| Liquid Way to Action |
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Studio Matejka summer workshop led by Matej Matejka and Irena Toma¾in together with the members of Studio Matejka Mon–Thu 19–29 May 2014 Brzezinka, the forest base of the Grotowski Institute Contact and application Please send your completed application form and CV, along with a brief letter of motivation to studiomatejka.workshops@gmail.com by 26 April 2014. The workshop will have a limited number of participants. Fee The session fee of 500 EUR includes accommodation, transport between Wroc³aw and Brzezinka, and meals for the entire period of the work session (11 days). The final action in the performance is often the result of a long transformation of an idea or intuition. It seems there is not one fixed way to reach the action, but the path we choose can be stable and yet fluid at the same time. In this work session of “The Liquid Way to Action” we search for the fusion of the creative training developed through our extensive research with the performers’ individual experiences, in order to uncover a unique and personal form of expression through the body and voice. We will use as a starting point the theme of “contradictions” as a source of research for the performer. Contradictions are not a limitation, but rather, by focusing simultaneously on opposite ideas, they open doorways for the inner, primal sources of the body to resonate and flow through voice and movement. The world exists as a dynamic fusion of contradictions in which the performer is able to discover a path to his total essence. By tracing the movement of the body through this labyrinth of oppositions, we come to a deeper understanding of our individual physical and vocal identities, the different voices that mirror our own fragility and strength. Through a laboratory model that seeks to break the borders between dance, theatre, movement and voice, we aim to unlock the potentialities for beginnings, where action is born. This is an invitation to delve into the rigorous and experimental workspace that defines Studio Matejka. This year we are inviting a special guest leader, Irena Toma¾in, from Slovenia. Irena will introduce elements from her practice and rich experience in movement, drama and voice. This work session is targeted towards practitioners with an interest and experience in theatre, dance or physical performance. It is open both for professional actors and dancers willing to explore less common fields of physical expression. This challenge requires serious focus and precision from all engaged in the work. Participants will be introduced to elements of:
Creative Preparation
Language
Conditions for work
Location
More information: www.studiomatejka.com
Matej Matejka is the founder and leader of Studio Matejka. He studied acting at the State Conservatory in Bratislava, Slovakia, later at JAMU University, Brno, Czech Republic. In 2001–2006 he was an actor of the theatre studio Farm in the Cave, Prague, and co-creator of performances Dark Love Sonnets and multi-awarded Sclavi/The Song of an Emigrant (Total Theatre Award, Fringe First, Herald Angel). Since 2005 he has been a collaborator of the Grotowski Institute, where he is engaged in the research of physical expression in the theatre. He is an actor with Teatr ZAR and co-creator of Anhelli: The Calling and Caesarean Section: Essays on Suicide, awarded with the Herald Angel and Total Theatre Awards in Edinburgh in 2012. Since 2010 Matej has been the leader of Studio Matejka, an ensemble that works under the auspices of the Grotowski Institute and takes part in the BodyConstitution research programme.
He directed the short films Life While You Wait, Twenty Second Street, Juste comme ça, The Desire, The Mess, Conflicts of Apathy and Pearadise, which won Best Foreign Film at Los Angeles International Underground Film Festival. With Studio Matejka he directed: Awkward Happiness or Everything I Don’t Remember About Meeting You, The Echoes off the Walls Underground Are Louder Than Your Footsteps Above Me, Woman Decomposed and Charmolypi. He has led workshops in theatres and universities all around the globe (UNEARTE, Venezuela; CalArts, California, USA; NSD, New Delhi, India; DS Delos of Dimitra Hatoupi, Athens, Greece; University of Salford, UK; Double Edge Theatre, USA; Charles Working Theatre, Boston, USA; Au Brana, France; Lebanon, etc.). In his work he searches for the performer’s “essence of communication” where both dance and drama are equal vehicles for the actor’s expression. Irena Toma¾in was born in 1979 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She graduated from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana. She became actively involved in dance and theatre while in secondary school where she was in the theatre group IHT. Her dance theatre and voice educational background included programmes such as Laboratorij (EN-KNAP) and Agon (EMANAT), as well as seminars on contemporary performing arts (Maska Ljubljana) and many workshops and seminars in Slovenia and abroad. In 2004 she received a scholarship as part of the DanceWEB programme run by the ImPulzTanz Festival, and in 2007 she was selected to join the “Source Techniques – Sources of Techniques” Atelier in Wroc³aw, held by the Grotowski Institute. In 2001, together with conductor Mitja Reichenberg, she created her first solo dance piece, Hitchcock’s Metamorphoses, and in 2005 she developed Caprice, focusing on voice. After that she started to work more intensively on voice. In 2006 she re-worked Caprice as Caprice (Re)lapsed for the City of Women Festival in Ljubljana. Caprice and Caprice (Re)lapsed earned her the Golden Bird Award from Liberal Arts Academy in Ljubljana. The two pieces were soon followed by: As a Rain Drop into the Mouth of Silence (2008), awarded at the 2009 Gibanica Festival, and Out of Discord, created in collaboration with Josephine Evrard. In 2012 she made her fourth solo piece, The Taste of Silence Always Resonates.
In 2011 Mathieu Copeland invited her to work on Une exposition à être lue in Geneva (HEAD), where she co-curated the exhibition, held lessons for partners and worked on the project’s book which included her compositions for voice and body. In 2013 Copeland and Toma¾in continued their collaboration working on the project Chorégraphier l’exposition (Ferme du Buisson, Paris), where she contributed her composition and the text Voice’s Empty Spaces. In 2006 she created a solo project for voice and dictaphones, iT, which she toured in Slovenia and abroad. In 2011 she released the album Crying Games, produced by Atol Institute together with Aldo Ivanèiæ, with whom she worked in the BAST collective and on the album Retinal Circus. Soon, Toma¾in and Ivanèiæ are releasing a new album, The Taste of Silence, with music from The Taste of Silence Always Resonates, as part of the international project Co-voicings (2013–14). Irena Toma¾in holds regular voice workshops in Ljubljana and abroad. Upcoming workshops |
