For the 2nd year in a row,
Anu Almagro (Salonen) and Dimitris Varkas are happy to announce a late spring/ early summer physical theatre workshop in Panormos, Crete, Greece.
22-23-24-25 May 2015
10am-5pm
Carob Mill Cultural Center (Haroupomylos)
(in collaboration with “Epimenides Cultural Society of Panormos”)
Panormo, Crete
http://www.panormo.gr/
THE BODY OF ENSEMBLE No2
“Turning Towards the Desert” – The Landscape of the Breathing Soul
The main focus of this workshop will be the dynamic body of the ensemble in relation to the individual performer. The ensemble will be discovered through exercises with common rhythm, spatial relations and movement improvisations. The physicality of the individual performer is based on the sensations of the body and dynamic physical practice, guiding us towards the sensitivity of imagination, memories and feelings. We are looking for the character to arise from one’s own creative strength and inspiration. The actors presence will be awoken through exercises including work on the physical life, imagination, spatial awareness, impulses, focus, joy, dance, word/text, rhythm and song through receiving and giving support as a living, breathing, moving and sounding ensemble.
This workshop will reveal to the participants different ways of approaching creative inspiration as physical performers and how to bring this inspiration into practice. Participants will learn ways of creating material towards performance. Actors, dancers and musicians can focus on creativity as performers and gain inspiration, focus and depth. The experience of psychophysical theatre training supports acting and performance in many aspects such as strengthening the presence, the understanding of self, others, spatial relations, physical action, voice and music.
The workshop is directed towards practitioners with an interest and experience in theatre, music and/or dance. It is open for both professional and amateur actors, dancers, and musicians. This challenge requires discipline, focus, and mental and physical stamina.
The theme of the research this year is The Desert. We are asking participants to learn a song inspired by this theme. Bring three images that refer to the desert to you in personal means. And please learn a monologue/ text/ poem/prayer by heart, without preparation, from any inspiring piece of literature connecting your soul to our theme – The Desert.
We work bare feet with comfortable clothing.
The workshop will be held in english with translation to greek if necessary
cost: 200 euro for Western Europeans/ 150 euro concession for Eastern Europeans, Europeans “in crisis”, and students
with possibility for FREE accommodation
limited number of participants
For more info contact
dim.varkas@gmail.com
and/or
thouthou000@gmail.com
and by telephone: +30 6944 671 613, +30 6936 742 475
We are currently looking for collaborators for our new performance work. If interested, please contact us. The first session of this work will be held in Crete, at the Carob Mill Cultural Centre of Panormos, on the 26/27th-31st of May. (See below for more info on our Desert Project research period)
Anu is an actress and acting teacher with the award winning Polish Teatr Piesn Kozla / Song of The Goat Theatre. Since joining the company in 2007, she was a key collaborator in the development of Macbeth, The Crucible, Songs of Lear and Portraits of Cherry Orchard directed by Grzegorz Bral and has performed with the company throughout Europe and UK. Anu is an international workshop leader and teaches Acting students in various universities throughout Europe. She initiated and is the director of Odra Ensemble theatre company and a founding member of the Finnish chapter of Clowns without borders bringing clown- and music performances for children all around the world.
Dimitris is an actor from Greece, who has worked internationally in Europe, UK, and Russia. Graduated BA School of Drama, Faculty of Fine Arts, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has been collaborating with various theatre groups in Thessaloniki, Greece, including Piramatiki Skini tis Technis. Dimitris holds an MA in Acting degree from Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) after studying with the internationally acclaimed, award winning Teatr Piesn Kozla / Song of the Goat Theatre in Wrocław, Poland. He joined the company in 2012 and he has been a key collaborator in the development of Portraits of Cherry Orchard. He is a co-founding member of Odra Ensemble. Since 2014, Dimitris has started teaching and leading workshops and seminars in Greece and abroad.
http://piesnkozla.pl/en/
(on Anu and Dimitris’ work on “Portraits of the Cherry Orchard”, Grzegorz Bral (dir.), Song of the Goat Theatre)
https://www.youtube.com/
(on Anu’s work on the award winning “Songs of Lear”, Grzegorz Bral (dir.), Song of the Goat Theatre)
(on Anu and Dimitris’ work on “We Will Leave Only Bone: Reflections of Eurydice”, Anu Almagro-Salonen (dir.), Odra Ensemble)
The Desert in Focus
Throughout the history the desert has been a place for contemplation. All the grand prophets went to the desert to seek enlightenment, transformation and the words. The desert appears as a place for retreat. Passing through the desert can also manifest itself as seeking for a “better” life. Many have travelled through the desert to reach the West. Many have lost their lives. Many have lost their families and friends.
A journey through the desert can give peace for the one who seeks it. It can be a place where one hides from the earthly distraction and gains a joyous, pure peace of the heart and mind. Spending time in the desert can be an ally for seeking spirituality. Or, the desert can present itself as a deadly trap; heat, the lack of water, sand storms, solitude and a bite of a scorpion have ended lives of many throughout time.
The desert surely is a place of hidden treasures. This dry land used to be fertile and feed civilisations. Now they lay there; forgotten, waiting to be uncovered, or maybe never to be found. Only the songs that occasionally travel the dunes, sung by the people of the desert, might carry the lost histories of past civilisations. These stories only can reveal the longing, losses and love of the generations before us.
26th-31st May
Sahara – The Desert – The Research Period of the Company
This research period focuses on deepening our company practice. A professional cast of actors collaborates during this week, exploring the material that they have independently prepared during the spring 2015. The ensemble will work on physical and vocal etudes that might become moments of the performance. These etudes will be developed in Crete and this development will continue later in the summer in Athens. The aim is to create material towards a performance in 2016 and bring this act to Crete.
31st May
An open presentation to the local community, the first presentation of the material, the beginnings of Sahara – The Desert – Project. The plan is to have a practical presentation and a talk about the work.
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