SUMMER 2012 – PADUA, ITALY
TWO WEEK INTENSIVE IN EXPERIENCING THE ESSENCE OF THEATER MASKS
OPEN TO: performers, theater teachers, directors, playwrights, designers, choreographers, musicians
JULY 22nd – AUGUST 5th 2012
Program Direction: Paola Coletto
“For the great desire I had to see fair Padua, nursery of the arts, I am arrived...
...and am to Padua come, as he that leaves a shallow plash to plunge him in the deep, and with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.”
William Shakespeare
“The Taming of the Shrew”, Act 1, Scene 1
STUDY IN ITALY
This advanced training program gives students a unique opportunity to study theater in Italy, where they will find a wealth of culture and hospitality within the Veneto region and more specifically within the historic city centre of Padua.
The adventure of exploring Padua’s University and the surrounding cities of Venice, Verona, Milan, Florence and Rome will be inescapable! The neighboring Euganean Hills will awaken the senses, with its small artisan villages and bustling riverside markets of regional delicacies.
In addition, the Veneto region has an eclectic mix of artists from actors and mask makers to sculptors, painters and musicians with countless festivals that will keep everyone actively busy with things to explore!
PADUA AND THE HISTORY OF THEATER
The city of Padua and the history of the theatre are deeply enmeshed. In the heart of the city’s centre lie the remnants of the ancient Roman Arena theatre. The city is also the birthplace of the famed playwright ‘Ruzante’ (Angelo Beolco), who was a central influence to the birth of Commedia dell’ Arte and the invention of theatrical Italian stock characters. The style of ‘Commedia’ was born in Padua with the first professional company of players legally incorporated here, of which historical documentation is preserved. They played to audiences in theatres and public squares, travelling by boat up and down the Brenta river that connects Padua to Venice, stopping to perform at the foot of the riverbank before the revellers of the many villas that line the historic river way.
Later in the 18th century, one of the largest public squares in Europe was built. Prato delle Valle became a focal point in Padua’s city center that attracted a wide variety of street performers and entertainers from all across the region.
For centuries, the prestigious University of Padua, (founded in 1222) has been a place of research and discovery. During the period after the Second World War, theatre research at the University generated a great interest in Italian and European movement based theatre. In 1948, Jacques Lecoq the French athlete and physiotherapist turned actor, director and pedagogue, was invited by the University Theatre to teach movement and improvisation to the performers of the program.
At this time, Padua became an extraordinary laboratory of theatre research.
The eventual collaboration between Lecoq and the Paduan sculptor Amleto Sartori, urged the latter to take on the creation and construction of leather theatre masks. As a result, an ancient manufacturing technique was reinvented and Commedia dell’Arte would soon know a new splendor.
The work of Lecoq and Sartori delighted the famed Italian director Giorgio Strehler and as a result the three began a long term collaboration taking them back and forth between their research in Padua and Milan at the just newly forming Piccolo Teatro. During this time, their focus began to shift to Milan because their productions began to be recognized internationally as reference points as acclaimed achievements in the arts world. Years later, the Nobel Prize winning artist Dario Fo was a performer in these productions, recognizing Lecoq as his master teacher in the art of performance. The history during this time was rich, including many collaborators that influenced the theater of the day with an impact that later could be seen in international performance approaches, the founding of new types of training programs as well as many of the collaborators expanding their work into diverse international theater circles, as well as film and television.
In 1956, Jacques Lecoq returned to France where he founded his own international theatre school in Paris. His extraordinary experience in Italy with Commedia dell’Arte, improvisation, and a focus on physical expressivity became the foundation for a new renaissance in physical theatre, re-defining approached in this art form for the next generation of artists to come.
THE PROGRAM
This two-week, hands-on program, addresses performers, theater teachers, directors, playwrights, designers, choreographers, and musicians wanting to expand their creative tools or wishing to further their experience with physical theater approaches to artistic creation. This journey is not a method, but more importantly a provocation that gives meaning to an individual’s artistic path; it is not just an approach to training actors, but of educating theatre artists with very diverse skill sets.
The program’s approach works toward the teaching of the theater arts as a communal and collaborative experience where each collaborator participates in many aspects of theatre: playwriting, directing, performing, and design. At the same time, the program offers a unique physical experience that challenges the participants to develop their body as a complete instrument. There will be a daily training regimen focused on: voice, spatial awareness, engagement in improvisation, levels of playing and the development of strong working relationships with the audience and the creative ensemble.
By experimenting and creating theater in new ways, participants will gain new tools to use in their own teaching and directing work: from text-based stage work and approaches to film performance, to original theater creation.
PROGRAM GOALS
PARTICIAPATION GOALS
Students in the program will experience:
- an academically challenging program abroad based upon the study of a European Physical Theatre tradition
- an improvement in their performance, playwriting, direction, and production skills
- a collaborative approach toward original theatre creation in their daily autonomous ensemble-based classes
- new working perspectives by experiencing theatre from a physical approach versus a psychological approach
- develop new tools that enhance their existing artistic journey
- develop intercultural competencies and communication skills by working in foreign culture and community
- develop and hone critical analytical skills through the weekly faculty critiques on the theatre of their own creation
- advance their college and major requirements in their theatre, language and cultural studies
- experience elements of theatre history through a practical hands-on experience
- exposure and awareness to European physical theatre training and the experience of ‘internationalization’
EXPERIENCIAL and PROFESSIONAL GOALS
Students in the program will:
- experience full immersion of living in an Italian community, experiencing the neighborhoods, daily markets, while visiting museums, theaters, and the surrounding areas’ activities, concerts, etc.
- be exposed to the rich Italian tradition of professional theatre by attending productions, studying with working theatre professionals, and participating in workshops
- clarify personal, educational, and career goals through advanced training and an increased awareness of the profession of theatre as practiced in different cultural contexts
- become aware of cultural differences through opportunities to travel and explore Italy
- improve their professional résumés with physical theater training and master classes while establishing professional contacts for developing future career goals
- learn to adapt in a different environment and develop confidence and self-reliance by living abroad
- gain a deeper understanding of themselves as both American and global citizens by experiencing contrasting customs, values and traditions in Italy
THE WORK
Masks are archetypes present throughout the history of humanity in ceremonial ritual, the arts, and sciences. Masks are utilized today as fundamental and powerful pedagogical tools in the training of theatre artists.
Why mask work?
When the facial expression of the performer is covered, this experience initiates a rediscovery of the very source of their presence in space. Gesture becomes amplified and articulated where the focus is brought back to the expressive body. Mask work combines a strong emotional awareness with a powerful body alertness to create a complete training for all theatre artists, laying the foundation for work on characters for all theatre genres.
The course work encompasses fundamental approaches to specific types of theatre masks, including the study of Neutral Mask, Larval Mask and Primary Mask, the half masks of the Commedia dell’Arte and the modern day evolution of mask into the Human Comedy.
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Neutral Mask
The Neutral Mask is a pedagogical tool that serves as a fundamental reference point for all mask and performance work. It proposes to the artist an experience grounded in a state of balance, calm and silence: the here and now of space. Once worn, it allows each participant to experience the neutral state that precedes action; a heightened state of awareness devoid of internal conflict, as the Neutral Mask has no past or future - it exists in a conscious state of presence. When the artist touches this neutral state, the body becomes "a blank page, available for the forth coming drama to be written." We propose that the Neutral Mask is a perfect starting point for the creation of all theatre work.
Larval Masks
Following the Neutral Mask, the artist begins an exploration toward character within the world of Larval Masks, which are transposed from the ancient carnival masks from the city of Basel, Switzerland, into powerful training tools. Very big, simple and essentialized; they suggest expression, announcing the lines that will lead to a specific character without defining it. Embryonic-like, the masks propose the dimension of animality or fantasy with characters and situations that live in the realm of highly stylized, caricatured imagination. Larval mask work has a tremendous pedagogical value in all artists’ physical theatre training because they ask for amplification of gesture in order to fully play, provoking the artist to discover dynamic movement informed by the mask as a structure and shape in space.
Primary Masks
These unique half-masks propose primary human characters defined by a single, dominant dynamic in space. For the first time since the beginning of the coursework, we reveal the mouth of the artist. This gives freedom to voice the internal world of the mask, exploring the sounds, rhythms and foundation for language, ultimately introducing the concept of “grammelot”. These masks are extremely naïve and challenge the artist to embody very specific human characteristics where primal emotion takes precedence over intelligence and understanding.
Expressive Half Masks
(HUMAN COMEDY & COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE)
The half-masks of Human Comedy introduce the artist to a very precise physical definition of character through the play of urgency and survival. This style, where passions and states are pushed to the extreme, demand for a very high level of physicality where the body is completely engaged and constantly receptive. From Human Comedy the course work will move into the mask of Commedia dell’Arte.
CURRICULUM
Participants will be immersed in a diverse curriculum of theater specialties and disciplines taught by working professionals and master teaching artists.
The development of the program is rooted on various courses of study:
- Analysis of movements and technique
- Improvisation
- Voice of the mask
- Physical preparation through Martial Arts
- Mask sculpting and history
- Autonomous ensemble work: devising, writing, directing
COURSE DESCRIPTION
MOVEMENT (Analysis & Technique)
The analysis of movements and technique is designed as a 2-track course, exploring the fundamentals of the body in action. Analysis of movement provides an unlimited amount of resources for play and creation while Movement technique provides structure for artistic mastery.
Starting from the observation of the human body in the daily actions of life, this work presents the artist with a greater awareness of the body in space and dramatic presence.
In the study of movements, there exists a series of basic actions and an awareness toward the human body structure of: opening, closing, extension, flexion, verticality, horizontality, pulsation, breathing, pushing and pulling, acceleration and deceleration, the rhythm and counter rhythm, etc…
The analysis and practice of this work enables the artist to discover the source of personal impulse for action, essential for dramatic theatrical creation.
IMPROVISATION
Coursework is based on playing to discover improvisational rules: be in the present, the priority of response and reaction on the action, action in play, the availability of 'emptiness', rhythm, tempo, range, development of themes, the overturning of a theme, the recall of a theme, and more…
The daily practice and understanding of improvisation allows artists to play and ‘write’ the theatre of their own creation.
PHYSICAL PREPARATION
Physical preparation is a necessary and permanent training of the body that allows the student to know its potential and to maintain it efficiently, enabling it to become an expressive instrument. The course work will explore and improve essential physical actions (reaching, pushing, balancing, weight-shifting, etc) through Martial Arts.
VOICE OF THE MASK
Course work specifically focuses on the training of the voice: resonance, liberation of sound through the many physical resonating points in the body. There is also an emphasis on the connection between body movement and sound, defined as ‘voice movement’ evolving into the connection between sound, body movement, and mask.
MASK SCULPTING and HISTORY
During the first week of the program every afternoon participants will experience an immersion workshop held at the Centro Maschere e Strutture Gestuali located in Abano Terme - Padua.
This workshop is divided in two sessions:
a theory session where participants will be lead through a journey of the history of mask from the primitive period: tribal, propitiatory, evocative; to the Commedia dell'Arte. It will include the cultural rediscovery of the Commedia dell'Arte in our century and the reinterpretation of its characters by Amleto and Donato Sartori’s historic and current research and work.
A mask sculpting session where students will explore the following technical mask-making phases:
- modelling of the mask (clay)
- creation of the mould (plaster)
- realization of the mask in hardened, papier-mâché
Each student will be provided with supplementary text material for this three-day workshop.
In addition to a visit to the Sartori Mask Museum located in Abano Terme. The museum offers highlights on the Greek and Roman eras, the developments in medieval mask theatre through the birth of Commedia dell'Arte in the Renaissance and the explosion of traditional modern mask use across Europe, the Americas and the Orient. http://www.sartorimaskmuseum.it/
AUTONOMOUS ENSEMBLE WORK
This daily class is a self-taught, collective collaboration course. Without the direct supervision of the teachers, small groups of students work on themes connected to the overall course-work. This work develops playwriting, directing and performance skills that are essential to the creation of original theater.
FACULTY
Paola Coletto (IT-USA) – Improvisation / Acting
Matteo Destro (IT) - Movement Analysis and Technique / Voice of the Mask
M. Bao Lan (IT) - Physical Preparation
Donato Sartori (IT) - Mask Sculpting and History
SCHEDULE
JULY 22nd – AUGUST 5th 2012
Sunday July 22nd - Arrival / Registration Check -in
Sunday August 5th - Departure
Classes take place every day, Monday through Saturday
first week 7/23 – 7/28:
9.00am to 12.30pm - class sessions
2.00pm to 6.00pm - sessions at Sartori’s workshop in Abano Terme - Padua
(Saturday 28th only 10 to 1)
second week 7/30 – 8/3:
9.00am to 1.00pm - 2.00pm to 5.00pm - class sessions
(Saturday and Sunday free)
CLASS LOCATION
Class sessions will be held in the Historic Center of Padua
TUITION
$1,900 (accommodation included)
APPLICATION DEADLINE
MAY 15th 2012
Applicants will confirm their enrollment by sending a non-refundable deposit of $650 by MAY 15th 2012
Checks should be made to:
HOLON PRODUCTIONS, LLC
1221 N Dearborn Pkwy. Suite 810N
Chicago, IL 60610
Please note that the number of students is limited to 18
LANGUAGE
The workshop will be taught in English.
Italian course leader Donato Sartori will have his work translated.
CONTACT US
for more information or to schedule a phone conversation with Paola previous the registration email registration@paolacoletto.com |
