The Actor’s Atelier – the new project as part of BodyConstitution

The Actor’s Atelier is a 3-year project of the Grotowski Institute divided into three yearly series of work sessions that will be held simultaneously at different partner venues in 2018–2021.

Each year, at each of the venues, a group of 14 participants will take part in a course of 4–5 work sessions. Each session will consist of several-day training in the lines of practice represented by the leaders who hold regular work sessions at the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław. In its first year (2018/2019), the project will be realised in Paris, Lisbon and Istanbul. Apart from the sessions delivered at these venues, a special concluding session for all three groups will be held at the end of the series, in July 2019, at the venues of the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław and Brzezinka, Poland.

One of the central objectives of BodyConstitution, which forms the base of the Actor’s Atelier, is to show and combine the binarity present in the actor’s practice: from body objectification to body subjectification, from ‘having a body’ to ‘being a body’. The project centres on complex holistic, physical and vocal training, its problems and self-study; on opening up to new sources of theatre work; and on an innovative methodology of the actor’s work focused on his/her self-development with particular emphasis on self-diagnosis and the ability to communicate the actor’s processes. One of the main premises of the project is a belief that the creative development of artistic work methods is possible mainly through the constant confrontation of learned techniques with the experience, richness and variety of methods developed by teachers and artists from other traditions and cultures.

The Actor’s Atelier is aimed at persons who wish to deeply recognise their acting skills in confrontation with pre-expressive techniques, as well as vocal traditions which are still being ignored or simply remain unknown as a source of the actor’s material. Detailed information about the application processes and schedules of sessions in 2018/2019 is provided for each venue individually.