The mask simplifies, rendering readable and immediate the movements of the soul.

 

OPEN TO: performers, theatre teachers, directors, playwrights, designers, choreographers, puppeteers, musicians with professional experience in their field, and anyone else interested in expanding their creative tools or wishing to further their knowledge with masks and physical theater.

 

 

THE MASK

Since ancient times, when the lives of men and women were still wrapped in the fantastic world of mythology, the mask represented an essential and indispensable element in human evolution. The mask is a medium that connects us to undefinable forces, such as those appertaining to archetypes of nature, humanity, and the divine. Thus its use in communal ceremonies is present in cultures and civilisations throughout history. Used in tribal, magical, and religious rituals, the mask was an essential part of the transformation of ritual into theatrical form in ancient Greek and Roman civilisation. In the Middle Ages the mask appeared in pagan carnival traditions and served to represent the demons in sacred ceremonies.  During the Renaissance, with the fixed characters of Commedia del’Arte, the mask became the main player in the birth of modern Western theater. From the 1900s, the mask came to have a pedagogical function thanks to the exploration and research of many theatre artists, who began to use it as a tool for actor's training, thus participating in the rebirth of physical theater, where the expressive presence is re-evaluated in its entirety.

 

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THE THEATRE MASK

The mask’s theatrical and dramatic aspects have spread throughout all human cultures. This does not express a taste for fiction and deception, but rather the expression of a fundamental duplicity and inconsistency found in many situations of human life.

The mask, having a phenomenal nature, manifests itself completely when all the elements which constitute the phenomenal act come together. A mask’s construction materials and structure are important. Just as important however is the person who moves and merges with the mask, who observes, the quality of physical space which supports the play, as well as the quality of the dramatic space within which it may play.

 

 

WHY TRAINING WITH MASKS?

The mask, with the multitudes of meaning that it carries, constitute the basic elements one must face when practicing the art of theatre.

The mask, covering the face of the actor and all its myriad possibilities for expression, completely transforms our way of researching the body’s expressivity and its relation to the space.

This gives the actor a new sense of his own presence, an emotional fluidity, an amplified and richer dramatic expression, a gestural language full of emotion, a return to a more global perceptual experience, and it allows us to rediscover the innate dimensions of play.

The body and the space are the truly essential referents which allow us to find a deeper authenticity in stage presence and in performance.

This is fundamental for lively and authentic theatre actors as much as for scenographers, directors, writers, choreographers, puppeteers and dancers.

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THE PROGRAM

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MOVEMENT: ANALYSIS AND TECHNIQUE

• The relationship between body and space: the presence and the state. 

• The structure of the body: the mask's body

• The body in action and reaction

• Advanced technique of mask articulation

 

MASK IN PLAY

• The journey through the theatre masks

- Neutral Mask  by Donato Sartori

- Larval Masks by Matteo Destro

- Expressive full Masks by Matteo Destro

- Primary Monodirectional Masks by Matteo Destro

- Expressive Half Masks (Human-Comedy Mask) by students of workshop

• ​Improvisation.

• PlayWriting

 

MASK CREATION

• Study the form and its dynamics in space, as well as the organic creative process through which the form of the mask emerges.

• Under Matteo’s guidance, students will develop their own papier-mâché expressive half masks

 

About the process of creating the mask

The process begins with observing how abstract forms can evoke different kinds of feelings in relation to the space that surrounds them. Studying how even the human face can express different characters based on the forms and relationships between the parts of which it is composed. During the workshop, participants will be guided through the different stages of sculpting with clay, paper-mâché, cutting, smoothing and working with colour to create their own half mask. The last stage is the search, through the study of body, voice and movement of the character that emerges between the encounter of the mask maker and the mask they have created.

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LOCATION

The Body Voice Centre

50 Wolverhampton Street, Footscray,

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

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SCHEDULE

from 25th of September until the 6th of October

Monday to Friday

9.00 am to 5.00 pm

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PRELIMINARY PREPARATION

Participants should bring black clothes, without any writing, appropriate for movement work and an apron or smock to wear in the workshop.

 

DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATIONS

for Early Bird Registrations: 15th July 2017

for Late Registrations:  31st August 2017

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TUITION

$950 

 

INFORMATION and APPLICATIONS

for all information and application please contact

Beth Twentyman

beth20man@gmail.com

+61 0405 738 191

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