Workshop with Jozef Frucek

Fri–Sun 8–10 April 2016, 9:00–13:00

Na Grobli Studio, Studio Space

The workshop will be conducted in English

Contact and application

Please email your completed application form by 20 March 2016 to Justyna Rodzińska-Nair at justyna@grotowski-institute.art.pl. Please include in the subject of the email ‘BodyConstitution workshops’ followed by the name of the chosen workshop. The number of places is limited. Applicants will be accepted on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Fee: 60 EUR

Try. Play. Change roles. Lead. Follow. Struggle. Adapt. Study. Work with what you have and who you are. Physics. Anatomy. Adaptability. Imagination. Curiosity. Creativity above all.

Improvisation and creativity are vital to any kind of problem solving, and problem solving is vital for survival. On stage and above all in life. Life rarely happens on cue, according to script or as you expect. It is turbulent, always dynamic and unpredictable. It happens in context. It’s complex.

Fighting Monkey is an open practice and a long-term research programme on human movement, created and taught by RootlessRoot, the duo of Jozef Frucek and Linda Kapetanea. Fighting Monkey examines the basic condition of life, which is survival, with its related fundamental skills: creativity, adaptability and knowledge. Fighting Monkey is about reconnecting with the most essential principles that give birth to movement and lead us to more functional relations with the complex environment we live in. Fighting Monkey practice is based on developing an earthquake architecture for the body. Through a series of complex movement situations and games designed by RootlessRoot, the body is exposed to pressure and irregularity, develops observation skills, and increases neuroplasticity, resilience and energy which lead to better survival strategies, enhance improvisation and creativity.

Jozef Frucek, founding member of RootlessRoot with Linda Kapetanea, is a movement practitioner and artist. He graduated from the Academy of Music and Theatre in Bratislava, completing his PhD thesis in 2002. From 2002 to 2005 Jozef was a member of Wim Vandekeybus’ Ultima Vez, co-creating Blush (stage and film versions) and Sonic Boom. From 2005 to 2006 he collaborated with the Royal Flemish Theatre in Brussels (KVS), creating his own work. In 2006 he and Linda Kapetanea formed a company called RootlessRoot to use it as a vehicle for their own productions, research and teaching. Since then, they have been developing Fighting Monkey practice, an open research programme investigating human motion, whose findings they apply in the education of dancers, athletes, performers and other movement practitioners. Since 2006 Jozef has been a member of the teaching personnel of the PWST National Academy of Theatre Arts in Kraków, Poland, and the Greek National School of Dance in Athens. Over the past decade Jozef and Linda have produced more than 15 dance works, given more than 500 performances in 18 countries and run workshops for more than 5000 students around the world.