UCCA Beijing

A MOMENT ACROSS THE STAGE—MASK THEATRE WORKSHOP

2012.4.21 - 2012.4.22
10:00 - 17:00

Performing Arts
Location:  UCCA La Suite
Language:  English with Chinese Translation.

ABOUT THIS PROGRAM

This course is not based on learning a technical theater but utilize the mask accurately for the actor to discover his body and his movements in a new perspective.

Behind the mask the body speaks. The mask restores the expression of the body's primordial place, that face and eyes, by their intensity, have removed. The mask removes peripheral vision, the actor do not sees his body therefore he is forced to feel it. This absence refocuses the attention on the body and gestures. The actor takes possession of his movement, he become aware of it, while usually he’d conform his actions by pure automatism.

To play with a mask, it is necessary to have seen it from outside. So in the workshop the actor is alternatively on stage and in the audience. In this investigation it is as important to watch as it is to act.
Being an attentive audience forces one to monitor the mask work.
The actor learns to convey emotion through the body. He starts with the simplest emotions to the most complex.

We will work with the white, neutral mask to develop stage presence, and go to the partner without the interference of subjectivities.
The mask is silence; the actor must find a language of its own, necessarily original as it is not known.

*Reservations required.
From Tuesday to Friday 11:00-18:00 please call +86 10 5780 0200 to book. Please note that you can only book 1 seat at a time. Please visit http://e.mosh.cn/10458 for online ticketing.
Members can also book by emailing: members@159.138.20.147
*Share this event: http://www.tanghooloo.com/pub/4675

MAIN THEMES

I. A presence on stage. What reinforce it; energy, concentration, attention.
II. To explore the stage space
III. Work from the animal posture, to disconnect the body ofany sentimental representation and free the expression from mental automatism.
IV. Working from the concept of buffoons. Particular structure to work the relationship between the individual imagination and the moving life of a group as a family.
V. The tragic chorus is an organically built group in the theater, it is no longer a crowd of people but a living entity with its own rules, it is the relationship between the hero and the public, it is a room echo of the emotions. Complements the work of fools, this time the individual must melt into the imaginary world of the group.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Guest: Claude Roche (trainer)

Claude Roche has been involved in mask theatre for more than 40 years. As a company director he created over 30 mask plays, first in USA (including having worked with Bread and Puppets theater) and twenty years in France. After traveling to discover minorities and masks around the world and written a few books, he came back to theater and presently makes masks for various companies and handles mask workshops throughout the US, Ireland, Singapore and China.

PARTNERS & SPONSORS

Partner: China Drama/Theater in Education Forum