Superfluities Redux
On culture and theatre, by George Hunka
A new journal for theatre minima and organum posts exclusively can now be found here.
Wednesday, 07 May 2008
Wrestling School Summer Session
Much as I don't regret giving graduate school a miss, here's a semester I wouldn't much mind attending. Howard Barker's Wrestling School will be conducting a Wrestling with Barker Residential School on 3-6 September 2008 on the campus of Exeter University in England. Details from the Wrestling School itself:
A four day residential Summer School led by Wrestling School practitioners exploring the practice of preparing and presenting Howard Barker texts in performance.
Howard Barker and The Wrestling School now produce perhaps some of the most controversial theatre in the UK. These exhilarating but challenging works inspire hatred in some but passionate devotion in countless others.
Why?
What are the characteristics of this work?
What are its guiding principles and governing aesthetics?
Why does it inspire so much pleasure and devotion among performers?
How is this work made to resonate so powerfully in performance?
Is the creative process transformed by the writer as director?The School will be of interest to both the practioner (actor/
director) who wants to gain a greater insight into approaches to presenting Howard Barker's texts on stage and those who wish to take a more academic/ analytical approach to the texts and gain greater understanding of Barker's underlying theories of theatre and the highly individual and groundbreaking aesthetic he has developed over the past 10 years. Outline Content
- Masterclass. Howard Barker directing Wrestling School actors in scene work from more recent works.
- Individual and small group work directed by Wrestling School actors using a representative selection of texts from the last 25 years.
- Poetic text and the actor. Examination of the technical demands and rewards of working with Barker texts. To include preparatory voice work.
- Reading the text. A performer's approach to the text on the page.
- Sounding the text. Practical work in sensing that Barker's texts are the gestural in sound; the excitation of the text into the palate and the mind is a somatic experience, which when fully articulated, renders a Barker text clear, exhilarating and real.
- Talk by a writer/researcher on approaches to analysing Howard Barker’s texts and his theories of the Theatre of Catastrophe.
- Theatre of Catastrophe. Barker talks about some of the underlying theories in his approach to his writing.
- The development of an aesthetic philosophy. Howard Barker reflects on the development of the company's style.
- Howard Barker in a Q&A session with leading Wrestling School practitioners.
It will include an opportunity to observe Howard Barker directing company members in the initial exploration of an as yet unpublished and unperformed new text.
Leaders. The Summer School will be led by experienced Wrestling School practitioners, including Melanie Jessop and Gerrard McArthur, with Howard Barker. Leading writers on Barker will also contribute.
More information on attending the residential school, as well as an application, is available at the Wrestling School's Web site.
Posted at 8.47 am in /Miscellaneous
Permanent link to this story
