This workshop opens a new area of activities for Studio Matejka. With a broader structure than before, and additional camera work, the workshop will both create space for unique experiences and lead to concrete artistic outcomes.

 

“The Liquid Way to Action” will fuse our well established creative training and research process with the performers’ own experiences to uncover personal forms of expression. We will use the idea of contradictions as a source of research for the performer. Contradictions are not only a limitation, but also, by focusing simultaneously on oppositional ideas, they open doorways for the inner, primal sources of the body to flow.

 

The participants will explore the rigorous and experimental workspace that defines Studio Matejka. Through a laboratory model that seeks to break the borders between dance, dramatic theatre and other forms of performing arts, we aim to unlock the potentiality of beginnings and places, where action is born.

 

The intensive session is divided into two parts. The first, led by Matej Matejka and Cécile Da Costa, and accompanied by the Studio Matejka performers, will be devoted to the development of skills in physical performance and will support the creation of individual scores.

Then, in the second part, and last three days, those created movement structures will be used as material for a short film produced under the leadership of Slovak filmmaker Adam Hanuljak. Throughout the workshop, Lebanese musician Abed Kobeissy will accompany our shared sessions, gradually composing a soundtrack for the film we will realise together.

 

In the last phase of the work, through a common process of film production, participants will gain experience in, and a better understanding of, the relationship between performer and camera. The workshop offers a unique opportunity to experience a complex process, starting with creation of live solo performance material before developing, adapting and using it within the broader context of film creation.

 

Participants will be introduced to elements of:

•    respectful and focused working environment

•    building a personal, daily physical practice for the body and voice

•    sensitivity and listening through partner and group relation

•    awakening the anatomy of the body to develop readiness for action

•    physical approach to voice

•    transformation from physical/vocal training into creative improvisation

•    composition of physical and musical structures

 

Language

The workshop will be held in English.

 

Location

The work session will take place in Brzezinka in the historical forest base of The Grotowski Institute, located 46 km from Wroclaw. The Brzezinka forest base began as a renovation project by Jerzy Grotowski and The Laboratory Theatre in 1971. The renovated farm buildings surrounded by 10 hectares of forest, now contain a theatrical space, studio spaces, and full living accommodations

 

Contact and application                                                                                                      

Please send your completed application form and CV to studiomatejka.workshops@gmail.com by 10 May 2015. The workshop will have a limited number of participants.

 

Fee

The session fee of 550*/ 750 EUR includes accommodation, transport between Wroclaw and Brzezinka, and meals for the entire period of the work session.

* For participants from Central-Eastern Europe

 

Workshop leaders:

Matej Matejka (Slovakia/Poland) 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 as well as actor in Teatr ZAR, with which he co-created and performed in 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 seven short films and five performances with the Studio Matejka company. The film Pearadise has been awarded for Best Foreign Film in Los Angeles International Underground Film Festival 2013, film Conflict of Apathy was awarded for the Best short dance movie at NU Dance festival, Slovakia, 2014.  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.

 

Cécile Da Costa (France/Czech Republic) has been working as a physical actress and singer since 2005. For 5 years she was a member of the Farm in the Cave international theatre studio (Prague, Czech Republic), taking part in the performances SCLAVI/the Song of an Emigrant, Waiting Room, Divadlo/The Theatre and work demonstrations under the direction of Viliam Docolomansky and with the choreographic guidance of Charlotta Öfverholm (DV8). Within Farm in the Cave projects, she took part in several research expeditions in Ruthenia (Slovakia) and Northeast Brazil (work on the martial art of capoeira and on dances bumba meu boi and cavalo marinho). The company performed widely in Europe and beyond, and received several awards, including at the Edinburgh Festival. Cécile is now working as a choreographer and actress/singer with Spitfire Company, Prague, as well as leading workshops.

 

Alexandra Kazazou (Greece/Poland) studied acting at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She worked as an actor in the North National Theatre and co-founded Asypka, a theatrical group based in Athens. She finished an MA Acting course with the Song of the Goat Theatre in collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University School of Theatre. Kazazou is currently a member of Studio Matejka, a resident company at the Grotowski Institute. In 2012 she prepared a solo piece, Charmolypi, directed by Matej Matejka, which she performed in Poland, Belgium, Russia, Greece, Turkey, the USA and Scotland. In 2014 she directed Linatendu, which she presented at the Grotowski Institute as part of Solo Situations. She co-directed Borders with Theatre Under the Tree (Istanbul), and created the role of Miranda in Storm directed by Anna-Helena McLean, the leader of Moon Fool (UK). She was assistant director on Studio Matejka’s The Harmony of Contradictions: Poland.

 

Adam Hanuljak (Slovakia) studied directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, where in 2014 he received his PHD degree in documentary film directing and is currently teaching there. He has directed dozens of documentary films. With Studio Matejka he has produced two films: a documentary spanning two years of the work of the international ensemble Studio Matejka titled Why We Are Here and the short film Conflict of Apathy directed by Matej Matejka, which was awarded for the best short dance movie at NU Dance Festival, Slovakia (2014). He also has experience working as a projection artist in theatre and dance performances.

 

Abed Kobeissy (Lebanon) is a musician and composer who lives and works in Beirut. He received his MA degree in musical semiotics in modern Arabic audiovisual mass media from the Antonine University, and currently teaches history and aesthetics of music at Lebanese American University in Beirut (LAU). He manages the musicology and sound art section in Dawawine, a centre for the arts of stage, screen and sound, where he is also responsible for the Arabic publications. Abed collaborates with various music groups specialising in contemporary classical and pop Arabic music, having toured to various international festivals (London, Marseille, Toulouse, Naples, Dubai, Abu Dhabi). He composes scores for films and theatre plays.

 

 

Więcej informacji na stronie www.grotowski-institute.art.pl