Practising Tradition in Performer Training: A Critical Approach

IPPT Conference, 28-31 January 2016

Organized by the Grotowski Institute, Wrocław, Poland.

During the 2016 session of the International Platform for Performer Training, we will put into critical consideration the topic of tradition. Tradition often functions as a form of legitimation and a mandate of trust for rising artists, but at the same time it is used as a means to discredit others. It may be considered a valuable heritage or outdated mannerism. One way or another, it can serve as an easy label both in performing and teaching. At the Grotowski Institute, which is an institution strongly linked to a very specific tradition, we are all deeply aware of that fact. We are guided by the conviction that we train not to preserve tradition, but rather in order to create valuable art and to educate outstanding performers. We would like to discuss real current situations and modes of operation in training and transmitting (or maybe overcoming) tradition. As the Grotowski Institute is not an academic institution, it is crucial for us to hear from international colleagues representing many differently set institutions and their views.

The Wrocław meeting of IPPT will focus on three main thematic fields:

1. Studio and Academy — different models of training and transmission of tradition. What are the strengths, limitations, and consequences of the ways they work? What are the possible and practical ways of cooperation or of combining these models? Most theatrical traditions bring more than a training technique; they are a coherent theatre philosophy and/or work ethos. Is it always possible and desirable to incorporate them into university teaching? Is traditionalism a positive or negative value in the context of contemporary teaching and performing?

2. Tradition — strategies of use. We operate in so-called ‘liquid culture’. The most common pattern of use of tradition in contemporary European theatre and performer training is a composition of elements taken from different sources. What are the reasons behind specific choices and, in consequence, is there such a thing as an individual tradition in training? What are challenges posed by free and open access to knowledge and do they push to find new ways and methods for transmitting tradition in performer training? What are good and bad practices and their outcomes? What is the consequence of eclecticism in teaching? How are traditions processed and modified to serve the needs of next generations of performers? When and how is tradition born? What is the fate of broken tradition?

3. Political aspect of tradition — who determines the canon and how? Eugenio Barba talks about his artistic family tree, placing himself as the grandson of Meyerhold and as Grotowski’s younger brother. What is the meaning of tradition or invented tradition in the field of performer training, and what is the reason to deploy it? Is it an element of prestige or of actual knowledge? And whose tradition is it? (If there are grandparents and brothers, what happened to grandmothers and sisters?) This also brings forth the issue of ethnic traditions and ‘source’ techniques. Are they useful in the context of European theatre pedagogy? How do we guarantee fairness in choosing which tradition should have its place in school curriculum?

Conference Programme

Thursday, 28 January 2016

19:00 Registration (Grotowski Institute, Cinema Room, Przejście Żelaźnicze)

20:00 Welcome Dinner (Spiż Brewery, Rynek-Ratusz 2)

Friday, 29 January 2016

Na Grobli Studio, ul. Na Grobli 30/32

8:00 Registration

8:45 Małgorzata Jabłońska (Grotowski Institute)
Welcome on behalf of the Grotowski Institute

9:00 Phillip Zarrilli (The Llanarth Group)
Re-framing ‘Traditional’ Modes of Embodied Knowledge and Learning as a Form of Perceptual Enquiry and Apprenticeship

10:00 Rebecca Loukes (University of Exeter)
‘Embodied Translation’: Tradition in the Training Legacy of Elsa Gindler

10:20 Ben Spatz (University of Huddersfield)
Epistemological Perspectives on Performer Training: Tradition and Innovation

10:50 Coffee

11:20 Shane Shambhu (Altered Skin Theatre Company) & Mark James Hamilton (Regent’s University London)
Navanatya: Using Bharatanatyam to Create New Drama

12:05 Margaret Coldiron (East 15 Acting School, University of Essex)
‘World Performance? What’s THAT? The Ethics and Aesthetics of Balancing Traditions from East and West in Contemporary European Performer Training’

12:30 Discussion

13:30 Lunch Break

14:30 Jarosław Fret (Grotowski Institute)
BodyConstitution: Source Techniques in Contemporary Training Practice

15:00 Przemysław Błaszczak & Jakub Gontarski (Two Paths Studio, Grotowski Institute), & Anna Duda (University of Silesia)
Two Paths Studio: Training and Transmitting Martial Arts Traditions

16:00 Coffee

16:30 Niamh Dowling (Rose Bruford College)
Grotowski’s Artistic Family: Honouring the Past with the Emergent Future

17:15 Discussion

Performances

19:00 Studio||Rosa, TAZM Silence of Light
Grotowski Institute, Laboratory Theatre Space, Przejście Żelaźnicze

19:30 Teatr ZAR, Caesarean Section: Essays on Suicide
Dworzec Świebodzki, pl. Orląt Lwowskich 20b

Saturday, 30 January 2016

Na Grobli Studio, ul. Na Grobli 30/32

9:00 Paul Allain (University of Kent)
Physical Actor Training — an A-Z

9:20 Mark Evans (Coventry University) & Simon Murray (University of Glasgow)
The Political Legacies of Jacques Lecoq in Twenty Movements

10:20 Coffee

10:50 Matej Matejka (Studio Matejka, Grotowski Institute)
Searching for Tradition within You

11:30 Anna Zubrzycki (Anna Zubrzycki Studio)
Voicing Practice: Listening Deeply

12:15 Discussion

13:30 Lunch Break

14:30 Tomasz Rodowicz (CHOREA Theatre, Łódź Film School)
New Actor Training versus Traditional Higher Education System in Poland — Where Does the Problem Lie?

14:50 Pauliina Hulkko (University of Tampere), Esa Kirkkopelto & Hannu Tuisko (University of Arts Helsinki)
Destabilizations and Transitions in the Finnish Psychophysical Actor Training

15:50 Coffee

16:20 Ramiro Silveira (East 15 Acting School, University of Essex)
Theatre Playground: Playfulness Possibilities for Connecting Traditions

16:50 Discussion

Performances

19:00 Studio||Rosa, TAZM Silence of Light
Grotowski Institute, Laboratory Theatre Space, Przejście Żelaźnicze

19:30 Teatr ZAR, Caesarean Section: Essays on Suicide
Dworzec Świebodzki, pl. Orląt Lwowskich 20b

Sunday, 31 January 2016

Na Grobli Studio, ul. Na Grobli 30/32

9:00 Richard Gough (Centre for Performance Research)
From the Beginner's Mind to the Terrorist's Body: (Re)Considering the Militant in Actor Training

9:30 Discussion

10:30 Coffee

11:00 Questions from Wrocław Theatre Academy

12:00 General Meeting
The Future of IPPT

Individual departures

Presenters and Chairs

Paul Allain is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Kent, UK. After collaborating with Gardzienice Theatre Association, he worked extensively in the UK as Movement Director. He has published several books, DVDs and articles on theatre and actor training as both author and editor. From 2006-9 he led the British Grotowski Project, which culminated in an international conference and a series of publications. He has also collaborated with the Moscow Art Theatre School. In 2009 he received an award for services to Polish culture. He has just gained funding from the Leverhulme Trust to make short films about physical acting as part of a new online A-Z for Methuen Drama Bloomsbury.  He is currently Research Mentor to the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama.

Przemysław Błaszczak is an actor who has been associated with the Grotowski Institute since 1995. From 1996 to 1999 he worked with Song of the Goat Theatre, where he performed in Song of the Goat – Dithyramb. Between 2002 and 2003 he created the solo performance Ecco Homo. Since 2004, he has been an actor with Teatr ZAR, led by Jarosław Fret, the resident theatre company of the Grotowski Institute. Przemek performs in the Gospels of Childhood: Overture and Anhelli: The Calling. He is currently involved in the creation of Teatr ZAR’s most recent performance, Armine, Sister. In 2012 he performed in the premiere of Heiner Müller’s Mauser directed by Theodoros Terzopoulos, and with Alexandra Kazazou in Kassander directed by Io Voulgaraki. Since 2005, Przemek has studied the Japanese martial art of aikido under Sensei Piotr Masztalerz (5th dan). In 2011 he studied under Juba Nour Shihan (6th dan) in Baja California, Mexico. He is currently training to become an aikido teacher. In 2005 he went to Japan, invited by Toshi Tushitori, where he practiced shintaido, a Japanese system that integrates voice and body through training based on traditional Japanese karate. He leads the Two Paths Studio, which runs as part of the BodyConstitution research programme of the Grotowski Institute. He has led workshops in theatres and universities all around the globe – UCI (Irvine), UCLA (Los Angeles), San Francisco International arts Festival, California USA; NSD, New Delhi, India; Mitos Centre of performing arts Lemesos Cyprus, Theatro T Thessaloniki Greece; Goldsmiths University of London, University of Canterbury, UK; Double Edge Theatre, USA; Charles Working Theatre, Boston, USA; Collectif l’impulsion Marseille, France; Micadanses Paris,France, Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Grusomhetens Teater, Oslo, Norway, etc.).

Karolina Brzęk – Dancer, contemporary dance teacher, and an actress in educational theater. She studied Performance art and Culture at the University of Wrocław. Since 2005 she has carried out workshops on contemporary dance and improvisation addressed to children, teenagers, and adults. She participated in various workshops, festivals and project in Poland and abroad. Since 2013 she has been a member of “motion laboratory” called Studio Dwóch Ścieżek which is led by Przemysław Błaszczak and Jakub Gontarski. The laboratory is part of the BodyConstitution project conducted at Jerzy Grotowski Institute in Wrocław. At the laboratory she carries out research on performance act in martial arts of Aikido and CAPOEIRA.

Margaret Coldiron trained as an actress at The Drama Centre, London and toured the US in leading roles with the National Shakespeare Company in the 1980s. She is now a director, performer and specialist in Asian performance and masks and has taught on a number of actor training programmes in the US and UK. Publications include: Trance and Transformation of the Masked Actor in Japanese Noh and Balinese Dance Drama (Mellen Press 2004), articles in New Theatre Quarterly, Asian Theatre Journal, Indonesia and the Malay World, and Women & Performance and contributions to the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Asian Theatre. She performs Balinese music and dance with Gamelan Lila Cita and Lila Bhawa Dance Company in London, and is Associate Director of Thiasos Theatre Company, specialising in intercultural productions of ancient Greek plays. She is Deputy Head of the BA World Performance at East 15 Acting School.

Niamh Dowling is Head of School of Performance at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance in London. She has worked extensively internationally as a Movement Director, leading workshops in UK, Europe, USA, Asia, South and Central America and Russia. Niamh trained as a teacher of The Alexander Technique and in movement with Monika Pagneux in Paris and Ann Bogart, Nancy Topf and Eva Karczag in New York. She has collaborated closely with Teatr Pieśń Kozła in Poland for the past fifteen years. Niamh has a holistic approach to education and performance training with emphasis on interconnectedness of movement and voice and is one of the practitioners on the recently launched online Routledge Performance Archive. Niamh has trained as a practitioner of both organisational systemic constellations and also in family constellations.

Anna Duda – PhD student in the Department of Theatre and Drama at the University of Silesia in Katowice, theatrologist. She is interested in contemporary forms of dance and movement. She coordinates and organizes artistic and educational projects in the field of theater and dance, and is a member of the board of the Upper Silesian Creative Cluster Association. She collaborates with artists and organizations involved in practical training (for example Anna Piotrowska and the eferte Foundation, Two Paths Studio in Wrocław, the Association of Creative Initiatives “Momentum” from Wrocław) and animation work in the field of theatre (ex. Performat Foundation, Theatre Inqubator).

Mark Evans is Professor of Theatre Training and Education, and Associate Dean (Student Experience) in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Coventry University. He trained in theatre and movement in Paris, with Jacques Lecoq, Philippe Gaulier, and Monika Pagneux. He has taught movement for over twenty years, and has written on Jacques Copeau and movement training for actors. He recently edited The Actor Training Reader (Routledge, 2015). He is currently writing a book on performance, movement and the body (Palgrave Macmillan) and a critical introduction to a new edition of The Moving Body by Jacques Lecoq (Methuen).

Jarosław Fret – founder and leader of Teatr ZAR, theatre director and actor; director of the Grotowski Institute; lecturer of the Ludwik Solski State Theatre School, Filia in Wrocław, curator of the theatre programme of Wrocław: European Capital of Culture 2016. In 1999–2002 he carried out a series of expeditions to Georgia, Armenia, and Iran, conducting research into the oldest forms of religious music of Eastern Christianity. In the following years together with members of Teatr ZAR he organized expeditions to Athos mountain in Greece, Sardinia, Corsica, Armenia, Turkey, Izrael. Director of four performances of the theatre: three parts of the Triptych Gospels of Childhood have been seen in Los Angeles, Florence, San Francisco, Chicago, Sybin, Athens, Edinburgh, Madrid, Belgrade, Paris, Cairo, Seoul, Rio de Janeiro and New Delhi. In November 2013 he completed the work on Armine, Sisterperformance, for which he elaborated original musical dramaturgy and special stage architecture. He lectures and leads work sessions in Poland and internationally. Awards and honors: in 2009 Teatr ZAR was named Best New Music Theater by Los Angeles Times; winner of a 2010 Wrocław Theatre Prize for the Gospels of Childhood. The Triptych. Originator and coordinator of numerous Polish and international projects within the Grotowski Institute, including the UNESCO-declared Grotowski Year 2009, the Masters in Residence programme and the International Theatre Festival “The World as A Place of Truth”. His efforts led to the opening, in 2010, of Na Grobli Studio, a new location of the Grotowski Institute.

Jakub Gontarski is a graduate of the 13 Film Stunt School in Wrocław. He practiced the Japanese martial art of judo and the Brazilian martial art of capoeira (in Brazil and in many European countries). He plays Afro-Brazilian instruments. Jakub is interested in movement and body mechanics, and performs movement improvisations on stage to live music. He taught movement classes at Ente private kindergarten (European Cooperation Centre) and worked for the Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe. He teaches workshops with socially excluded youth in Wrocław, including as part of the project Thought in Motion, undertaken by the Institute of Music and Dance. He is a co-organizer of the Żywe Kultury Ruchu CYRKULACJE festival in Wrocław and a co-creator of the productions Animan – I Am That and Madhouse. Jakub collaborates with the Grotowski Institute as the leader of the Two Paths Studio, which operates as part of the BodyConstitution research programme. He also cooperates with other institutions doing performances with children, youth and professional artists. He serves as President of the Momentum Association of Creative Initiatives.

Richard Gough is Artistic Director of the Centre for Performance Research (CPR) – a multi-faceted theatre organisation based in Wales that works internationally. He is General Editor of Performance Research (published bi-monthly by Routledge), Performance Books and Black Mountain Press (imprints of CPR). He is Professor of Performance Research at Falmouth University and Emeritus Professor of Aberystwyth University. He was founding President (1997-2001) of Performance Studies international (PSi). He has curated and organized numerous international theatre projects including conferences, summer schools and workshop festivals, and he has produced nationwide tours of experimental theatre and traditional dance/theatre ensembles from around the world. He has directed over seventy productions, many of which have toured Europe, and he has lectured and led workshops throughout Europe and Australasia and in China, Japan, USA, Philippines, Colombia and Brazil. He has dedicated the last 39 years to developing and exploring interdisciplinary, experimental performance and seeks to present work that pushes boundaries and disciplines.

Mark James Hamilton is Senior Lecturer of World Stages (Non-Western Practice) at Regent’s University London. He trained at the University of Birmingham (UK) and with classical Indian dancer Priya Srikumar in Edinburgh and with her guru, Nattuvan Paramasiva Menon, in Kerala (India). Mark worked with Maori performers in New Zealand for twelve years and his doctorate was awarded by the University of Canterbury (NZ). His research explored the interconnection of martial arts and dance in contemporary theatre practice. Mark’s teaching and pedagogical research is a synthesis of the European practices of Rudolf Laban, Jerzy Grotowski and Roy Hart, with the hereditary and contemporary arts of the Maori people and the region of Kerala.

Pauliina Hulkko is a dramaturge, director and artistic researcher. She works as professor of Theatre Work (acting programme) at the University of Tampere, Finland, and as part-time professor in BA directing programme at Oslo National Academy of The Arts, Norway. Her current research interests encompass dramaturgy, materiality, actor’s art, actor training and ethics.

Ramiro Silveira – Head of the BA Word Performance at East15 – University of Essex, Ramiro Silveira is from Brazil and is a director, lecturer, actor trainer and researcher. He holds a PhD in Theatre Pedagogy – Theatre Artist Training from University of São Paulo (Brazil) and an MFA in Theatre Directing from University of Middlesex (UK). He has also trained with Eugenio Barba, Philippe Gaulier and Genadi Bogdanov.  He is known for his innovative theatre rehearsal process called Theatre Playground, a study of presence and relation based on rhythm, movement and multicultural references in order to inspire creative live theatre. Since 2001 he has been using his technique to direct plays and run acting and directing workshops all over the world. He works with a wide range of global performance styles, many drawn from African and Brazilian tradition, Music and Rituals.

Websites: http://www.east15.ac.uk/courses/ba-world-performance/

http://www.ramirosilveira.com

Małgorzata Jabłońska is a theatre researcher and doctoral student at the Department of Performance Studies at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków. Her fields of interest are the history and problems of actor training and the methodology of description of the body and non-verbal communication strategies in the theatre and social life. She is working on a PhD thesis on the influence of Meyerhold’s Biomechanics on the concepts of actor training in European theatre. As a collaborator of The Grotowski Institute, she was the originator and main coordinator of the first international conference on Vsevolod Meyerhold in Poland, organized by the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław (October 2013), where she works as a Research Project Coordinator. She is a founding member of the CHOREA Theatre Association and collaborator of Studio Matejka. Since 2007, she has run workshops at the Jagiellonian University and the Institute of Polish Culture at Warsaw University.

Esa Kirkkopelto is a philosopher, artist-researcher, performer, former theatre director and playwright, convener of Other Spaces live art collective. Since 2007, he has been working at the Theatre Academy (University of Arts Helsinki) as Professor of artistic research. His research focuses on the deconstruction of the performing body both in theory and in practice. He is the responsible leader of the “Doctoral Programme of Artistic Research” (Theatre Academy, Academy of Fine Arts, Sibelius Academy & Aalto University, 2012-2015). He has made his PhD on philosophy in 2002 at the University of Strasbourg. Author of Le théâtre de l´expérience. Contributions à la théorie de la scène (Presses de l´Université Paris-Sorbonne 2008). He is a member of the editorial board of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training and one of the core-conveners of the Performance Philosophy Association. He is currently working as guest professor at the Goethe Universität in Frankfurt am Main.

Rebecca Loukes – I am Senior Lecturer in Performance Practice at University of Exeter. I have trained for over twenty years in the body awareness practices of Elsa Gindler with Eva Schmale (Germany) and Charlotte Selver (USA) and Asian martial/meditation arts with Phillip Zarrilli (UK). I use professional level Practice as Research with my award-winning theatre company RedCape Theatre produced by Turtle Key Arts to explore and disseminate practices, histories and ideologies of performer training. My research explores ways of understanding and articulating performer training through interdisciplinary, intercultural approaches. Recently published is a co-authored book Acting: Psychophysical Phenomenon and Process – Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives by Phillip Zarrilli, Jerri Daboo and Rebecca Loukes (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). I am Associate Editor of Routledge journal Theatre, Dance and Performance Training. I am currently working on an Arts Council England funded project with RedCape Theatre which will result in the premiere and national tour of a new devised piece Be Brave and Leave for the Unknown. I am also working on the ArtsCross project: an initiative which brings together academics and artists across cultural, national and artistic borders, with ResCen at Middlesex University, the Beijing Dance Academy, Taipei National University of the Arts, Queen Mary University of London as well as UK arts partners Step Out Arts and The Place. Websites: http://rescen.net/events/ArtsCross_index.html#.U8ZCBLFwbcs and https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/drama/staff/loukes/

Matej Matejka – actor, director, pedagogue. Studied acting at the State Conservatory in Bratislava, Slovakia, later music acting at JAMU University in Brno (Czech Republic). Since 2005 he collaborates with The Grotowski Institute in Wrocław, Poland, where he is engaged in research of physical expression in theatre. He is also an actor of Teatr ZAR: performs in the three performances of Gospels of Childhood. The Triptych. In 2001–2006 he was an actor of theatre studio Farm in the Cave, Prague, and co-creator of various projects and performances with the company. In 2010 he founded Studio Matejka a physical theatre laboratory under the auspices of The Grotowski Institute. In March 2012, the Studio shared the results of its intense two year research in a presentation called Zero point, before and after. Since then, Matej has created, both as a leader and director, various theatre performances and 7 short films.  The film Pearadise has been awarded for the Best Foreign Film in Los Angeles International Underground Film Festival 2013, the film Conflict of Apathy was awarded for the Best short dance movie at NU Dance festival, Slovakia, 2014. The performance Awkward Happiness received Special Mention Award at BE Festival, Birmingham, UK, 2014. He leads his own work sessions ‘Wakening the Listening Body’, ‘Contradictions’, ‘Liquid Way to Action’ and ‘Dance of Likeness’ both at the Grotowski Institute base and internationally.

Simon Murray teaches theatre studies and contemporary performance at the University of Glasgow. Originally ‘trained’ as a sociologist he went to Paris in the mid ‘80’s to train with Philippe Gaulier and Monika Pagneux and for the next decade was a professional actor and theatre maker. In recent years he has written a monograph on Jacques Lecoq (2003) and co-edited/written with John Keefe Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction (2007 & 2015) and Physical Theatres: A Critical Reader (2007). Simon is co-founder and co-editor with Jonathan Pitches of the Theatre Dance and Performance Training journal (TDPT). He is currently researching and writing a book entitled Performing Ruins which will be published as part of the new Performing Landscapes series edited by Dee Heddon and Sally Mackay.

Anton Rey heads the research Institute for the Performing Arts and Film (IPF) at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). Since 2002, he also teaches theatre history and dramaturgy at the Department of Performing Arts and Film. Before this, he worked for almost 20 years as Dramaturg and Assistant Director with Peter Stein, Peter Zadek, Luc Bondy, Robert Wilson, Wim Wenders, and others and directed stage plays and films in Vienna, Berlin, Oslo, Edinburgh and Zurich. He studied German Literature, Theatre and Philosophy at Zurich University and Freie Universität Berlin. Currently he is working on projects like Actor & Avatar, an interdisciplinary research dealing with the different perception of live and animated characters; DisAbility on Stage, an exploration of the physical in performing arts practices, and a publication Staging Space. The Architecture of Performance in the 21st Century (with Huang and von Fischer, Park Books, 2016).

Tomasz Rodowicz: an actor, director, musician, educator, earlier also a historian of philosophy and a beekeeper. Born in 1951 in Warsaw. He is a graduate of the Warsaw Theological Academy Faculty of History of Philosophy. Co-founder of Poland’s first social therapy centre for young drug addicts. He collaborated with Jerzy Grotowski in 1974-1979. Co-founder of the Centre for Theatre Practices “Gardzienice” and its member in 1977-2003. Co-founder of the CHOREA Theatre Association and its leader since 2004. Artistic director of Art Factory in Łódź since 2007. Artistic director of the RETRO/PER/SPECTIVES CHOREA International Theatre Festival and director of Oratorium Dance Project CHOREA Łódź 2011 and 2012. Since 2010 member of the Faculty of the Łódź Filmschool where he teaches techniques of stage movement. Lately he tends to place his performances with CHOREA as well as the whole artistic work of the Association in not-so-obvious social contexts for example performance about the homeless in Łódź called Wszędodomni or Vidomi– a performance directed by CHOREA member Adam Biedrzycki with blind and sand-blind people). Tomasz Rodowicz was the leader of a multi-stage and multi-thread socio-artistic project “Uwaga Człowiek!” (“Warning: Human Being!”) realized In Łódź In 2014. Last performances directed by Rodowicz: Bachantki based on Euripides (2012), Grotowski: an Attempt to Retreat (2013), Muzg (2014), Derby.White’n’Red (2015) that was awarded the second Golden Mask for CHOREA Theatre.

Agnieszka Rybak – teaches moves, perform. Currently associated with the Two Paths Studio. The experience of martial arts based on several years of practice capoeira and gathered during a trip to Brazil in 2008. She graduate Scholarship Alternative Dance Academy in Poznan, Academy of New Dance and Improvisation and instructor programs in the field of therapy, dance and movement. Constantly practicing and perfecting her skills in the country and abroad. Practitioner and teacher of KINO MANA – Hawaiian ways of working with the body. She is also a practitioner of Thai Yoga Masage Sacret Dance in the school  Sunshine House located in Chiang Mai and Life Impression Bodywork method. Since 2011 she has been associated with the school of Tantra Heart. Member ECITE (European exchange of teachers Contact Improvisation). Co-creator of Wroclaw contact improvisation community and festival Circulations.

Shane Shambhu is a British-born dancer-actor initially trained in bharatanatyam. He has an extensive performance career which includes Complicite’ s triple award-winning ‘A Disappearing Number’ including a radio adaptation for BBC Radio 3 and worldwide screening as part of National Theatre Live, Icon Theatre’s award-winning ‘Release’, Dragonbreath theatre’s award-winning ‘Cosmos’, Theatre Ad Infinitum, Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company, inDance (Canada) and Royal Opera House’s ‘Tamerlano’.  As a creator he is a recipient of the Bonnie Bird Choreography Award, Platinum Programme Award and was shortlisted for Matthew Bourne’s Choreographer Award.  He was selected as a trainee-director with Tamasha Theatre Company, Associate Artist with Leicester Haymarket Theatre, Dance 4, The Hat Factory and is currently an Associate of Lakeside Theatre as part of the University Of Essex.

Ben Spatz is Senior Lecturer in Drama, Theatre and Performance at the University of Huddersfield. He is the author of What a Body Can Do: Technique as Knowledge, Practice as Research (Routledge 2015) as well as shorter works published in both scholarly and artistic journals. Ben holds a PhD in Theatre from the City University of New York and was formerly a performer with the Gardzienice Theatre Association and a Fulbright Fellow at the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław. He has performed and presented work in New York City at Abrons Arts Center, New York Live Arts, Movement Research Festival, Cave Soak Festival, United Solo Festival, and the Lincoln Center Rubenstein Atrium. Ben’s theoretical work applies social epistemology and critical realism to embodied practices in physical culture, performing arts, and everyday life. He has been a member of the Performance as Research Working Groups of both IFTR and ASTR and conducts ongoing embodied research through post-Grotowskian song-action using traditional Jewish songs.

Hannu Tuisku is a researcher, educator and theatre director. He is a doctoral candidate and project researcher at the Theatre Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki. His primary interest in research is in embodied actor training methods and their applications in youth theatre education. He is currently working on a project that establishes workshops in embodied actor training in professional theatres. He is also Lecturer in Theatre Studies at Kallio Upper Secondary School of Performing Arts, Helsinki. He is also a member of Research Group in Interdisciplinary Improvisation that works as a performance group.

Tomáš Wortner – Born in the Czech Republic. Graduated from Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno. During the studies he was exploring many different theatre practices: classical theatre, physical theatre, improvisational theatre, children’s theatre, interactive theatre, street theatre. He is yoga and partner-acrobatics practitioner. He is a co-founder and member of improvisation theatre groups Bafni and Kamarádi nacvičených scének. In 2011 he took part in half-year intensive physical theatre laboratory of theatre D’epog finished by site-specific performance Di_sein. In July 2012 he was musician and actor in Circus Havel (Goose on a String Theatre) on the Villeneuve-lez-Avignon festival. In 2013 he produced and directed Ibsen’s play The Lady from the Sea in form of Autoteatro (performace-play where spectators are actors). He was co-organizer and co-leader of an international laboratory of young artists Ephemeral měsíc finished by street physical performance played in Brno, Prague and Bratislava. He was leading number of theatre workshops focused on different fields: acting, movement, improvisation, rhythm and musicality. He is also working withchildren and youth: lecturing drama classes for children, leading workshops on theatre festivals for youth, leading artistic summer camps. Since 2013 he had lived in Wrocław, where he is working in the Two Path Studio based at the Grotowski Institute researching performativity of a human body focusing on martial arts. He is regularly teaching acrobatic yoga in Wrocław. In his own present practice he is exploring dramatic potential of partner-acrobatics and contact improvisation.

Phillip Zarrilli: founding Artistic Director of The Llanarth Group, Zarrilli is internationally known as a director, actor, and actor/performer trainer. Recent artistic work includes The Llanarth Group’s playing ‘the maids’ (2015 and continuing on tour: co-created with Gaitkrash [Ireland], Theatre P’yut [Korea], and independent artists); director of Ota Shogo’s The Water Station (2015 with Nordland Teater, Norway with an international cast of ten); and invited guest director, Taipei Arts Festival where he directed the world premiere of Kaite O’Reilly’s the 9 fridas (2014 with Mobius Strip in association with Hong Kong Rep). In 2016 the 9 fridas will tour to Hong Kong Rep for festival performances, and Zarrilli will direct the world premiere of Kaite O’Reilly’s Cosy—an Unlimited production at Wales Millennium Centre in March–touring to the Unlimited Festival in association with London South Bank Centre and Tramway Glasgow in September. He regularly teaches his psychophysical approach to the pre-performative training of actors throughout the world including the Intercultural Theatre Institute (Singapore) and Norwegian Theatre Academy. He is Emeritus Professor of Performance Practice within the Drama Department at Exeter University, and runs his private studio in West Wales. He is author of numerous books and essays, most relevant to this gathering is his award-winning 2009 book, Psychophysical Acting: an intercultural approach after Stanislavski, which received the 2010 ATHE Outstanding Book of the Year Award in the US, and was translated into Chinese in 2014. He is at work on a new book for Routledge Press, (toward) a phenomenology of acting.

Anna Zubrzycki has spent the past 35 years in Poland working as an actress and educator after being brought up and educated in Australia. She was a founding member of the renowned Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practises and the company’s lead actress for 15 years. In 1996, with Grzegorz Bral, she established the Song of the Goat Theatre in Wrocław, with its emphasis on collaborative ensemble work and innovative performer training. Until 2014 she was the company’s principal performer and Artistic Director as well as a course leader for its two-year MA Acting programme. Anna specializes in teaching performers to connect deeply into the emotional and imaginative source of their singing and speaking voices and to use this as the basis for building a strong, authentic and courageous presence on stage. She is currently completing an MSc in Mindfulness at Aberdeen University.