The Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at SUNY Brockport is
pleased to invite faculty and staff from other SUNY institutions to the
following seminar, free of charge. All attendees must register in advance.
The registration deadline is 04/09/04. To
register, send an email containing the following information to
[log in to unmask]:

1) name of participant
2) participant's institution
3) participant's email address
4) specify which session participant wishes to attend (am or pm)

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"The Art of Presentation: Theatre Techniques for Successful Public Speaking"

Monday, 04/19/04
10:00 am - 12:00 pm; repeated 1:30-3:30 pm
New York Room
Refreshments Provided

Presenter: Nancy Houfek, Harvard University

Abstract:

As public speakers, we often focus on the content of our subject matter and
leave the
quality of our speaking to chance. After a presentation we wonder, "Did they

get it? Am I
doing something wrong? Did I do everything I could to get this across:" The
Art of
Presentation will give you specific tools to dispel those doubts.

Nowadays, written information is easily available on any topic. But when the

written word
is brought to life by a successful speaker, how it is received changes.
Subject matter
flows through us, transformed by personality, approach, and creativity.
Public
speaking is
a physical act; the human form is the presenting medium.

Actors, those on stage whose extraordinary performance deeply affect us,
know
how to
make the printed word come alive. They rely on physical awareness to
increase
their
capacity for observation, communication and inspiration. They use their
craft
to help the
audience empathetically feel the action on stage. When a play ends, the
audience is
often transformed by the experience.

Actors and public speakers use their voices. Actors and presenters need to
move well,
comfortably and freely, in the theatre space. Actors and speakers feel a
tangible
connection to and immediate feedback from the audience. Actors and speakers
can and
do improvise. Both actors and speakers experience stage fright. And just as
a
theatre
artist experiences her or his creative work as a calling, so do we in our
presentations.

Your authority will not be diminished by using theatre techniques in your
presentations,
nor will performance skills lessen your professionalism. The opposite will
happen. You
will become more relaxed, dynamic, and spontaneous. You will enjoy the
physical
experience of communication. You will speak with imagery and poetry. Your
topic will
come alive.

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Biography:

Nancy Houfek has served as a consultant to actors, television journalists,
talk show
personalities, teachers and other professional voice users throughout the
United States
since 1978. She has presented workshops for Harvard's Kennedy School of
Government, Radcliffe Seminars, and The Derek Bok Center for Teaching and
Learning
at Harvard, as well as for clients in the private sector. A film of her work

with Harvard
faculty, The Act of Teaching, has been produced by the Bok Center for
national
distribution to faculty development centers.

With a B.A. from Stanford University, she received her M.F.A. from the
American
Conservatory Theatre where she subsequently remained as an actor, director
and
coach
for nearly a decade. In addition to being an accomplished professional
actress, Houfek
has held faculty or guest positions at the University of Washington, the
Drama
Studio of
London, Southern Methodist University and the University of Minnesota, where

she
headed the professional actor training program. She is also a Master Teacher

of
Fitzmaurice Voicework.

Houfek currently teaches voice, speech, dialects, and text to the graduate
level actors at
the American Repertory Theatre/Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at
Harvard
University. As Head of Voice & Speech, she also coaches the actors of the
professional
theatre company, administers the voice internship program, and has created a

new
M.F.A. in voice training pedagogy.

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Please direct any questions to [log in to unmask] or 585-395-5025.

Mr. James B. Greenberg
Director Teaching, Learning and Technology Center
Milne Library
SUNY College at Oneonta
Oneonta, New York 13820

email: [log in to unmask]
phone: 607-436-2701

"Ignorance is curable, stupidity lasts forever"