Online Workshop
€75 / €60 (Concession)*
*Concession includes students, recent graduates, and returning students.
2 SESSIONS AVAILABLE
ASIA - Monday - Wednesday, March 7 - 9
at 9am - 11am (UK) / 10am - 12noon (Poland) / 5pm - 7pm (Singapore)
or
AMERICAS - Wednesday - Friday, March 9 - 11
at 6pm - 8pm (UK) / 7pm - 9pm (Poland) / 10am - 12noon (LA)
Everything we create comes from the rich source of experiences stored in our bodies. Through movement, we tell the stories of our lives.
In this course, we will invite you to focus on the early part of creation—to soften and enter the space needed to surrender to the flow of impulses inside you as a performer, artist or maker. We will engage you in different moving meditations, journaling exercises, forums and creative tasks that will cultivate each of these impulses into rich experiences and seeds for making artistic work.
Testimonials for Written in the Body (Online):
"Powerful work is being done in a new time/space. 'Written in the Body' reached across the miles and moved us inside and out. ... Everyone can benefit through this work!"
-Tina Kronis
"Matej and Betty work work in a very special tandem. Their wisdom and understanding facilitate reaching to depths where self-knowledge and mastery dwells." -Michał Wilk
"Matej is an extraordinary performer and teacher ... Betty gave me tools to work with the material that sprung from the physical exercises plus her meditative exercises. It's a great duet and I strongly recommend anyone to attend. Online classes work!"
-Jo Soul
Matej Matejka (Facilitator)
Matej is a multi award-winning theatre researcher, actor, director, and teacher of movement.
He has been associated with Teatr ZAR and the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław, and the founder of Studio Matejka. Matej is deeply interested in the physical expression of actors and dancers. Influenced by Russian Studios of the early 20th century and the work and heritage of Grotowski and Tanztheatre, his training techniques and teaching span theatre and dance, psycho-physical expression and structural stylisation.
Elisabeth Gunawan (co-facilitator)
Elisabeth is a critically acclaimed Chinese Indonesian performer and theatremaker. Her work explores the naked encounter between performer and audience. She is particularly drawn to transgression and contradictions, using blasphemy and myth to explore stories that go beyond the horizontal line of human drama to the vertical line of heaven and hell.
'The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and non-sense, not between right and wrong. ... Those who look outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.'
-C.G. Jung
Research has shown that the site of learning and creativity is within our body. Our focus will be on three main avenues of engaging the body in creative tasks: through movement, writing and drawing. Each of them are forms of physical expression (afterall, writing and drawing are like small intricate dances performed by our hands). Each time, we will rigorously train your subtle creative muscles to connect the dots between physical and cognitive processes. The work is designed to connect you to the infinite creativity of your subconscious mind, and the common consciousness of society. We will impart skills and practices that will enrich your spontaneity and craft as an actor, performer and maker.
'Our bodies are the texts that carry the memories and therefore remembering is no less than reincarnation.'-Katie Cannon
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Each session will delight and engage you to experiment with rigour, focus and playfulness. Our exercises aim to give you skills and tools, and to build your trust in the creative process.
What we teach you is not rooted in an aesthetic, instead our process helps you deepen the integration between your imaginative, physical and mental instruments to express yourself in a way that is original and true.
DREAM LOGIC
The nonsensical logic one possesses while dreaming that makes perfect sense until he or she wakes up
'Stop making sense.' -David Lynch
Dreams are aa place where we forge new relationships between apparently unrelated memories, events and ideas. It is also one of the foundational human activities that lead to our existential need to tell stories, to ourselves and to others. We invite you to let go of reality and reason, to dive into an experience guided by intuition and things you do not understand—you can fly, or meet someone who is already dead, or walk on stage naked not knowing your lines.
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Questions?
What practice is this built on?
We are movement practitioners and theatremakers, and our work is derived from over 10 years of experience in performer training research internationally and at The Grotowski Institute in Poland. Our artistry is driven by the question “Who am I?”—the conscious individual is consistently engaging in a profound questioning to live their lives with self-awareness and creativity. We also draw from our body of work in life coaching and yoga, always honouring the wholeness of the mind and body in approaching creative work. We are also constantly making connections between the intuitive research in a theatre studio with the latest scientific research about creativity. Throughout the course, we will share relevant resources for further reading to support the participants’ learning
What is an online workshop like?
We have gone through many iterations and tests of this workshop, to find that the benefit of an online workshop is the privilege of working in your private space and a deeper potential for focus and self-discipline.
All we need is your human presence, a readiness to work and good internet connection. If you have wireless earphones or a good sound system, that will enhance the experience even more. Each class (2 hours long) will be different and surprising, but it will always start with a physical warmup to make the body available for our cognitive and imaginative processes. We will then venture into different imaginative journeys and creative exercises involving moving, writing or drawing. There will also be opportunities to discuss and share your experiences in forums, and to collaborate with others in the group.
I'm a [insert vocation here], is this workshop for me?
This course is for anyone who uses creativity in their lives, which is to say everyone! Our experience so far has shown that these processes can be applied to any discipline, whether you are an actor, a dancer, a visual artist, or an entrepreneur—and whether you want to use creativity to create a solo show, deepen a role or to make some transformative changes in your life.