Project of Training, Research, and Devising for actors/dancers/musicians/singers/puppeteers

The project The Body’s Journey is the fruit of more than 20 years of experience of Leela Alaniz in the theatre field (training, university research, teaching, devising). It concentrates on the fusion of two contemporary techniques for the actor/dancer training: The Organic Lineage research initiated and developed by Jerzy Grotowski; and the Corporeal Mime of Etienne Decroux. These different techniques find a commonplace in that they both develop through the actor/dancer the sense of scenic presence and autonomy as an author/performer/creator.

The exercises of the organic process liberate the energetic flux from the spinal column and propagate to transform the physical body. The actor/dancer thus develops a concentration and identifies with his physical, emotional and mental centers. Instead of searching for a specific expression, the actor/dancer plunges into a real process of organic research, which in turn becomes an artistic expression. The corporeal movements are initiated by impulses that are germinated from the interior of the body and develop within and throughout it. The research in theatre anthropology draws its inspiration from traditional theater from diverse parts of the world.

In the practice of Corporeal Mime, the actor/dancer finds the possibility of creating his or her own personal compositions in isolating different parts of the body, in mastering its articulations, and in playing with varying speeds, resistances and designs of corporeal movement.

The play and the joy of playing, and the improvisation are part of the listening and of the sharing. The research with materials, the acrobatics, the voice work (text and sing) and the exercises of awareness and awakening the interior are also part of our training work, research and creation.

Our project, The Body’s Journey, will guide actors/dancers on a road to self-discovery in order to explore new corporeal paths through the listening of impulses, abandoning of stereotypical and mechanical behaviors, and through the discovery and the respect of a genuine organicity inherent in the body. A corporeal work conducted with attention and sensibility allows the actor/dancer to develop an original language capable of communicating to a larger audience and to cultivate openness to one’s self and to others, recovered through the artistic training of theatre and performance throughout the ages and across cultures.[/az_column_text][az_divider div_type=”thin-solid-div”][az_column_text]This new edition of The Body’s Journey benefits from the valuable collaboration of experienced artists/masters including:

Won Kim – Practice: Improvisation, Play

Gennady Bogdanov – Practice: Meyerhold Biomechanics

Lluis Graells – Practice: Commedia dell’Arte

Training Program

Practice – with Leela Alaniz

  • Exercises of the Organic Lineage – research of organicity, energetic flux, opening the blockages of the body, and of the release.
  • Exercises of attention and interior awakening
  • Stage Presence
  • Acrobatics, Contact improvisation
  • Corporeal Mime – Technique Etienne Decroux – articulations, counterweights, dynamo-rhythm, intra-corporeal and inter-spatial causalities.
  • Alexander Technique – relaxation and liberation of the articulations
  • Work with objects
  • Voice – corporeal resonators, singing, breath, impulsion and dynamo-rhythm for text,
  • Improvisations, play
  • Compositions, structure

Practice – with Gennady Gogdanov

Meyerhold Biomechanics
We will explore the physical techniques of Biomechanics, a system of training created by Meyerhold that provides the actor the necessary tools to re-educate his reflexes; collaborating to move away his daily and mechanical movements; to build characters through a psychophysical approach; to play in a state of deeper concentration and thus master the scenic play.

  • Work on rhythm – the “inner musicality”
  • Work on the principles of Biomechanics, according to Meyerhold, natural and fundamental elements of the gesture, such as:
  • Otkaz (the refusal): a counter-movement that serves both to prepare the action and to give the signal to the stage partner indicating that the actor is ready to react.
  • Pacil (sending): the simultaneous commitment to the action and the action itself.
  • Tormos (the brake): the constraint that the actor must simultaneously exercise with the force ahead of the pacil in order to maintain control.
  • Totcbka (a point in space, the point at the end of the body sentence) or stoïca (posture). They indicate the culmination of an action at a specific point in space.

 

Practice – with Lluis Graells

Commedia dell’Arte

During the workshop, we will explore the masked characters of the Commedia Dell’Arte through the study of their walks, voices, and energies: Arlequin, Colombine, Dottore, Pantalon, Capitan, Zanni, Brighela. Each of these characters will be the object of a personalized work of each student. In this fixed form, in the “interior”, lies a large creative space that will be uncovered and will permit each actor to create his Arlequin, his Capitan, her Colombine…

Each day, improvisation will take its special place. We will study the codes of acting specific to the Commedia and to the mask, as well as the construction of the storylines. These participants will create the intrigues and mysteries by relying on the physical form and the social functions of their masked characters, based on their proper imagination and their relations tied to the characters.

  • Semi-mask: movement techniques, lecture and study • Fixed Type, Type/Countertype, Style, Attributes
  • Corporeal Schema of the Character and the Physical Transformation of the Actor
  • Technical Limitations as a Source of Creation
  • Improvisations as show

Practice – with Won KIM

  • Improvisation, Play.

CALENDAR :

December 16, 2019 to February 29, 2020

Hours: Monday to Friday – 9am to 1pm

Atelier for Research on Thursdays – 2pm to 5pm

Relax on December 25th and January 1st

Presentation of the Artistic Projects that will be part of the Research: December 14, 2019.

Total: 192 hours / 23h per week 

Price: 800€/monthly

 

APPLICATIONS :

Deadline: September 30, 2019

Auditions in Paris:

Saturday October 19, 2019 – (No prior preparation necessary, Free 3-hour practical workshop with Leela Alaniz)

To apply, please send your CV and a cover letter to Leela Alaniz

Funding possibilities available through AFDAS (French nationals only).

For foreign applications for the selection process an interview with Leela Alaniz will take place personally or by telephone/skype.

Contact us for more information

Location:

Micadanses
15 Rue Geoffroy l’Asnier,
75004 Paris

 

CONTACT :

By phone : Won KIM, +33 (0) 6 71 61 93 94

By email : Leela Alaniz, leela(at)pasdedieux.com

 

Cie. Pas de Dieux

166 Bis rue de la Roquette, 75011, Paris
N° de SIRET : 491 955 704 00029 / Code APE: 9001Z
N° d’Activité: 11754611575

Leela Alaniz’s career consists of a constant round-trip movement between the practice and the theory of theater. With over 20 years of research in Theatre Anthropology in addition to 16 years of Corporeal Mime practice, she continues to teach many workshops and gives conferences in disparate countries and regions such as Brazil, France, Singapore, United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, and Argentina. After a double major in Physical Education and Theater Studies in Brazil, she received a scholarship grant to participate in UTA, a center of research for Theatre Anthropology in Brazil. From 1997 to 2003, she studied Corporeal Mime under Thomas Leabhart in California and Paris, eventually becoming his assistant. In 2002, she went to France and undertook a Masters in Theatre Studies at the Paris VIII University. Her Master thesis on “The Dynamo-Rhythm of Etienne Decroux and His Successors” has been translated into English and published online in “Mime Journal”, Ed Pomona College (California), 2013, (for free download go to : http://scholarship.claremont.edu/mimejournal/vol24/iss1/2

Leela has just completed a Post-doctoral program at UFRGS University in Brazil. Currently, she is a guest teacher at ITI – Intercultural Theatre Institute in Singapore, https://iti.edu.sg/

Since 2002, after eight years in the corporate marketing, he has decided to dedicate his life to the learning of physical theatre with Thomas Leabhart and Leela Alaniz. He has played a dual role as actor and co-founder/producer of the company Pas de Dieux with Leela Alaniz. He has also assisted Leela in the development of her own method of actor/dancer training based on the influences of Etienne Decroux and Jerzy Grotowski, in the production of workshops and the development of the full-time training program, The Body’s Journey. In September 2014, he has earned his Ph.D. in Esthetics, Sciences, and Technologies of Arts with Summa Cum Laude at Paris 8 University. His dissertation is entitled, “Corporeal Mime Counterweights in the Contemporary World,” directed by Katia Légeret. He is also an assistant professor at Paris 8 University teaching courses related to mime and physical theatre.

Actor, director and theatre professor. Graduated in Direction and Dramaturgy at the l’Institut del Teatre of Barcelone. He worked with Pawel Rouba and Andrzej Leparski in mime and Pantomime, mask with Andrzej Leparski, Don Jordan y Roy Bosier, and Commedia dell’Arte with Carlo Boso and Ferruccio Soleri. After having participated as an actor and director in numerous productions such as Brecht, Molière, Goldoni, to name a few, he has taught Commedia dell’Arte for over 20 years at National and Regional Conservatories in Spain.