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DIRECTORS' FORUM: THE SIX SENSES OF THE DIRECTOR

  9TH - 11TH APRIL, 2010
DIRECTORS' FORUM: THE SIX SENSES OF THE DIRECTOR DIRECTORS' FORUM: THE SIX SENSES OF THE DIRECTOR DIRECTORS' FORUM: THE SIX SENSES OF THE DIRECTOR
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  Animating, articulating and illuminating the director’s craft

"Being a director is not a solo occupation – so most of my life is spent in a room with artists who are a lot more interesting than I am”
Peter Sellars: Theatre and Opera Director

Whilst the role of a theatre director is essentially collaborative - as evoked by Peter Sellars in the quote above - the co-ordinating centrality of the role nevertheless makes it a singular, responsible, and therefore sometimes an isolated one.

Across its many manifestations, the role requires the acquisition of a set of diverse tools for the trade, techniques, methods and knowledge/s, many of which are often acquired empirically ‘on the job’ (there being limited training opportunities) and ‘in the moment’ through primarily ‘hermetic’ processes of making and rehearsal. Furthermore, these tools, methods and processes are generally hidden in the processes of making/ rehearsal and are not usually revealed or fully disclosed in final production.

Programmes for directors’ exchange, development and training are primarily geared to the needs of the ‘emergent’ director; occasions for the exchange of the wealth of knowledge and experience of ‘mid-career’ directors and development opportunities are simply not available.

In this context, and building on a previous strand of work in this area, CPR has invited some of the most exciting and diverse Wales-based and international theatre directors to Aberystwyth for an intensive participatory project that offers a rare opportunity for both experienced and emerging directors to gather and share the methods, approaches and skills of professional directing practice via laboratories and presentations, demonstrations and dialogue.

The Directors’ Forum comprises a series of evolving and developing practical investigations (not simply workshops and training exercises) in two, three-day blocks that allow small groups of directors to explore know-how, intuition and embodied practices in a safe and intimate atmosphere. These six days of practical investigation are followed by a two-day ‘gathering’ where methods and approaches can be encountered through more presentational formats.

Engineer your own pathways and interests through a series of different ‘laboratories’, ‘exploratories’ and ‘forums’, practical and participatory sessions designed to animate, articulate and illuminate aspects of particular directorial/ making processes in exploration with others.

Guest Directors Include:
Veenapani Chawla (Adishakti Centre, India), Das Beckwerk (Denmark), Jaroslaw Fret (Teatr ZAR, Poland), Richard Gregory (Quarantine, UK), Bill Hamblett (Small World Theatre, Wales), Natalie Hennedige (Cake Theatre, Singapore), Adrian Jackson (Cardboard Citizens, UK), Ruth Kanner (Ruth Kanner Theatre Group, Israel), Anuradha Kapur (National School of Drama, India), Julian Maynard Smith (Station House Opera, UK), John McGrath (National Theatre of Wales), Philip McKenzie (Sherman Theatre Cymru), Anders Paulin (Sweden), Mike Pearson (Pearson/Brookes, Wales), Ralf Richardt Strøbech (Hotel Pro Forma/ Loop Group, Denmark), Tore Vagn Lid (Transiteatret-Bergen, Norway).


PROJECT PATHWAYS
Fri 9th - Sun 11th April
Tues 13th - Thurs 15th


The Forum aims to provide not the usual diet of workshops but the chance to try out new methods and formats and enable individual enquiries and curiosity. Two-hour morning ‘exploratories’ offer an opportunity to explore specific questions, issues, concerns, genres, obsessions and secrets with a peer group. These sessions will be proposed and led/facilitated by guest directors and other participants.
Please contact us if you would like to make a proposal for an exploratory session.

Morning Forum
A whole-group session, developing a theme over the three days, facilitated by a Wales-based director.

Exploratory
A two-hour session of practical investigation in groups of approximately 20 participants that explores particular concerns. This allows participants the chance to encounter different and diverse approaches and aesthetics and share their own problems and solutions.

Laboratory
A longer and more in depth practical investigation of the craft, technique or ‘intuitive sense’ of the director with a guest director of your choice. The investigation continues for three afternoons, shared with a small group of up to 14 participants.

Laboratory 1:
Natalie Hennedige (Cake Theatre, Singapore), Richard Gregory (Quarantine, UK), Julian Maynard Smith (Station House Opera, UK), Ralf Richardt Strøbech (Hotel Pro Forma/ Loop Group, Denmark)


Laboratory 2:
Adrian Jackson (Cardboard Citizens, UK), Ruth Kanner (Ruth Kanner Theatre Group, Israel), Das Beckwerk (Denmark), Veenapani Chawla (Adishakti Centre, India)


For more information on the Guest Directors who will be leading laboratories please scroll down

Presentation
A chance to view the work of guest directors, hear their vision for performance and theatre and gain a glimpse of their technique and approach in an informal setting in the evenings.

Gathering
Fri 16th - Sun 18th April

Following the intensive six days of laboratories, practical investigations and expositions, the ‘Directors Forum’ concludes with two-and-a half days of encounters to: draw together elements of the practical investigations; launch further enquiry, provocation and interrogation; encourage discussion and debate; platform several key speakers and international guests who will create illuminating contemporary and historical perspectives on the director’s role and offer case studies from other nations that have echoes of the geographic, demographic and bi-lingual complexity of Wales. In particular, this two day conclusion to the Directors Forum will gather constructive proposals for future programmes of training and development within the theatre in Wales and the UK and enable a space for aspirational and inspirational vision.

This project has been made possible with project funding from the Arts Council of Wales.

For more detailed information on the structure of the Directors' Forum and for project costs and booking information please download the documents below.

Images from left to right: Cake Theatre, Cases of Murder - Ruth Kanner Theatre Group, New Jericho A'dam - Station House Opera.
email cprwww@aber.ac.uk
phone 01970 622133
Conference location(s) CPR, Aberyswyth
Support file downloads (brochure, programme etc) Forum_structure_and_booking_info.doc
DF_BOOKING_FORM2.doc

DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - RICHARD GREGORY (QUARANTINE, UK)

  SESSION 1 - FRI 9TH TO SUN 11TH APRIL
DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - RICHARD GREGORY (QUARANTINE, UK) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - RICHARD GREGORY (QUARANTINE, UK) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - RICHARD GREGORY (QUARANTINE, UK)
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  FIRST, FIND YOUR AUDIENCE is an in depth practical investigation with Richard Gregory. Participants will work with ideas that explore intimacy, hospitality and honesty and will potentially challenge or even exchange the roles of audience and performer.

Richard is founder and Artistic Director (with Renny O’Shea) of Quarantine, since 1998.

Quarantine is quite simply a marvel, a company that's right at the forefront of British theatre…..immensely touching, totally human yet also intellectually rigorous in their examination of the nature of performance and the raising of questions about what makes theatre seem real and reality so strongly theatrical. Lyn Gardner, The Guardian, October 2009

Richard has directed see-saw, Frank, Geneva, (Domestic Science(with Renny O’Shea), White Trash, Butterfly, Grace, Susan & Darren(with Renny O’Shea), Old people, children & animals and Make-believe for Quarantine. He curated (with Renny O’Shea) Coming and going, a large scale project for Liverpool Capital of Culture 2008, developed with artists, academics, activists and ‘ordinary people’ from Liverpool, Marseille, Istanbul, Naples and Gdansk. Susan & Darren won ‘Best production’ award at last year’s Dublin Fringe Festival.

He is currently developing When you thought you were…, a wake for a living person; Like me, a piece made with people who work as lookalikes and Between us,we know everything, a festival exploring everyday life.

Richard was also Associate Artist at Leicester Haymarket Theatre (2002-2003). From 2000 - 2001, he was Associate Artist at Contact, Manchester. From 1995-1998 he was Associate Director with Northern Stage, Newcastle upon Tyne and Associate Director at Contact Theatre, 1991-1995.

Quarantine were Fellows in Theatre at the University of Manchester from 2005 – 2007. The company won Arts Council England’s art05 award for outstanding achievement.

Photos (left to right): Make-believe, photographer Simon Banham, Geneva photographer Simon Banham, White Trash photographer Renny O'Shea.
email cprwww@aber.ac.uk
phone 01970 622 133
further details available at
[CPR is not responsible for the content of external web sites]
www.qtine.com
Conference location(s) Aberystwyth, Wales
Support file downloads (brochure, programme etc) Forum_structure_and_booking_info.doc
DF_BOOKING_FORM2.doc

DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - NATALIE HENNEDIGE (CAKE THEATRE, SINGAPORE)

  SESSION 1 - FRI 9TH TO SUN 11TH APRIL
DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - NATALIE HENNEDIGE (CAKE THEATRE, SINGAPORE) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - NATALIE HENNEDIGE (CAKE THEATRE, SINGAPORE) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - NATALIE HENNEDIGE (CAKE THEATRE, SINGAPORE)
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  Natalie Hennedige is the Artistic Director of Cake Theatrical Productions, a Singapore-based contemporary theatre company committed to creating original works that marry bold experimentation with the traditions of theatrical convention. In just four years Cake has presented eleven main season productions and four outdoor theatrical performances. Natalie was involved in conceptualising, writing and directing most of these works. In 2006, she directed Divine Soap, a contemporary re-imagining of Bangsawan (Traditional Malay Opera) commissioned for the opening festival of the National Museum of Singapore. In 2008, Natalie was awarded Best Director at The Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards for Nothing, which also won Production of the Year. In the same year, she wrote and directed Temple, which was presented at the Singapore Arts Festival and Napoli Teatro Festival Italia. Most recently, she was invited to collaborate with leading Malaysian arts collective Five Arts Centre to write and direct Cuckoo Birds, as part of their 25th year anniversary celebrations. In 2007, Natalie was awarded the Young Artist Award by Singapore’s National Arts Council.

Photos (left to right): Temple,Nothing,Queen Ping
email cprwww@aber.ac.uk
phone 01970 622 133
further details available at
[CPR is not responsible for the content of external web sites]
http://www.caketheatre.com/
Conference location(s) Aberystwyth, Wales
Support file downloads (brochure, programme etc) Forum_structure_and_booking_info.doc
DF_BOOKING_FORM2.doc

DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - JULIAN MAYNARD SMITH (STATION HOUSE OPERA, UK)

  SESSION 1 - FRI 9TH TO SUN 11TH APRIL
DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - JULIAN MAYNARD SMITH (STATION HOUSE OPERA, UK) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - JULIAN MAYNARD SMITH (STATION HOUSE OPERA, UK) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - JULIAN MAYNARD SMITH (STATION HOUSE OPERA, UK)
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  Julian Maynard-Smith is the Artistic Director of Station House Opera (UK). He studied Fine Art at Middlesex Polytechnic, 1974 - 78, and was part of the Whitney Museum Independent Studies Program in New York in 1979. He was the Kettleís Yard Fellow at Cambridge in 1993 - 94. In 1997, he received a major prize from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts in New York.

Julian has worked as a sculptor and film-maker but primarily as a performance artist, first making solo pieces and then, from 1980 onwards, larger scale work with the group Station House Opera.

With past projects ranging from spectacular site-specific works created with 10,000 concrete blocks, to simultaneous performances across continents using live internet streaming, Station House Opera is an internationally renowned performance company with a unique physical and visual style. It has produced over 30 productions of widely varying scale and focus, but all rooted in an interest to make work that brings together theatre and the visual arts in a single unified vision. The company has created projects in a variety of locations all over the world, from New York's Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage to Dresden's historic Frauenkirche and Salisbury Cathedra, and has toured the world, from Azerbaijan to Kosovo, China to Brazil.

Photos: Mare's Nest, Scenes from A New Jericho, The Bastille Dances
email cprwww@aber.ac.uk
phone 01970 622 133
further details available at
[CPR is not responsible for the content of external web sites]
http://www.stationhouseopera.com/
Conference location(s) Aberystwyth, Wales
Support file downloads (brochure, programme etc) Forum_structure_and_booking_info.doc
DF_BOOKING_FORM2.doc

DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - RALF RICHARDT STROBECH (HOTEL PRO FORMA AND LOOP GROUP, DENMARK)

  SESSION 1 - FRI 9TH TO SUN 11TH APRIL
DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - RALF RICHARDT STROBECH (HOTEL PRO FORMA AND LOOP GROUP, DENMARK) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - RALF RICHARDT STROBECH (HOTEL PRO FORMA AND LOOP GROUP, DENMARK) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - RALF RICHARDT STROBECH (HOTEL PRO FORMA AND LOOP GROUP, DENMARK)
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  Born in Copenhagen 11 September, 1973.
Ralf Richardt Strøbech is educated at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture as well as in music and film studies at Copenhagen University.

From these platforms he works at investigating the cultural mechanisms of his surroundings and to express them in the field between architecture, music and image.

As an architect, director and set designer he works with developing concepts for performances, exhibitions and architectural projects as well as giving lectures and workshops.

From 2004 to January 2010 he worked as artistic director of the Danish performance company Hotel Pro Forma.

Since January 2010 he works independently from his company Loop group.

About Hotel Pro Forma

Hotel Pro Forma displaces the notion of theatre into new territories that lie between art and non-art, theatre and non-theatre, between the physical and the metaphysical expression. Performances occupy a space between construction and sensation, consciousness and intuition, concrete and abstract. Hotel Pro Forma moves across the genres of theatre, opera, visual arts and concert. Every production is a new experiment and contains a double staging: partly of its contents and the space, and partly of the notion of theatre itself. With every production a new examination is taken up:

* It is intrinsic to the concept of the performances that the architecture and the traditions of the venue become part of the performance. Space is a co-player.

* Each production is the result of a close collaboration between artists from many disciplines: architecture, the visual arts, music, film, language, dance, the natural sciences and digital media

* Performers are carefully selected with a view to the qualities and qualifications required by the concept and the nature of the performance.

Because space, concept, collaborators and performers vary from one production to the next, all Hotel Pro Forma's performances are distinct and unique. As a "nomadic theatre" Hotel Pro Forma is in constant motion and always approaching reality from an other angle. Reality is staged.

Hotel Pro Forma has created performances for museums, town halls and public buildings of special architectural significance and for theatre venues in Europe, Mexico, Japan, Australia and USA.

Photos: Tomorrow in a Year, Hotel Pro Forma, photographer C.Thyrresstrup
email cprwww@aber.ac.uk
phone 01970 622 133
further details available at
[CPR is not responsible for the content of external web sites]
http://www.hotelproforma.dk/default.asp?ver=uk
Conference location(s) Aberystwyth Wales
Support file downloads (brochure, programme etc) Forum_structure_and_booking_info.doc
DF_BOOKING_FORM2.doc

DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY, VEENAPANI CHAWLA (ADISHAKTI CENTRE, INDIA)

  SESSION 2 - TUES 13TH TO THURS 15TH APRIL
DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY, VEENAPANI CHAWLA (ADISHAKTI CENTRE, INDIA) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY, VEENAPANI CHAWLA (ADISHAKTI CENTRE, INDIA) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY, VEENAPANI CHAWLA (ADISHAKTI CENTRE, INDIA)
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  Veenapani Chawla founded Adishakti in 1981 and is its Managing Trustee and Artistic Director. Adishakti is a performance company engaged in the research and reanimation of traditional knowledge in theatre, dance, music, movement, puppet and craft forms with a view to creating a contemporary hybrid aesthetic and performance language.

Her academic background consists of an M.A. History, Delhi University; M.A Political Philosophy, Bombay University, B. Ed., Bombay University. She has been examined by the Trinity College of Music, London, for Singing and Piano; trained with Patsy Rodenberg, the Voice Coach of the Royal Shakespeare Company in London; and was briefly in Eugenio Barba’s Odin Teatret at Holstebro, Denmark

In India she has learnt Mayurbhanj Chhau, Kalaripayattu, Koodiyattam, and Dhrupad singing.

She has directed most of Adishakti’s performances and scripted half of these. Her work has toured India as well as internationally. In 1996 her Impressions of Bhima was performed in Paris, New York {Asia Society} and at UCLA. Her Brhannala was performed at the Singapore Arts Festival, Edinburgh Festival, New York {Asia Society} and the Bonn Biennale. Ganapati was performed at the House of World Cultures, Berlin, at Mousonturm, Frankfurt and Kampnagel , Hamburg.

Since 1987 Veenapani has been engaged in research towards creating a performance methodology based on old knowledges. This methodology involves a physical craft to facilitate the actor’s vocal, bodily and psychological expression. She has been disseminating this through workshops, performances and papers at Adishakti and other national and international venues. Thus in 2006 she was a speaker at the Berkshire Conference, USA and in March 2007 she presented a paper at the International Seminar on Theatre Performance Techniques at the Department of Performing Arts and Culture Industries at the University of Leeds, UK. In November of the year she conducted a Workshop supported by the Orient Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal, on Performance Methods based on Indian Knowledges.

Veenapani has also been concerned to develop a unique aesthetic for contemporary theatre, which would make the genre relevant in the time of cinema.

She has been recognized with grants from the Ford Foundation{1987}, the Charles Wallace India Trust, the Department of Culture, the Det Lange Udvalga in Denmark and the India Foundation of the Arts. In 1988, she was nominated to the Advisory Committee of the Kathak Kendra (Sangeet Natak Academy, New Delhi, India), and in 1994 was awarded an extended Senior Fellowship from the Department of Culture in New Delhi. In 1997 she was nominated by the Department of Culture as an expert in the fields of Folk, Traditional and Indigenous Arts. In 1998, she was appointed Trustee on the Board of Trustees of the National Folklore Support Centre, Chennai. In 2006 she received a Fellowship for a one month Residency at Villa Waldberta, Munich. In the same year she received the Zee Astitva Award for excellence in Theatre.

In 2007 Veenapani was appointed on the Board of Editors for "Theatre, Dance and Performance Training” a theatre journal published from the University of Leeds, UK, by Routledge.

Since 1999 Veenapani has been engaged in designing the Adishakti campus, which houses the members of the Adishakti Theatre, Dance, Music and Puppetry Repertory Company. The artists’ residences, the Guest House and Theatre on the Adishakti campus are the result of a collaboration between her and architect Srinivas Vasthukam of Kerala: a former student of Laurie Baker.

She is currently creating programs for Adishakti to be a research center for performance arts, which will host residency programs and workshops for artists from all over the world. Towards this end in 2008 she designed a three year project on the Ramayana “Pluralism and Performance: The Many Voices in The Ramayana”, which will run at Adishakti.

Since March 2009 she has been collaborating with eminent Theatre analyst and dramaturge, Rustom Bharucha towards, widening the scope of this program.



Photos: Brhannala 1996, Oedipus 1981, Ganapati 2000
email cprwww@aber.ac.uk
phone 01970 622 133
further details available at
[CPR is not responsible for the content of external web sites]
http://www.adishaktitheatrearts.org/index.htm
Conference location(s) Aberystwyth, Wales
Support file downloads (brochure, programme etc) Forum_structure_and_booking_info.doc
DF_BOOKING_FORM2.doc

DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - DAS BECKWERK (DENMARK)

  SESSION 2 - TUES 13TH TO THURS 15TH APRIL
DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - DAS BECKWERK (DENMARK) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - DAS BECKWERK (DENMARK) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - DAS BECKWERK (DENMARK)
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  "The grand task of Das Beckwerk is to turn the failures of the average man into masterpieces, to turn the casual ideas of the wannabe into visions, to turn the life and story of the average human being into world history!"

In the year of 2001, the author, playwright, performer, musician and human being Claus Beck-Nielsen, was declared dead. In 2002 Das Beckværk, a theatre and arts house, was opened in his name to govern and develop the life and work of Beck-Nielsen. The company had it's headquarters in a former reactor on the outskirts of Copenhagen. But in 2006 the name was changed to Das Beckwerk, now a trans-national corporation with the globalized world stage as its target and audience.

Through staging of world politics, public spaces and media Das Beckwerk seeks to establish an active link between the individual world citizen and the contemporary world history. In this way Das Beckwerk creates stories about the hopeless, but necessary attempt to daily intervene in world history. Stories that can take shape as walks, serial photography, novels, performances, concerts, installations, video, historic events and guided museum tours. Stories about the common man and his heroic, yet naive attempt to gain influence on the creation of world history.

Among the most important literary products of Das Beckwerk are the biography Claus Beck-Nielsen (1963-2001) (2003), the novels The Suicide Mission (2005) and The Sovereign (2008).

Since 2006 Das Beckwerk has functioned as a nomadic Reactor-In-Residence. As such Das Beckwerk was part of the Wiener Festwochen in 2007 and has lately resided at Theatre Camp X in Copenhagen.

THE THEATRE OF THE SPECTRE, THE MEDIUM AND HUMILIATION

Participants in this Laboratory will work with the director and dramaturg of Das Beckwerk and four British media/former actors to develop material that shall form the scenes of a new theatre - The Theatre of the Spectre, the Medium and Humiliation.

The Theatre of the Spectre, the Medium and Humiliation is a farewell to a theatre in which the actor stands before us and says that he is someone else.

The impending theatre is not the stage of art, not of mastery and magnificent performance, but the stage of humiliation. Instead of the actor, the medium comes on stage and becomes imbued with History and humbled by History. In the impending scene, the actor does not become one with the role and disappear in or behind the role. In the impending scene, the actor has been transformed into or replaced by a medium who does not disappear but who, on the contrary, appears in all his pitifulness and is put on show and humiliated by the spectre or spectres who speak through him. Or her. Or it.

In the impending theatre, the stage is the state of emergency, the non-place beyond the law, the camp in no-man’s land. On stage in the impending theatre, the medium is the exposed one, stripped of his rights, both local and regional – wage earners’ rights, citizens’ rights – as well as universal: the rights of the world citizen, of humankind. On the impending stage, the medium is like the Bengali in Dubai: stripped of his passport, caught in the state of emergency with no guarantee that he will ever be able (allowed) to leave it, the occupied body that can only express itself or be itself in an unforeseen breach of the prevailing order or on command. And even then, when he finally exposes himself to the audience and says his name and tells his story or simply says something, then the words are put in his mouth by others, by the spectre, by the one who writes what has to be said, by the one who has said how it has to be said.

In the impending theatre, History has re-started and walks the corridors again. But not as one story alone, as many stories. All times and all places cross the impending stage and wipe out this present, every place takes place here, in this place, which is no longer a place, but just a medium.

Photos (left to right): Mission Iran 2006, Mission Iran 2006, Parliament Afganistan 2008
email cprwww@aber.ac.uk
phone 01970 622 133
further details available at
[CPR is not responsible for the content of external web sites]
http://dasbeckwerk.com/
Conference location(s) Aberystwyth, Wales
Support file downloads (brochure, programme etc) Forum_structure_and_booking_info.doc
DF_BOOKING_FORM2.doc

DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - ADRIAN JACKSON (CARDBOARD CITIZENS, UK)

  SESSION 2 - TUES 13TH TO THURS 15TH
DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - ADRIAN JACKSON (CARDBOARD CITIZENS, UK) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - ADRIAN JACKSON (CARDBOARD CITIZENS, UK) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - ADRIAN JACKSON (CARDBOARD CITIZENS, UK)
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  Adrian Jackson is the founder-director and chief executive of a unique theatre company, Cardboard Citizens, in which most of the performers are homeless and ex-homeless people, refugees or asylum-seekers. Founded in 1992, the company tours theatre productions, especially inter-active Forum theatre, to all sorts of venues, including hostels, day centres, schools and theatres; apart from the interactive Forum Theatre shows the company is renowned for, it has also mounted a number of larger-scale usually site-specific productions, including The Beggar’s Opera (with ENO), The Lower Depths (with London Bubble), and Mincemeat. In September 2003, Adrian directed a co-production of Pericles for Cardboard Citizens with the Royal Shakespeare Company. This was followed in November 2004 with a co-commissioning of playwright Sarah Woods, resulting in a new play Visible which was performed at the RSC’s New Work Festival, and in 2006 at Soho Theatre and touring. In Autumn 2006 he directed a site-specific production of Timon of Athens, as part of the RSC’s Complete Works festival, and at Belfast Festival. In 2007, he devised and directed Down/Out, a reaction to George Orwell, Going Going Gone for Cardboard Citizens, and Home and Away for Formaat Theatre in Rottterdam.

In 2009, he directed Mincemeat, which gained five star reviews and won the Evening Standard award for best design. He also gave the keynote speech at the World Forum Theatre Festival in Austria.

He is also a well-travelled teacher and translator, having translated five books by Augusto Boal and taught the Theatre of the Oppressed extensively in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. He is currently working on his own book, provisionally entitled The Art of the Joker.


Photos: Mincemeat 2010
email cprwww@aber.ac.uk
phone 01970 622 133
further details available at
[CPR is not responsible for the content of external web sites]
http://www.cardboardcitizens.org.uk/
Conference location(s) Aberystwyth, Wales
Support file downloads (brochure, programme etc) Forum_structure_and_booking_info.doc
DF_BOOKING_FORM2.doc

DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - RUTH KANNER (RUTH KANNER THEATRE GROUP, ISRAEL)

  SESSION 2 - TUES 13TH TO THURS 15TH
DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - RUTH KANNER (RUTH KANNER THEATRE GROUP, ISRAEL) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - RUTH KANNER (RUTH KANNER THEATRE GROUP, ISRAEL) DIRECTORS' FORUM LABORATORY - RUTH KANNER (RUTH KANNER THEATRE GROUP, ISRAEL)
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  REDUNDANCIES

In this laboratory of practical investigation, participants will explore the two central forces energizing theatrical creation: the drive to create organized informative structures, alongside with the impulse to let the untidy, the uncontrolled and the unexpected invade the scene.

The term "redundancy" or "noise" refers in information theory to the necessary background enabling information to be transmitted clearly and saliently.

What is the role of redundancies and formlessness in the shapely composition of a theatrical piece?

What is the function of tensions between raw matter and finished material, the shapeless and the shaped, the rough and the refined, the indefinite and the definite, the negligible and the highlighted?

What are the inter-relations between these opposing poles in the creative process?

Concrete applications of these questions in actual theatrical creation will be illustrated by live scenes, taken out of works created by Ruth Kanner's Theater Group. This will be followed by an interactive analysis of these scenes in the light of these questions. The next stage will be conjoint experimentation. Actors of the theater group will present some structured, well shaped and polished scenes while the workshop participants will be invited to propose ruffling, tarnishing additions and modifications, in order to examine the effects of "noisy" redundancies and counter-expectations on the structured compositions.

The scenes to be presented are taken from the works:

Dionysus at Dizengoff Centre – adapted from the book by Tamar Berger. A penetrating investigation of the historical layers of a shopping mall in Tel Aviv performed as a story-telling theater that engages various theatrical means to ask challenging questions about the roots of the Zionist existence in Israel.

Discovering Elijah – the earth-shattering event of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, re-evoked through S. Yizhar’s extraordinary text, penetrates the surface down to the bare scream, to the very depths of horror, raising moral issues that seep through.

Cases of Murder – November 9. 1938: A protocol of fear, brutality and death. Based on Manfred Franke’s book Mordverläufe. The writer reconstructs the acts of violence committed against the Jewish citizens of the Reich during “Kristallnacht.” As an adult returning to the scene of the crime of his childhood, he reveals and exposes the mechanisms of moral evasion, vague and ambiguous talk, and turning blind eyes that made it possible for what was done to be done.

The Woman Who Preferred To Search for Food- from a story by Orli Castel-Bloom. A grotesque account of a woman’s journey in search for food in a hunger-stricken country. A symbolic, surrealistic commentary on the disintegration of some central Israeli myths.

Ruth Kanner Theater Group has been engaged, since 1998, in exploring its own surroundings by searching for a local theatrical language, interweaving storytelling, physical theater and visual imagery.

The group re-examination of hegemonic Israeli narratives is performed through literary and documentary texts, creating Storytelling Theater.

The struggle to translate a text that was not originally created for the stage into the language of the theater provides an opportunity to explore and expand the limits of stage language.

Kanner’s group is a high-quality, unique and creative home for artistic theater…compelling story-telling theater, virtuosic and multi-faceted. Tel Aviv News

Ruth Kanner and her acting group raise the art of storytelling-theater to new heights…masterpiece acting in which every little detail of body and soul is treated perfectly and exhaustivelyThe Stage

A pure pool of superb theater … a huge achievement …brilliant moments… countless stage inventions…amazing theater… The City

The group’s productions have been decorated with many prestigious awards, including the Landau Award, the Rosenbaum Award, the Margalit Award, the best show, best director and best actress prize of the Acre Theater Festival and the Sternfeld Award.

Ruth Kanner is an Associate Professor at the Department of Theater Arts of Tel Aviv University, Israel

Photos: Cases of Murder, Cases of Murder, Dionysus in Dizengoff Center
email cprwww@aber.ac.uk
phone 01970 622 133
further details available at
[CPR is not responsible for the content of external web sites]
http://sites.google.com/site/rktheatre/
http://www2.tau.ac.il/Person/art/researcher.asp?id=agfjhgcie
Conference location(s) Aberystwyth, Wales
Support file downloads (brochure, programme etc) Booking_info_and_form2.doc
Ruth_Kanner_Theatre_Group.pdf

Centre for Performance Research Conference Archive

Previous CPR conferences are archived. To read more about our past events please select from this list

  • Speaking to the Nation? The Artist's Vision [December 2007]
    Sat 8th Dec, 10.00 am - 6.00pm
  • Mapping Performance Research #1 [October 2005]
    seminar collaboration with Performance Research Laboratory (PRL), University of Leeds
  • Towards Tomorrow [April 2005]
    An International Gathering Exploring theatre x performance
  • Points of Contact - Performance, Places and Pasts [September 1998]
    This four day event, which includes two full-day field-trips, brings together Welsh performance practitioners whose work is concerned with notions of place and identity with other artists and scholars from around the world from the fields of archaeology, human geography, history, anthropology, folklore and literature studies.
  The Centre for Performance Research, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales, SY23 3AJ
uk +44(0)1970 622133 fax +44(0)1970 622132 cprwww@aber.ac.uk
the centre for performance research is an educational charity no. 701544
limited by guarantee no. 2315790