Home page
| From the form to the stage |
A work session led by Jean-François Favreau and Marie-Geneviève L’Her June 21-25, 2011, Brzezinka This work session is meant to open to participants the work process of Le Théâtre de l’homme ivre (the drunken man theatre). Its work started in 2006 in the form of a permanent workshop and developed towards the solo performance Marie. This piece confronts the practice of a specific discipline and its codes – the corporeal mime according to Étienne Decroux and Thomas Leabhart – to another perspective which reads the theatre stage as a net of relations (with space, time, reality, trajectory, oneself …). The conscious relationship the actor builds with his environment (and consequently with himself) is for us the field and condition of an utterance. It is the ground of Marie, where a woman tries to tell herself. Here, the point is not in what she says but in the very gesture of saying, and its actual process – it is not an autobiography, rather a spiritual path. Pursuing this experience, we want to dedicate this work-session to the shaping of a form and to its conscious overcoming towards the outside. We will focus on the quality of contact between the actor’s work and its environment, as well as on the actor’s ability to shift and to hold the texture of reality. We want then to observe how to set the prepared form in a concrete space and a present time, to suspend it, and how big is the perspective opened by this relation. How, through the score can grow the development of a way? How finally to play, to be played, and to let play space and time themselves? To support this work, we will propose every day, as actor’s training and as a common ground of understanding, a practical work on Etienne Decroux’s corporeal mime. In this way, we aim to train some actor’s practice bases: consciousness, resistance, consequence. We want here to taste both the precision of a strong formal technique and the experience of emptiness. The main stress of this session will be put on individual processes. Participants will be asked to prepare a fragment of a score proposition they would like to work on as well as a text. As a starting material, sequences belonging to specific disciplines with strong codes and coherency (traditional forms and genres, martial arts, dances, songs…) are very welcomed.  Jean-François Favreau Actor member of Teatr ZAR. Doctor in Literature, he was formed to theatre practice through a series of workshops in France and Europe, with former collaborators of Grotowski, dancers, in Christian Rist’s Studio Prosodique, and with musicians such as Marcel Pérès. He worked with La Machine Theatre Compagny (Paris 1999-2005) as an actor ("Un Silence en sourdine", "Yvonne, princesse de Bourgogne") and a director ("Manège-Woyzeck"). He was theatre technician and assistant of Valérie Grail (Théâtre du Soleil). In 2006-2007, he was an actor of the ensemble Theater TANTO in Vienna (directed by Susanna Tabaka-Pillhofer), performing "Researches of a dog". Member of the project Song of Songs (Maisternia Pisni) since the beginning in 2006. Since 2008, he works with Teatr ZAR, on "Gospels of Childhood. Triptych". He performed or led workshops in France, Poland, Germany, England, Austria, Italy, Lebanon, India, South Korea and the USA. Since 2010, he builds and directs the performance of Le Théâtre de l'homme ivre: Marie. Marie-Geneviève L'Her Actress and pedagogue. She was a corporeal mime research assistant of Prof. Thomas Leabhart (Decroux' technique) at Pomona College (California) in 2008. From 1999 to 2004, she trained, worked and toured as an actress and puppeteer mainly with La Machine Theatre Company (Paris, France; "Un Silence en sourdine" and "Yvonne, princesse de Bourgogne", from W. Gombrowicz). In 2004-2005, she was an actress in Teatr Jednego Wiersza (Opole, Poland; "Zyszcze Nam" and "Uzytkownia"). From 2005 to 2008, she trained in corporeal mime in Paris (school Hippocampe) and was an actress in the company Pas de Dieux theatre (physical theatre, Paris, France; "Ville de contrastes"). Since 2009, she investigates corporeal mime, builds her own practice (residencies in Austria, France, Poland), and leads workshops in France and Luxembourg; she also works within the project Song of Songs (Maisternia Pisni). In 2010, she started working on the performance of Le Théâtre de l'homme ivre: Marie. She performed works-in-progress in France and Belgium and took part to the first work sessions of the Studio Matejka, supported by the Grotowski Institute. Since March 2011, she fully dedicates herself to the performance Marie. PRACTICAL INFORMATION Number of participants: 6-10. Working language: English (and French if needed). Fee: 100 EUR + 25 EUR (food and accommodation) Participants from Central and Eastern Europe: 300 PLN + 100 PLN (food and accommodation) The fee should be paid until June 18, 2011. On June 20th at 8pm, the participants are invited to the presentation of the performance Marie in the Laboratory Room of the Grotowski Institute, in Wroclaw. The workshop will start on June 21 at 11am. Transportation from Wroclaw to Brzezinka and back will be provided. If you are interested in participation, please send your application before June 18, 2011, to: justyna@grotowski-institute.art.pl. The application should include a short CV, a note detailing the technique or form you would like to work with in your acting proposition, and a covering letter. |
||
