Workshop
ACTOR AS WRITER
Towards Artistic Autonomy
(Maximum 12 participants)
This workshop is open to groups and individuals
from all artistic disciplines with an interest in performance
Photo: Karl Burke
Since 2002, Nervousystem has developed a comprehensive praxis for daily actor training as well as evolving techniques of composition inside the research domain Actor as Writer. This work is not concerned specifically with actors “writing” in the literal sense, as in writing plays (although this has its own value) but rather promotes the actor as a generative artist authoring original work through the pure language of performance; body, voice and imagination. Actor as Writer operates a modus that explores actions as an evolving work both on the doer and the onlooker. This area of active research focuses on the performer, not only as interpretative but also as autonomous artist and examines possibilities to transform her/him into a whole creator. Actor as Writer goes to the very heart of the actor’s craft by interrogating their creative core through the language of action, the actor’s mother tongue, if you will, while simultaneously elaborating an objective dramaturgical vocabulary where spontaneity is counter-pointed and reinforced by detailed and clear structural form, all exercised by the actor him/herself. Nervousystem will guide participants through a process that integrates their physical and vocal capacity with their creative potential as they are placed at the heart of the creative act. From here we will seek to mobilize independent artistic expression, enabling individuals to become “authors” of their own work.
This is workshop is available in 3-day, 5-day, or 10-day blocks. It will be housed within a laboratory environment and will require a high level of commitment and engagement from all involved.
Breakdown of the component elements of the session.
Body
Voice
Action
NOTES TO PARTICIPANTS:
Clothing and Props
· Work in the morning will be focused on physical and vocal training. Participants should be prepared for demanding physical work and dress accordingly. Clothing that is easy to move in but does not obscure the natural lines of the body is best. Over-baggy tops and bottoms should be avoided where possible.
· Clothing for the afternoon work should be different to that of the morning; a simple comfortable top and pants for men and skirt for women that lightly suggest the formal or sense of occasion.
· All participants should bring with them a stick approx 3ft in length. Wooden broom handles are ideal and can be found readily and cheaply in most hardware shops.
· Participants should also bring a personal object or “prop”. This can be any personal item that has some history or particular connection/association for you.
Acting proposition
Each participant upon arrival should have prepared an individual acting proposition based on Shakespeare's sonnet number 15.
This proposition should comprise a repeatable structure having a perceivable beginning, middle and end following a clear line of physical action. The proposition can incorpororate some of the text from sonnet 15 but this is not mandatory. The sonnet is your starting point. One should aim for that which is natural and alive rather than “blocked” or choreographed. Feel free to incorporate costume pieces or props as you wish. Quality rather than quantity is encouraged. 2/3 minutes is adequate. All of the sonnet should also be fully memorized for other work throughout the work session.
Song
As part of vocal training some work will be built around song. This work uses songs as a vehicle for an organic searching of impulse through voice and is not concerned with aesthetically pleasing singing voices so don’t be put off if you have no experience of singing. Participants should come to the session with a song memorized or already known. It does not have to be very long but it is important that this song be chosen carefully. It should be a song that you have a personal connection with, perhaps a song someone sang to you as a child. You should try to work with a song that has some kind of roots for/in you. Pop songs or musical numbers are generally not suitable for this work. Folk or indigenous songs are more appropriate.
Selection is based on short biography and brief outline of motivation
Contacts:
Emma O’ Grady: mephisto.theatre@gmail.com
Nervousystem: contact@nervousystem.net
This is workshop is available in 3-day, 5-day, or 10-day blocks. It will be housed within a laboratory environment and will require a high level of commitment and engagement from all involved.
Breakdown of the component elements of the session.
Body
- Body rhythm, accent and counterpoint, space and tempo rhythm
- Plastics and body orchestration (isolation, dissociation, coordination, composition)
- Contact, flow of impulses. Intention, action, re-action.
- Balance, dynamics, weight displacement, dilation, kinesthesis
- Pre-acrobatics and grammar exercises; going down, getting up, rolls, jumps falls & inversions
- Work-in-succession: from single exercises to composition to improvisation to dynamic use of space
- Stick work
Voice
- Production and vocalization, dynamics and songs, relationship of song with movement, relationship of words and body
- Breathing and vocal emission, registers and location of voice colours.
- Vocal Action
- Verbal/Textual action and modulation
- Extracts from various musical and cultural sources.
- Monodical and choral songs, harmonization
- Listening, renewal of attention, pitch, melody, tempo rhythm and lyric.
Action
- Building of scores/lines of physical action
- Processing of montages and dramaturgy for individuals
- Montage and dramaturgy of a group
- Montage of text and action
NOTES TO PARTICIPANTS:
Clothing and Props
· Work in the morning will be focused on physical and vocal training. Participants should be prepared for demanding physical work and dress accordingly. Clothing that is easy to move in but does not obscure the natural lines of the body is best. Over-baggy tops and bottoms should be avoided where possible.
· Clothing for the afternoon work should be different to that of the morning; a simple comfortable top and pants for men and skirt for women that lightly suggest the formal or sense of occasion.
· All participants should bring with them a stick approx 3ft in length. Wooden broom handles are ideal and can be found readily and cheaply in most hardware shops.
· Participants should also bring a personal object or “prop”. This can be any personal item that has some history or particular connection/association for you.
Acting proposition
Each participant upon arrival should have prepared an individual acting proposition based on Shakespeare's sonnet number 15.
This proposition should comprise a repeatable structure having a perceivable beginning, middle and end following a clear line of physical action. The proposition can incorpororate some of the text from sonnet 15 but this is not mandatory. The sonnet is your starting point. One should aim for that which is natural and alive rather than “blocked” or choreographed. Feel free to incorporate costume pieces or props as you wish. Quality rather than quantity is encouraged. 2/3 minutes is adequate. All of the sonnet should also be fully memorized for other work throughout the work session.
Song
As part of vocal training some work will be built around song. This work uses songs as a vehicle for an organic searching of impulse through voice and is not concerned with aesthetically pleasing singing voices so don’t be put off if you have no experience of singing. Participants should come to the session with a song memorized or already known. It does not have to be very long but it is important that this song be chosen carefully. It should be a song that you have a personal connection with, perhaps a song someone sang to you as a child. You should try to work with a song that has some kind of roots for/in you. Pop songs or musical numbers are generally not suitable for this work. Folk or indigenous songs are more appropriate.
Selection is based on short biography and brief outline of motivation
Contacts:
Emma O’ Grady: mephisto.theatre@gmail.com
Nervousystem: contact@nervousystem.net
THEATRE LABORATORY
