BEST OF BE FESTIVAL SPRING 2016 WORKSHOPS MENU
BEST OF BE FESTIVAL
SPRING 2016 UK TOUR
WORKSHOPS MENU
Introduction / Workshop Requirements
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Workshop Content / Information
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Company Biogs
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BEST OF BE FESTIVAL SPRING 2016 WORKSHOPS MENU
An Introduction:
Join an international company for a 90-120 minute workshop, and learn the
techniques behind their award-winning work. You will explore visual and physical
approaches to creating performance, and discover new forms of expression that can
help your work travel beyond borders. Afterwards, you’ll be able to watch the
company perform their show, and get to see the approaches you’ve learned about in
action. It’s a unique chance to work with and learn from award-winning and favourite
artists from BE FESTIVAL 2015.
Workshop cost is £150.00
All workshops are suitable for ages 14+
Workshops can be tailored to all levels of experience from beginner or GCSE
students of performing arts, physical theatre, circus and drama, to professional.
Here’s what previous workshop participants have said:
‘Usually I find movement and physical classes hard to understand but I found this
really easy, the way they taught and eased us into it. I felt very comfortable with what
we were doing.’
‘The right balance between imagination and technique. Friendly, warm yet also
challenging and engaging.’
‘To watch the performance after the workshop added a whole new level of
appreciation for the incredible skills of the performers.’
Workshop Requirements:
- a PA with mini-jack connection (for IPod or laptop to play music)
- a clean rehearsal space with floor that supports movement work, minimum size
10x10m
- participants to come in loose clothing to do physical work
Workshops can take place in the morning of the day of performance, or on the
afternoon of the day of performance, or in some cases the morning after the
performance. Start times for workshops can be arranged for the morning from 11am
(unless our visit is for two or more days) and in the afternoon, before 3pm.
If you’d like to book two workshops this would require two separate spaces, so that
they can be staggered.
For all enquiries and bookings, please contact Helena Scott-Hardy:
helena@befestival.org
07809 885235
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Workshop Content / Information:
You&Me (& William)
Workshop by Grumelot, led by Carlota Gaviño
IMAGE CREDIT Javier Gil Moya
THE WORKSHOP
Grumelot presents a 2 hour workshop introducing the devising tools that they have
used to develop their shows, including the award winning #sobrejulieta. Participants
will work on creating theatrical material in the rehearsal room, taking as a starting
point the performer’s relationship with a piece of text, an idea, a stage image, or their
biographical material. The encounter between these two elements (performermaterial) and the one who watches (i.e. the audience) will be explored during a
playful journey through the possibilities of both narrative and non-narrative
storytelling.
THE COMPANY
Grumelot is a Madrid-based company committed to creating thrilling and energetic
theatre where the performer’s work is the centre of every production. It is above all, a
company of actors and its three members - who take the lead of the artistic process
not only as performers but also as artistic directors and designers - interested in
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contemporary playwriting and classics alike, most of the time looking for a dialogue
between the two.
Grumelot also operates a research and training project, GrumelotFormación,
targeting both professional actors willing to deepen their skills and those who are
starting their careers. Workshops have been delivered on devising, classical theatre,
contemporary theatre, voice, stage fighting, etc.) These workshops have often led to
the writing and staging of original plays based on the material developed directly by
the actors.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE OF LEADING WORKSHOPS
Since 2009 Grumelot has run an Actors Training Program (as part of
GrumelotFormación) in Madrid where Carlota Gaviño and Iñigo Rodríguez-Claro
teach regularly. They have also led several workshops and short acting courses for
both young people and professional actors on a variety of topics ranging from
classical acting training (voice, movement, speech, text analysis) to devising tools;
always making sure that technical precision and craft is combined with the pleasure
of theatre making and the research of new ways to get to contemporary audiences.
REQUIREMENTS
-Some kind of speaker/sound system that can plug into a laptop (mini-jack output)
-Mic and mic stand
-Projector (if possible)
PARTICIPANTS
This workshop is designed for anyone wanting to create their own work. There is no
previous experience required, just to come with an open-mind and a piece of text
you love (3 to 5 lines), can be Shakespeare, or not.
NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS
This workshop has a maximum capacity of 30 people.
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Using Cinematic Techniques to Create Live Performances
Workshop by Squarehead Productions, led by Darragh McLoughlin
IMAGE CREDIT Louisa Sloan
THE WORKSHOP
Methods for devising a performance inspired from film, comics and storytelling. How
to create a story that is made of fragments, allowing room for the audience to fill in
the gaps. Discover different tools to fragment scenes. Focus will be put on creating
material using clear choreographic tasks. Between each task there will be open
discussions about the results and experience of each exercise. The workshop will be
more in the direction of a creative laboratory than the classical teacher-student
approach. Participants will work both individually and in groups. All performing
disciplines are welcome (actors, dancers, jugglers, circus, musicians.) Bring all your
ideas and skills with you.
THEMES OF WORKSHOP
- Exploring different techniques of cutting material live on stage.
- Questioning the idea of a narrative and exploring different ways of telling narratives.
- Questioning the format of different creative disciplines. Cross matching formats.
- Solo and group creation exercises.
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THE COMPANY
Squarehead Productions is a young company founded in 2011. The company makes
use of the liberating potential of creating for the stage by inventing abstract worlds
with specific logical frameworks. Most of the company’s works are delicate in nature
and therefore aim for a theatre stage with an attentive audience.
Squarehead Productions makes strong use of a term they coin as “active audience
participation” which is not necessarily talking to, looking at, or directly involving the
audience, but instead creating systems, patterns and clues which enable the
audience to make their own connections and conclusions as to what is happening on
the stage.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE OF LEADING WORKSHOPS
Darragh has been teaching throughout Europe since graduating from the Academy
of Circus and Performance Art in 2012. His teaching methods are a mix of pretty
much every performing art out there with influences from circus, theatre, dance and
performance art. Nearly all of the exercises he uses are of his own devising and so
he teaches them with a deep understanding of what he is looking for. Darragh seeks
to allow participants to show themselves in a stage environment and use whatever
abilities they have. He generally teaches older teenagers or adults as he likes to
work in a challenging way and push the students to their limits. Although this all
sounds quite serious, his workshops are a lot of fun and are often rule or game
based so are open to all sorts of participants.
REQUIREMENTS
- Large studio or stage space
- Comfortable clothes
NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS
This workshop has a maximum capacity of 30 people.
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THE AVAILABLE BODY
Workshop by TIDA, led by Marco Chenevier
IMAGE CREDIT Ewa Gleisner
THE WORKSHOP
Some preparatory exercises will be practiced to warm up the body, the voice and the
attention of the others. The movement, stripped of any unnecessary aesthetic,
becomes a tool for the action that is the only purpose of the movement itself.
The floor becomes a key partner and we train the body to be available and ready for
the action in the surrounding space. Every part of it can be exploited to move.
Focus of the movement is the "center" (the hips), which dramatically is the seat of
the will and desire, and the "periphery" (hands and feet) are tools to move with
speed and effectiveness. So the movement becomes a theater of passions and
instincts. Then we open the relation to the other bodies, taking care of their own
characteristics and peculiarities, in a game of roles well defined, in which everyone
takes its task.
THE COMPANY
TIDA's artistic project identifies itself with a critical vision of the society,
entertainment, conventional aesthetics and the artistic production in itself. They are
rooted in the field of research, nourished by constant collaborations with young
philosophers; the dancers' bodies are political objects endangered by and at the
fingertips of thought, they are the lymph and the beating heart of every performance,
which is conceived as a result of research processes arising from a critical stimulus.
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They choose to stand on a highly physical level, refusing, at this stage of our
research, an extreme intellectualization of the choreography. Although the
dramaturgical writing arises from intellectual motivations, we believe in the
translation of these motivations into works in which the body is central. A body that
remains faithful to a contemporary aesthetic and at the same time reclaims its
physicality.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE OF LEADING WORKSHOPS
Previously an assistant at Diana Damiani and currently an assistant at Isaac Alvarez,
Marco Chenevier has many years of experience in leading workshops for both
professionals and non-professionals in Italy and abroad. Marco leads workshops for
students in schools, including the International Acting School of Rome (Jacques
Lecoq) and workshops in different theatres and dance schools, including Accademia
di danza di Aosta, Officina Teatrale di Lecce and Officina Teatrale di Catanzaro.
Marco has also worked with disabled people on a three year project with Casa degli
originali talenti in Sicily.
REQUIREMENTS
The workshop will require physical work, so just be open to use the body, to work
without shoes and to wear comfortable clothes.
PARTICIPANTS
Open to everybody! Marco prefers to meet everybody and will adapt the work to the
level of everyone. Marco would not recommend mixing disabled people and nondisabled people in the same workshop, because the work is very different.
NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS
This workshop has a maximum capacity of 30 people.
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Company Biogs:
CARLOTA GAVIÑO (Spain)
Carlota Gaviño has a classical acting background. She is a RESAD Graduate in
Acting and completed her training at Teatro de La Abadía (Madrid); RADA (London)
and the Michael Chejov Association [MICHA] (Amherst University,
Massachusetts). She trained on Classical Spanish Verse at the CNTC (Compañía
Nacional de Teatro Clásico) and has attended to workshops with Owen Horsley,
Cicely Berry and Marcel Marceau.
Her theatre credits include Valle Inclán’s Cara de Plata and Divinas Palabras (CDN
–Centro Dramático Nacional-) and Ibsen’s Lady From The Sea directed by Bob
Wilson.
Founder member of GRUMELOT, Carlota works as both director and performer in
the projects of the company that include: Edward Bond’s Have I None (the first time
the play was ever translated to Spanish); Presnyakov Brother’s Playing the Victim
(also in an original translation developed by the company) and the devised pieces
Malcontent (based on The Duchess of Malfi); Cuando llueve vodka; and
#sobrejulieta that -alongside with John Wayne al pie del monte Urgull, and Mi
pasado en B- completes a trilogy about identity as a construction.
In the training program developed by GRUMELOT, Carlota works with young actors
as teacher and director and for those young casts she has co-directed with Iñigo
Rodríguez-Claro Lope de Vega’s El valor de las mujeres, William Shakespeare’s
Midsummer Nights Dream, Chekov’s Platonov, Tirso de Molina’s El Aquiles and
Pablo Gisbert’s Un cine arde y diez personas arden.
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DARRAGH McLOUGHLIN (Ireland)
Darragh attended a one-year Foundation Course in Juggling at the Jonglier
Katakomben in Berlin from 2006-2007. After staying one more year after this in
Berlin training and trying (and failing) to create a juggling performance he decided he
needed a stronger performance/creation foundation. In 2008 Darragh attended the
Academy of Circus and Performance Art (ACAPA) in Tilburg, Netherlands. There
he received training in contemporary circus, dance and theatre and gained the skills
to devise his own work. In 2010 he attended the Academy of Circus and Variety
Arts in Kiev as part of an exchange program. During his time in Tilburg he also took
minor courses in creating with media, creative writing, research and psychology
of the creative process. In 2012 he received a bachelors degree and started
touring with his finishing piece “A collection of tales and oddities” through several
European performance and circus festivals.
In 2012 Darragh met Elena Kreusch and together they founded the company
Squarehead Productions with the aim to create their own contemporary circus
pieces, all the while breaking down barriers that exist between genres in the
performing arts. In 2013 they began to work on their first full-length piece
“Fragments of a Mind” which premiered in 2015. In 2014 Darragh was selected as
a laureate of the prestigious Circus Next Award, a European support system for
emerging contemporary circus artists. In 2014 Darragh started to research and
devise his second piece “The Whistle” which premiered that year at Dublin Fringe
Festival.
In 2015 Squarehead Productions organised the “Come Wander With Me” festival in
Clonakilty, Ireland. The festival brought 8 Irish performers/artists to the town to take
part in a 10 day site-specific creation, followed by 16 performances by each artist
over two days. Darragh acted as an organiser and mentor to the projects.
Squarehead Productions is planning several projects such as research laboratories
with aims to bring together different art forms and gather real knowledge about the
creative process and audience participation. Since graduating from ACAPA Darragh
has taught in different circus schools and organised master classes throughout
Europe.
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MARCO CHENEVIER (Italy)
Marco Chenevier is a choreographer, dancer, director and actor. Having obtained a
three-year diploma at the International Academy of Theatre, School of Acting in
Rome "Circo a Vapore" (mold J. Lecoq), he attended a three year training course
in dance at the "Filomarino" school in Rome with Annapaola Bacalov.
For seven years he has been assistant of Isaac Alvarez at the Théâtre du
Moulinage in Lussas (France).
He dances in various companies in Italy and France (Romeo Castellucci and Cindy
Van Acker, Cie CFB451 within the CCN of Roubaix - Carolyn Carlson, Cie Lolita
Espin Anadon, Les Eclats.) and he found in TIDA the ideal place to develop his
artistic research. Immediately interested in choreography he develops research
straddling genres, exploring the boundaries between the languages of dance
and theatre.
He has made fifteen productions with TIDA and has been invited, among others
to: International Ancient Greek Drama Festival (Cyprus), International festival of
Sarajevo - Sarajevo Winter Festival (Bosnia) - first prize for contemporary dance,
Saison Culturelle d'Aoste (Italy), Barhat Rang Mahotsav Festival (India), Teatro
Superga of Nichelino - Theatrical Circuit of Piedmont (Italy), Festival VD'A – Voci
dell'Anima (Italy ), Turin Fringe Festival (Italy), PerAspera Festival (Italy), Festival
Marato de l'Espectacle (Spain), Pflasterspektakel Festival in Linz (Austria ),
Namyangju Festival (South Korea), Zdarzenia Festival of Tchew (Poland), the
Mediterranean Games (Italy), Spazi d'Ascolto (Italy), Settembre in Danza (Italy),
Festival della Spiritualità of Turin (Italy), Il sacro attraverso l'ordinario Festival (Italy),
Differenti Sensazioni festival (Italy).
Marco is in charge of the artistic direction of events including the "Morg-Ex
Machina" Festival, the "Roma Street Art Festival" (for two years), "The marmots
do not sleep" Festival and other special projects.
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