beings. My curiosity has led me to explore the phenomenon from different perspectives which have included the physiology of behavior, the psychology of communication, the linguistics of structure, and various theories about the nature of memory and perception.

My impetus for this investigation is rooted in my sense that there is great need today for more personal and interpersonal transmythic avenues for present event perception and communication among ourselves.
This basically means that I perceive the need for increased ways for people to more directly experience themselves and each other across boundaries of age, race, sex, and culture etc. I view each individual's interpretation of an experience as the creation of a small myth of the event, a way that we describe an event to ourselves. We each create our own interpretation of what we experience by associating what we are presently experiencing with what we already hold in our memory. I consider this process of associative interpretation as a form of self narrative and a foundation of myth making. The sharing of myths among ourselves is a primary way that we attempt to communicate and relate our experiences among one another. Although it is a marvelous process, it is also inaccurate by nature because it will always be a subjective interpretation. It also has an inherent danger because the subjective interpretation is full of assumptions. Our memory of an event is only a vicarious representation of the event itself. A distant relative that becomes more distant as time goes by. The more distant it becomes the more full of assumptions it may become. This process is unavoidable, yet our awareness of its inherent shortcoming's might allow us to be more watchful for our assumptions and more consciously present to receive new, and perhaps more accurate information.

I believe that we have come to a time in human development where we have more awareness and knowledge than ever before in history. And yet our abilities to converse among ourselves within that awareness and knowledge is hamstringed by the lack of appreciation we have of the myth making process we use to discuss our experience of life together. I am of the opinion that our neurological structure is wired to create myths. So, it is natural that the myth making process expands from there to the trans personal, cultural, and inter-cultural dimensions. It is especially in these extended dimensions that we begin to mistake that this process of myth making we use to discuss our experience of life together is actually the life experience itself. In this way we confuse the description of an event for the event itself. This lack of discernment is a very natural outcome of the phenomenon of how our systems of memory appear to work. Is also very dangerous for we can then easily fall victim to allowing our assumptions of what we see and experience, or what we want to see and experience, blind us from receiving new information from our present perception and inhibit our ability to see new opportunities and avoid old pitfalls.


For effective and progressive communication to take place in the fast-paced cross-cultural dynamics that exist in our society today, there is need for the emotional and psychological mobility to converse across the apparent boundaries of personal and group identity concerns and the willingness to adjust to new perceptual frameworks at a quicker and quicker pace. My interest lies firmly in developing an awareness about the challenges that are presented by the very skill we have as human beings to communicate symbolically with one another and to develop our ability to do so with increased clarity. This is a challenging process that demands discernment, diligence, patience, and determination.

As we lean our way into the 21st century I think is essential that we increase our ability to directly experience one other by lifting the veils of assumption and seeing beyond the myths we have created of ourselves. By doing so we may begin to expand the number of perspectives and possibilities for increased human understanding and communication, and also open the door for new hypotheses toward solutions regarding the challenging circumstances we face today concerning our continuation as a species on this planet.

(back to top)

SHORT BIOGRAPHY
David MacMurray Smith

                

Over the last 40 years David has worked professionally in the areas of Theater, Ballet, Opera, Mime, and Clown, as a Creator, a Performer, a Director, a Choreographer, and an Educator. He is a Movement Specialist, Body worker, Creative and Performance Consultant, and an Experienced Counselor who has taught at several universities, was Head Instructor at the Vancouver Playhouse Theater School, for eight years was the Movement Director for the Music Theater and Opera Programs at the Banff Center for the Arts, and has also been a guest resource artist at The People's Light & Theatre Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since 1987. He is a Core Trainer with Full Circle First Nations Performance, under the direction of Margo Kane, on faculty in the Douglas College Theatre program teaching Physical Training and Voice, and is a teacher and Founding Faculty Member of the Expressive Arts Therapy certificate training program through the Continuing Education department of Langara College.

David considers himself an independent educator who founded Fantastic Space Enterprises in 1995 where the focus of the work is on self liberation and self realization through creative expression. His special-interest is in how memory moves and patterns itself in our bodies and in how this affects our perceptions, behavior, and communication. As a movement specialist David has drawn on his broad range of experience and sources to develop his own body centered, humanist approach to personal and professional development. His expertise lies in his ability to facilitate learning environments that promote principle centered self-education and provide strong foundations for continued personal and professional growth.

(back to top)

LONG BIOGRAPHY
DAVID MACMURRAY SMITH


Over the last forty years of his professional career David has worked in the areas of Theatre, Ballet, Opera, Mime, and Clown, as a creator, a performer, a director, a choreographer, and an educator. He is also an experienced counselor and an advanced practitioner in the body discovery and therapy known as Kinetic Awareness. His association with theatre began with productions at church and in high school and his first formal education with it began at the University of Massachusetts where he graduated cum laude with a double major in Theatre and Dance.
While at the university he had the opportunity to work with many advanced artists in both the areas of theatre and dance. Over the four years of his studies at the university David had an extended opportunity to study with professional artists who did yearly artist-in-residence programs at the university. In the area of dance he worked with Eric Hawkins, Alwin Nicholais, Murray Lewis, Alvin Ailey, Jose Limon, Jennifer Mueller, Martha Graham, Paul Taylor, and Lewis Falco and with Andre Gregory and his company, The Manhattan Project, Charles Ludlam and his company, The Theatre of the Ridiculus, and Joseph Chaikin and his company, The Open Theatre in the area of theatre. While at the university David was nominated as Most Promising Student Actor in the National College Arts Festival in 1973, one of 20 young actors nominated from across the United States, for his interpretation of the Pardoner in the Pardoner's Tale in an adaptation of Chaucer's, Cantebury Tales which was a winner in the national festival.

Upon graduating David went on to continue his training in New York. He obtained a full scholarship in the professional program of the Joffery Ballet at the School of American Ballet, studied to advanced levels at the Luigi Dance Centre with Eugine "Luigi" Louis, and continued the theatre and mime training he had begun at university at the Herbert Bergough Studio.

The first professional opportunity came when he was hired as a company member in Les Ballets Jazz du Montreal. This brought David to Canada in 1975 and he has made his residence there ever since. He went on to work with La Companie du Danse Entre Six, and Les Grandes Ballets Canadiens before deciding give dance a rest and return to his work in theatre. Over the next four years he continued intense studies in mime and clown while supporting himself teaching, doing television work and delivering mail. He graduated from the Mime School Unlimited, in Toronto at the time, and worked as a member of the company Mime Unlimited, Ron East, director. He did extensive studies over a four year period with Clowning Pioneer Richard Pochinko and finished the advanced curriculum in Decroux Mime technique at the Ecole Du Mime Corporeal Du Quatsous in Montreal with Jean Asselin and Denise Boulanger, directors.

At this point David was offered an opportunity to participate in the development of a new program at the Banff Centre for the Arts as an instructor in the newly developing Music Theatre Studio Ensemble, Micheal Bawtree, director. During his tenure there from 1981 to '86 he began to work as a director and creative consultant as well as Movement Director in the program. His first directing endeavor, an original production of Arnold Shoenberg's, Pierrot Lunaire , won him a Guthrie Award at the Stratford Festival in Ontario where he was working as a company member in 1983 and '84.

From 1985 to 1988 David also worked at the Banff Festival of the Arts as movement director for the summer classical Opera Program, Colin Graham, director. David took a personal sabbatical in 1986 - '87 and completed the Advanced Actors Physical Training program with Linda Putnam at the Foolscap Theatre School in Massachusetts.

Having developed a passion for teaching, David was excited to be offered the position of Head instructor and Associate Director of the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre School and saw two groups complete the program between 1987 and 1991. Since then David has also taught at the University British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, Douglas College, Kwantlen College, and the William Davis Centre for Actors. He has also been a guest resource artist at The People's Light & Theatre Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since 1987, where he taught physical training and body sense and acted as a Creative Consultant in the development of new works as well as being an artists' development counselor, Abigail Adams, artistic director. He is a Core Trainer with Full Circle First Nations Performance, under the direction of Margo Kane, on faculty in the Douglas College Theatre program teaching Physical Training and Voice, and is a teacher and Founding Faculty Member of the Expressive Arts Therapy certificate training program through the Continuing Education department of Langara College.

In the area of production David has more than 60 productions which he has either stage directed, movement directed, or choreographed. He has worked for Opera Theatre of St. Louis, St. Louis MO., Opera Lyra, Ottawa, the Banff Center for the Arts, Banff, Alberta, The Society of Composers, Actors,& Musicians, Toronto, Ontario, The Blue Rider Ensemble, Kitchner, Ontario, Vancouver Playhouse Theatre School, Vancouver, B.C., The People's Light and Theatre Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Douglas College, New Westminster, B.C., Bard David on the Beach, Vancouver B.C., and The Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret, Vancouver B.C. David has also created seven original Movement Theatre and Clown Works of his own which were performed at Theatre festivals in Quebec, Ontario, at the National Dance Conferences in 1981 and 1982, and at Fringe Festivals across Canada.

David is now an independent educator who founded Fantastic Space Enterprises studio, in 1995 where the focus of the work is on self liberation and self realization through creative expression. His special-interest is in how memory moves and patterns itself in our bodies and in how this affects our perceptions, behavior, and communication. As a movement specialist David has drawn on his broad range of experience and sources to develop his own body centered, humanist approach to personal and professional development. His expertise lies in his ability to facilitate learning environments that promote principle centered self-education and provide strong foundations for continued personal and professional growth.

(back to top)

HISTORY

Fantastic Space Enterprises was founded in 1995 by David MacMurray Smith. He had been teaching in institutions and post graduate conservatories for the arts for many years and had found that, although institutions were well designed to support curriculums, they were much less flexible in their ability to adjust to the unique and changing circumstances of the learning processes of individuals. He also discovered that the post graduate students he was working with were often lost, empty, and ungrounded within the skill and result training they had received.

A lot of his time as an educator was spent in assisting individuals to fill their technique with presence. He established Fantastic Space Enterprises in order to provide a studio environment that could be more flexible in how it could adjust its curriculum in relation to the individual and devote a more balanced amount of time to the process of personal fulfillment in the work.

Over the years David discovered that his primary allegiance was to human beings and not to any single convention of the arts he had been working in. The Studio has afforded him the opportunity to openly address both the personal and professional development aspects of the performing artist and assist them in finding their own "voice" within the skill and result training they had received. It then became clear that the core principles of work being done were beneficial to more than only the performing artist. The life skills being learned and the lessons in personal presence were central to the functional creativity and performance of people from all walks of life.

So, now the work at Fantastic Space Enterprises holds a focus on developing how these core principles apply and are beneficial in more and more diverse personal and professional situations as well as how they increase the quality of work for the performing artist.

(back to top)


 

Site by Brad Hornick