Artistic life in academies and institutions or whether artists retain their artistic life in contemporary pedagogy

2nd Marathon Acting Symposium

Artistic life in academies and institutions
or whether artists retain their artistic life in contemporary pedagogy

22-30 July 2023 Marathon, Greece

Venue: Marathon Run Start, Marathon, Greece

The non-profit organization The Makings of the Actor, continues its artistic course, based on its the purpose of its foundation, the creation of a platform for dialogue through workshops, lectures and performances that will explore and examine current developments in the field of knowledge and research. At the same time, it will propose new methods and tools for the education of the actor-dancer on an intercultural and international level through a series of new and innovative collaborations based in Greece and specifically with the municipality of Marathon. Our company has achieved in three years an international and intercultural support from partners and institutions of global scope.

Our new proposal for 2023 is the result of the successful symposium held in July 2022 with participation from 22 countries. At this symposium, which evolved into a truly impressive gathering of artists from many parts of the globe, we found that the discussions and knowledge sharing were not limited to the hours of the symposium inside the starting stage but extended to the hours of the lunches, dinners, on the beach. This is where our symposium starts this year. That is, to meet in our artistic capacity and continue our research this time without knowing our artistic work from the beginning but to create it together and at the same time to rediscover our artistic capacity during the working hours.

Stephen Halliwell (2012), a British philologist and Hellenist in AMOUSIA: LIVING WITHOUT THE MUSES writes that in Plato’s book Philibos , the Protarhus, asked by Socrates whether music, as one of the arts, is necessary for a more humanly desirable life, replies that he certainly considers it necessary, saying “at any rate if our life is really to be a life of any kind⁕ (ειπερ γε ηµων ο βίος εσται και οπωσουν ποτε βίος, Pl. Fl. 62c).3

In recent years, the discussion of ethical issues concerning teaching in performing arts schools has focused on the process of diffusion of learning, paying attention to the mental and physical health of students, as well as issues concerning their personalities and freedom of choice. In a word, their well-being. And that is absolutely right.

But what has not been widely discussed or seriously studied is the fundamental, in our opinion, question of whether artists working as teachers in schools or universities continue their artistic lives. Or, to be more precise, whether they have an appropriate working environment that allows them to live ‘another life’ in everyday life. The questions that arise are:

Do artists/teachers aim at ‘another higher form of existence’, fundamental to life values, which will have an impact on the social and political environment; is art another way of life that aims to serve the community?

Artists/teachers can contribute to the elimination of all the forms of oppression and discrimination; art is interested in participating in building a better world for all?

If the answer is yes to the above questions then those who serve it must have created an ‘other world’ within the world that should be a paradigm or refuge for life. And to best serve it they must have a different way of life in their professional lives that allows them to continue to create, to disrupt, to serve.

In this symposium we will meet in a different environment from that of our work, discuss freely, get to know each other, exchange views and experiences, and collectively create artistic work.

At the center of symposia since ancient times, in Greece, and specifically in the Municipality of Marathon, we will meet to create artistic works in different environment than that of a formal institution, such as the Marathon Run Start, in dining areas, and in nature. We will work collectively in workshops of dance, theatre and music, while inviting schoolchildren, students, members of cultural organizations, and local residents to work with us. At the same time, we will organize discussions at lunches and dinners as well as events where we all have fun together. The results of this creative collaboration will be presented in the form of a performance on the last two days of the conference and will be filmed.

You can only send you intend to join us by July 21st, 2023
Fees: 430 €
Send your submissions to
kiki.selioni@cssd.ac.uk and info@themakingsoftheactor.com

The weekend before the symposium, there is a specialist workshop by Paul Allain, based on the work of Jerzy Grotowski. Please see below.

Specialist Workshop: Working with the Physical Actor: Principles and Practices of Jerzy Grotowski
Professor Paul Allain
Saturday 22nd & Sunday 23rd July, Athens, Greece

Biography
Paul Allain is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Kent, Canterbury,
UK. As well as working as a Movement Director and actor trainer for institutions such as the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, he has published extensively on actor training and contemporary performance processes as both author and editor in books, DVDs, articles and online, with a particular focus on contemporary Polish theatre and SuzukiTadashi. His most recent project, https://thedigitalperformer.co.uk, examined how we might embody physical actor training digitally. Paul is a specialist on Jerzy Grotowski and Gardzienice Theatre Association, with whom he collaborated extensively, and has been awarded the Witkacy prize as well as a medal by the Polish government, recognising his services to promoting Polish culture overseas.

Workshop Details:
If we start with and from the principles and practices of Jerzy Grotowski, we have only the body in space. Minimal perhaps, but for theatre and performance, this is already more than enough: the body is always with others, performers and spectators, in motion and inhabiting its own and other spaces. It has extraordinary capacity once organised and trained. This is the Physical Actor. We will begin with training and voice and body exercises and then examine how to progress from group exercises into action, physical and vocal, in a given space. This space can be determined by the participants but they must prioritise key physical principles such as alignment, grounding, awareness, resonance and focus. Participants will then use these tools and approaches to work towards short performance etudes. Students do not necessarily need prior theatre or performance experience but must have a desire to explore practically and to move their bodies and work with their voice. Students need to learn off by heart in advance a short 1-minute soliloquy in their mother tongue (or English if confident enough) which they can then use in the training. This should be from a classical text – play, story or poem and – have a poetic rather than domestic or daily dimension. Basic and ideally intermediate English language competence is required of all students.

Schedule & Fees for Workshop

The workshop will comprise intensive practical workshops (2 x 5 hours) over the weekend 22&23 July 2023
Fee: 120 €
Send your application to
kiki.selioni@cssd.ac.uk and info@themakingsoftheactor.com

⁕ Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity (2012) Edited by Ineke Sluiter Ralph M. Rosen, Brill, Leiden, Boston, page 15.