October 9-10, 12:00 - 15:00

Moscow, Marxistskaya str., 3c2

Cost: 4000 p. for two days / 3000 p. for one day

workshop

The educational program of physical theatre workshop

Human body is a powerful instrument that has its own deep inner knowledge and memory. But because of the reason that really active body work is absent in our ordinary life, we usually loose its natural connection between body and mind. In this regard the recreation of this bridge and a dialog with our body becomes our real necessity. And the special training by the method of physical theatre can become an effective instrument for it. 

Physical theatre is a genre if theatre art which use more physical actions and visual components than verbal ones and where thoughts and emotions are being expressed with gestures and body language.

The main purpose of the course “Basics of Physical Theatre” is relief from physical and mental tensions, getting rid of cliché in physical movements, developing of imagination and abilities of physical expression, unlocking the potential abilities of your own body in the process of working on the role and improvisation. 

The participation in this course must inspire you on the journey inside of your own body to reveal actor skills and to awake the demand of impressive movement in the body. All the participants will receive the instructions how to create your own consistent practice, how to experiment and gain knowledge about abilities and potentiality hidden in the body, display communion and tenderness in partner work. 

The creative process of professional development for actor is imminently connected with transformation in regard to your own abilities. It is necessary to understand that your body is essential part of your human being and it would be improperly not to pay due attention to its development, especially for the actor who must express the very subtle nuances of the character by his acting. Body is actor’s instrument which becomes a main way of transference of thoughts and feelings. Because spectators see, first of all, the visual elements on stage. So if the body is not enough trained and too tense, it looses a touch with an inner world and as a result actor’s play becomes not as rich and vivid as if actor use the full potential of his instruments and abilities. 

The harmony between movement of body and mind is undoubtedly a result of hard work and this work demands a time. Actor has to tend making his body wise in the sense of flexible and mobile, courage and adroit, submissive and receptive, smart and educated. Wise body can be “sent to free swimming” and you can trust it in the process of acting. Wise body allow you maintaining such level of control that doesn’t break creative initiative in improvisation. It gives you a sense of inner balance between your own creative abilities and creative impulsions. 

In physical theatre we use comprehensive approach that includes both physical and psychologic aspects in training and it helps feeling its integrity.  

The exercises during the workshop are going to develop the following aspects: 

  • Flexibility: it is necessary not only for gracefulness and physical expressiveness, but also for psychological flexibility and mobility; 
  • Endurance: it is necessary for every artist to be able to withstand physical and mental strain; 
  • Tension: actor must be able to control the tension. Awareness of movement is possible by means of control the level of tension. Especially it is necessary to pay attention to control of tension at the entrance into interesting plastic form and at the exit from it;
  • Coordination: the developed ability of coordination is a guarantee of an optimality in time and energy that actor will expend for performing a movement in the stage conditions. Lightness of coordination is a basis of adroitness;
  • Balance: this is a theme that touches the questions of coordination, inertia, tension, sense of movement on all the possible levels from physical to mental and psychic ones and also in all the creative aspects as much in training as in a real relationship between actor and character during rehearsals and play. The balance should be understood not only as a state of balance, but also as the constantly presented possibility of loosing the balance;
  • Speed: the work on the temp and rhythm proportion is beginning from mastering different speeds. Any speedup and slowdown should depend on control of tension and inertia. Ability to control the movement inertia then must be transformed into ability to control the inertia of thoughts and emotions that produce both movements and words;
  • Dynamics and amplitudes of movement: both these aspects are connected with expressiveness of movement. 

All the exercises in the workshop are going to be concentrated on the following themes: 

  • Work with a partner and with space: developing the sense of mise en scene, architecture of space and a body. Ability to feel and understand the partner is a duty of real professional; 
  • Composition;
  • Visual expressiveness;
  • Concentration and ability to keep multiple objects in attention;
  • Improvisation;
  • Revival of sensitive skills: emotional mobility, speed of reaction to inner and external stimulus;
  • Work with rhythm: very important bloc pointed to development of a sense of rhythm in communication with music and with a partner, imagery rhythm, polyrhythm;
  • Work with energy and ways of energetic impact on spectator and also expansion of energy field of the dancer, creation of atmosphere of the dance;
  • Development of fantasy and imagination: this is a substantive part of the whole training, because these aspects are the main working instrument of any actor. This theme presents in all the physical and mental exercises. 

It should be noted, that such division on the themes is relative enough and has its aim just to highlight the directions of work. The majority of exercises cover several themes. Any exercise, nevertheless which aspect it pointed on, demands attention, fantasy, faith and naïve. So what does follow from this? – That any creative process is always a unitary and indivisible acting of soul in which all the elements of creation are equally necessary in every current moment. And none of the elements must be absent.