SEMINARIO APERTO
27 settembre - 5 ottobre
Brzezinka (Wroclaw, Polonia)

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Scarica la documentazione e il modulo per la partecipazione qui sotto (*.doc)
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Regula settembre 2008: general information
Regula september 2008: application form

 REGULA CONTRA REGULAM
Research Programme on Performing Arts

Directed byRaúl Iaiza and Teatro La Madrugada
Milan, Italy

OPEN SESSION
in Brzezinka, the forest base of the Grotowski Institute

27th of September - 5th of October 2008

In collaboration and with the assistance from
THE GROTOWSKI INSTITUTE
Wrocław, Poland

Regula contra Regulam
evokes the relationship between training and actor’s dramaturgy, between discipline and creativity, between the need of rules and the need to break them

Teatro La Madrugada

The group was born in Milan in 1994 under the direction of Raúl Iaiza. Since the beginning, the objective of its members has been that of creating an itinerary of training and self-education in the field of theatre, through the daily practice of group work and through apprenticeship with masters of the craft.
The group finds its sources of inspiration in the tradition that sees theatre as a creative possibility that is the outcome of converging efforts and continuous practice of individuals with different personalities.
Its members have developed their activities in three fields:
• the artistic field, through the creation and production of theatre performances, also including street and musical performances. Actors’ training on singing, body rhythm, coordination, acrobatics, stilt techniques has created the ground for the development of personal work and for the creation of characters and materials for the performances which are based on subjects and questions proposed by the director;
• the research field, aiming at the preservation of a field of inquiry and self-pedagogy in theatre crafts. The field of creative training and singing in relation to movement is explored with a group of actors and musicians coming from Italy, Denmark, and Poland who join Teatro La Madrugada actors in specific work sessions;
• theatre pedagogy through the creation and organisation of seminars and workshops that bring theatre into unconventional spaces. Theatre is also investigated in its social implicatons, as a privileged vehicle that can open possibilities for human relations beyond social standards and patterns.

From 2001 to 2004 Raúl Iaiza undertakes a period of training as an assistant-director of Eugenio Barba (Odin Teatret, Denmark) in the performances: Salt and Andersen’s Dream.At the same time he collaborates in several other theatre and music projects such as Tidens Tand (2001), Andedrag (2003), Aldrenes Pragt (2005).From 2006 he is the assistant-director of Eugenio Barba in specific projects such asDon Juan in Hell (Ravenna Festival, June 2006).In 2008 he is engaged for a new Odin Teatret’s production.
 
In 2007 Teatro La Madrugada starts a collaboration with the Grotowski Institute (Wrocław, Poland). The Grotowski Institutesupports and hosts the core of the research project ofTeatro La Madrugada, called Regula contra Regulam.

The Project Regula contra Regulam

The first part of the project called Regula contra Regulam started in November 2003 and was closed in April 2006. Its original objective was the development of a practical inquiry about the border lines between formal exercises and physical action, according to the experiences of different traditions and techniques of physical and vocal training for actors, both on individual and group level.
This inquiry was based on the structure of the Studies on different ‘Classical’ approaches to training. The Studies are a structure worked out by Raúl Iaiza under the guidance of Mario Barzaghi (Teatro dell’Albero) and Torgeir Wethal (Odin Teatret) between 1999 and 2005.
The expression called “Regula contra Regulam” can be understood in two ways. A paradoxical way: “[A] Rule against [The] Rule”, that is, a rule that is given in order to fight rules. Or else, in a clearly oppsite way, “one rule against the other”.
Regula contra Regulam evokes the relationship between training and actor’s dramaturgy, between discipline and creativity, between the need of rules and the need to break them.

As part of the vocal work, in this first part of the work the group focussed on choral singing based on the repertoire of Laude of low Middle Ages, and specifically on the Laudario di Cortona (Cortona 91). At this point, a new period of the research started.

Second hypotheses
The project’s objective is the development of a practical inquiry on the relationship among three fields of the actor’s work: training, actor’s dramaturgy, choral singing.
Presently the project is carried on by a closed group composed by members of Teatro La Madrugada and actors coming from others groups/contexts. The group is developing following research lines:
• actor’s training, for which the starting point focusses on fields that we can call classical: plastics, acrobatics, rhythmics;
• choral singing, for which there are three sources of the repertoire: the Laudario di Cortona (Cortona 91), paraliturgical songs from Italian tradition, syllabical songs linked to physical training, ‘Vallisto’ songs from the north-west regions of Argentina.

The development on the level of actor’s dramaturgy will be based on the work on songs, in particular on the Laudario di Cortona.

Each session of the closed group is connected with an open session where the same research lines are tackled and approached with participants coming from different contexts.

THE PROGRAMME of the forthcoming Open Session on 27th of September - 5th OF OCTOBER 2008

Physical training
• Body rhythms, rhythm in segmentation, accent and counterpoint, space choreography
• Plastics and body orchestration (segmentation, dissociation, coordination, composition)
• Balance/loss of balance, dynamics and impulses, relation exercises, runs, dance of impulses
• Pre-acrobatics and grammar exercises (going down, getting up, rolls, somersaults, counterimpulses, jumps and falls)
• Floor and dynamic acrobatic exercises
• Work-in-succession: from single exercises to composition to improvisation to dynamic use of space

Vocal training
• Vocalization, dynamics and agogic, training songs, relationship of song with movement, relationship of words with physical training techniques
• Accents, syllables, word-movement dynamics
• Breathing and vocal emission techniques, registers and location of voice colours

Singing
• Extracts from various musical and cultural sources, useful for practice
• Monodical and choral songs, harmonization of three and four parts
• Intonation and dynamics of octaves, techniques of transposition and modulation
• Techniques of vocal-instrumental arrangement

Physical actions
• Processing of structures and dramaturgy of person-in-acting
• Montage and dramaturgy of a group, levels of attention and perception

TYPES OF SESSIONS
All sessions will be of practical nature. Nevertheless, in the second half of the week some meetings will take place to talk together. The aim of such meetings is to open a space to exchange thoughts about questions that the work may arouse, related to the profession and also to daily life. Participant directors will take part in all sessions either actively or as observers and will participate in special sessions with the leaders, focused on directors’ work.

SCHEDULE
Work sessions will take place every day from 9 am to 1 pm and from 3 pm to 7 pm. Individual sessions will be planned in other hours according to the development of work. Breakfasts, lunches and dinners will be managed and prepared by participants, leaders and students in turns. The same will occur for cleaning up and maintenance of working and living spaces.

SESSIONS’ LEADERS
Raúl Iaiza (Argentina/Italy)
Roberta Secchi (Italy)
Dawid Żakowski (Poland)
Members of the Research Programme Regula contra Regulam

Raúl Iaiza, theatre director and teacher. He developed concert activity as soloist of recorder and in the field of ancient music research, in Argentina and Italy.
In 1994 he founded the Project of Theatre Research / I Servi di Scena / Teatro La Madrugada, as director and teacher. He has directed all performances of the ensemble. Current productions are: The Danton Case (2007) based on Stanisława Przybyszewska’s play and From Along the Silk Way (2006), a street performance.
From 1997 he coordinates the work of a Research Programme on performative arts, focussing on the practical application of some cross-line principles common to the artistic disciplines whose instruments are the body and the person-in-action.
From 2000 he collaborates on various projects of Odin Teatret (Denmark): Tidens tand (2001), Bidevind (2003), and Aldrenes Pragt (2005), all directed by Tage Larsen; and the professional biography of Torgeir Wethal (in progress). He participated in the XIII Session of the International School of Theatre Anthropology ISTA (2004) in La Rinconada (Sevilla, Spain).
He is the National Artistic Coordinator of Mus-e Italia Onlus, part of the Mus-e Project of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation of Brussels.
He is the assistant director to Eugenio Barba at Odin Teatret for Salt (2002), Andersen’s Dream (2004), Don Juan in Hell (2006). He is also currently involved in the preparation of the new Odin Teatret’s performance.
In 2008 he is the guest director for Diaspora 2008 (Glasgow), a project of the National Theatre of Scotland and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.
From 2007 he concentrates his work in the field of pure reasearch within the project Regula contra Regulam, in collaboration withthe Grotowski Institute of Wrocław, Poland.

Roberta Secchihas completed her education at the United World College of the Adriatic and at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan. She co-founded Teatro La Madrugada in 1994, where she has trained as actress with Danio Manfredini and Mario Barzaghi. She took part in all workshops organized by the group with Roberta Carreri, Tage Larsen, Julia Varley, Torgeir Wethal of Odin Teatret.
From 1994 she has been studying theatre-dance technique of Bharata Natyam (classical dance of India) with Ujwal Bhole.
As actress she has taken part in all productions of the group: Cantico de Sora Peste (1995), Laggiu’ mi udrai meglio (1998), Braccata dalla Pace (2000), The Danton Case (in process).
From 2001 to 2006 she performed a solo for children: The Ghost of Murasaki,inspired by the character of Murasaki Shikibu.
For musical and street performances she specialises in stilt techniques and organetto, playing in: If you become a fish (1999), The Parade of His Black Majesty (2000), Che Furor illustri la Mirabil Murga (2003), From along the Silk Way (in process).
She is presently working on a solo project on the life and art of Federico Garcia Lorca.
From 1999 she leads practical work with student actors in challenging social contexts within the theatre group and outside it. She is in charge of administration of Teatro La Madrugada.
She participated in the XIV Session of the International School of Theatre Anthropology ISTA in Wrocław and Krzyżowa (2005).

Dawid Żakowski – from 1997 to 2007 was an actor of Studium Teatralne from Warsaw (independent theatre group run by Piotr Borowski from 1996, see: www.studiumteatralne.pl). In Studium Teatralne he worked on following projects: Północ / Midnight (1998), Człowiek / Man (2000), Parsifal (2001), Hamlet (2003), Niżyński / Nijinsky (2004), Henryk Hamlet Hospital (2006) and Bramy raju / Gates of Paradise (2007).
Stage practice and cooperation with Studium started in 1997 in Północ / Midnight performance where he created a role of Konrad / Marek Chaber. The performance toured Europe and South America.
During next years working in Studium Teatralne he was responsible for developing actor’s training, individual work with other actors and workshops for actors and apprentices in Poland and abroad (Caracas, Venezuela, 2001; Canterbury, England 2003 and 2005; Naples, Italy 2006). He co-directed the next to last performance of Studium: Henryk Hamlet Hospital.
In 2003 he graduated linguistics and Polish literature at Warsaw University. The subject of his master’s dissertation was Wacław Nijinsky’s choreographies.
In 2006 he won an award for the best actor at the 2 Festival Iberoamericano di Teatro (Mar del Plata, Argentina) in the role of Henryk in Henryk Hamlet Hospital. This performance won also the main price at the festival. In 2006 received an actor’s degree.
Most recently (2007) he directed 1/3 project based on King Lear by William Shakespeare in Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw.

GUEST MASTERS
Mario Barzaghi (Teatro dell’Albero, Italy)
Ujwal Bhole (Nada Brahma Nrityalaya,India)
Torgeir Wethal (Odin Teatret, Denmark)

Mario Barzaghi was born in Milan in 1954. From 1974 to 1981 he trained as an actor in TEATER 7, a basic theatre group composed by workers, students and teachers. From 1981 to 1994 he was actor in Teatro Tascabile di Bergamo, with which he toured Italy, Holland, Greece, Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Maroco, Denmark, Poland, England, India, Brasil, Argentina, Perù, Bolivia, Mexico, and Texas. Mario also trained as Kathakali actor-dancer with Master John Kalamandalam with whom he performs in Europe and India. Duringe his work experience he met Odin Teatret, Yuyaschkani, Cuatrotablas, Teatr Ósmego Dnia, Gardzienice and Teatro de Los Andes.
Since 1995 he collaborates with Arsenic, Theatre La Filature, Teatro Le Galpon, Theatre L (Switzerland), Teatro Taller de Colombia, ECUMA-Belo Horizonte, Italian Universities of Bologna, L’Aquila and Perugia. In 2000 he founded Teatro dell’Albero in Italy.

Ujwal Bhole was born in Lonavla in 1965. Master of Bharat Natyam – in Tanjavur and Kalakshetra styles, and Master of Yoga. He has completed a diploma course and teacher course in Yoga at the G.S. College of Yoga & Cultural Synthesis, Kaivalyadhama, Lonavla and a training course in the art of dramatics at the Bharat Natya Samshodham Mandir in Pune. He has done his Master’s degree in Bharat Natyam in the Nalanda Nritya Kala Mahavidyalayaat Mumbai (Bombay) University.
As a dancer he performed at prestigious art festivals in India, Korea, Singapore, Ecuador, Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, and Switzerland.
In 1992 he founded his own dance school in Lonavla called Nada Brahma Nrityalaya (The Sound of Dance & Music is the Supreme Energy).

Torgeir Wethal, actor, teacher and director, was born in 1947, in Oslo, Norway. Torgeir is one of the founders of Odin Teatret in whose performances he has participated since its beginning in 1964. His professional experiences are published in The Actor’s Way edited by Erik Exe Christoffersen. He is in charge of the production of Odin Teatret Film and has directed several films about Odin Teatret’s own performances as well as the actor’s training of Étienne Decroux, Jerzy Grotowski and Odin Teatret.

4th OF OCTOBER 2008
THE OPENING: A SPECIAL DAY AND NIGHT OF SHARING
The open session will end with a special day where masters, leaders, participants, members of Grotowski Institute, and invited guests will share their work, visions and experiences through demonstrations, performances, and talks. It is not a public occasion but an intense moment for an exchange of artistic drives and inspirations.

BRZEZINKA

The sessions will take place in the forest base of the Grotowski Institute in Brzezinka.
Brzezinka, the forest base of the Grotowski Institute, is an isolated building surrounded by 10 hectares of forest, located near the village of Brzezinka, next to Oleśnica, 46 km from Wrocław. It was one of several farm buildings, the remainder of which were destroyed at the end of World War II. Next to the building, by the stream, there is a wooden water mill. The stream supplies water to the nearby pool.
In November 1971, the Laboratory Theatre bought the buildings from the Jezierscy family and began renovation and conversion works, which were undertaken mainly by the younger members of the theatre. Working spaces and modest accommodations were created. Jerzy Grotowski chose to keep Brzezinka an isolated place, without running water and electricity. It was a home to paratheatre and Theatre of Sources until the declaration of martial law in Poland, in December 1981. In August 1982, Jerzy Grotowski left the country and was never to return to Brzezinka.
After the dissolution of the Laboratory Theatre in 1984, the Second Wrocław Studio inherited Brzezinka, along with the premises in Wrocław. Zbigniew Cynkutis, the director of the Second Studio, conducted a detailed inventory of the building, but unfortunately, he was not able to secure funding for further renovation works. In 1990 Brzezinka gained a new protector. From the start, the newly-formed Grotowski Centre attempted to raise funds to save the building. In 2001, thanks to the Wrocław authorities, the first stage of renovation – the installation of a new roof – was finally accomplished. It was the last opportunity to save this unique place. The following year, once again financed by the city council, the renovation work was completed. The inauguration of the ‘new’ Brzezinka took place during the international conference ‘Jerzy Grotowski: the Past and the Present of Research – paratheatre and Theatre of Sources,’ organised by the Grotowski Centre in September 27–29, 2002.
Currently, Brzezinka is a place for practical activities and long-term projects. Here, Theatre ZAR (Wrocław) created its Gospels of Childhood. Brzezinka hosts several projects, amongst which are Maisternia Pisni’s (Lviv, Ukraine) Rasa and Song of Songs, Teatro La Madrugada’s (Milan, Italy) Regula contra Regulam, and The Leaden Ball by an undertaking of Song In Between (Wrocław, Poland).

LANGUAGE
English and Italian

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS
12 actors and 3 directors

FEE
350 EUR (200 EUR for participants from Central and Eastern Europe) including lodging and food
Former participants of 2007 and 2008 sessions will pay a reduced price: 300 EUR (140 EUR for participants coming from Central and Eastern Europe).

APPLICATIONS
Participants will be selected on the basis of application forms

DEADLINES
Please send your application form by email only directly to Roberta Secchi at Teatro La Madrugada: teatro.lamadrugada@tiscali.it by 20th of August 2008
Confirmation will be sent to selected participants by 30th of August 2008
The fee should be transferred, in EUR only, by 7th of September 2008

INFORMATION
Detailed information and application forms are provided by Roberta Secchi (00 39 02 54102094; teatro.lamadrugada@tiscali.it)
The person responsible at the Grotowski Institute is Agnieszka Pietkiewicz agnieszka@grotowski-institute.art.pl

See also:
www.teatrolamadrugada.com
www.grotowski-institute.art.pl