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Über eatc

Philosophie ... a sound approaches from far off - it passes by close enough to touch. Ungraspable... So you wait for the next one. It just refuses to come. The seeds of doubt take root. Did the first one even exist ? Have you ever had this experience ? Or think of a dream - crystal clear and living images before your very eyes – but by morning you will have forgotten them. Should you try to keep hold of a dream? It is dark, you rush to your desk, search round for a scrap of paper and a pencil, make sure you get down all the details - and satisfied, you fall back asleep. In the morning, when you read it through, nothing remains – just a page of eroded fantasy. Last night in the theatre - what did we see? what did we play? what did we know yesterday about theatre and about the actor’s art? And today? We realise, if we are honest with ourselves, that we must doubt even what we think we know. Yesterday we seemed to know. Today we realize: this knowledge no longer has any value; indeed it is perhaps something we did not even ourselves acquire. We hold fast for the moment to a very slender certainty - but it is not the certainty we enjoyed yesterday nor will it be the same tomorrow. Everything we acquired yesterday in the theatre, with great effort, today no longer belongs to us. We have to start all over again from the beginning . . . . . It is not the actor who performs an exercise – it is the exercise that forms the actor. If one sees training and text analysis as the actor’s own autonomous preparation, if the actor does not simply carry out an exercise - but the exercise actually shapes him, if, subsequently, the familiar frontiers between exercise and scene, rehearsal and performance, school and theatre, pedagogy and direction, are all cleared away and all these processes, in practice kept separate from one another, are united in one whole, then, here, one enters unknown terrain. In the search for the basic principles that define the actor’s art, the central question of research is how the actor develops the ability of expression, each time in a new and individual way, and how the experience of a really creative process can be summoned up, both for the individual artist and for the ensemble. From within this creative freedom emerge the authenticity and uniqueness of acting, at a far remove from cliché or imitation, and permitting the actor to grow above and beyond his craft. The actor becomes a genuine creator and thus himself the author of his role. In this sense, work in the theatre is the continuous, never-ending growth of one’s own artistic self. To initiate, to promote, and to accompany this process, one needs a systematic and methodical line in acting pedagogy and in research into its fundamental principles. If one wishes to change the situation in the theatre, one must first change the part played by teaching - because it is after all teaching that defines the theatre’s future.

The World Theatre Training Library

Veröffentlicht am von

AKT-ZENT – International Theatre Centre Berlin appointed Research Centre of the International Theatre Institut

Artistic director: Dr. Jurij Alschitz;

Programme director: Christine Schmalor

On the occasion of the 33rd  World Congress of the International Theatre Institute, held from 19th to 25th of September 2011  in Xiamen (China), the general assembly appointed  AKT-ZENT as  ITI Research Centre. The ITI works under the patronage of  UNESCO.

Since 2003, AKT-ZENT has conducted European and international theatre research projects on various themes; the latest one was dedicated  to “The Art of Dialogue”, supported by the European Commission, programme Culture. All research is practice-based, realised in seminars, laboratories and master-classes, and finally published in theatre hand-books for theatre practitioners.

The new multi-annual project will be
The World Theatre Training Library / Laboratory

The World Theatre Training Library is the most comprehensive collection of worldwide existing theatre training methods and exercises. It brings together all different theatre traditions and schools. The World Theatre Training Library will contain of 10 volumes on different themes and is going to be published worldwide in the six UNESCO languages at least.

In Asia, Africa, and Latin America, Master-Classes for theatre teachers will be established to conduct in-depth research in the particular regions and – at the same time – to support the development of theatre training. This will be realised by specific programmes for theatre teachers in the respective countries. In some countries this will lead to the establishment of the first professional theatre education programme / school.

In the following World Theatre Training Laboratories actors and theatre teachers are going to put the collected exercises to the test about its universal use for the theatre practice. This research will emphasise on the principle of exercises as way of communication in the intercultural work.

More information: http://wttl.theatreculture.org
The publication of the World Theatre Training Library shall bring the world-wide richness of old and new trainings and exercises to all theatre people in the world.

More information: http://wttl.theatreculture.org