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| Practical Workshop on Intentional Action |
Improvisation with Structural Elements
led by Mario Biagini
Associate Director of the
Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards
The workshop will be held over two weekends at Brooklyn College
February 21 & 22, 10-4pm
February 28 & March 1 10-4pm
Price is $300 for 1 weekend or $540 for both weekends
Since Stanislavsky, we can understand behavior as a complex phenomenon based on the dynamic relationship we have with the world around us. This relationship exists through actions, contacts, intentions, spoken or sung words and associations. A practical understanding of the complex and yet simple nature of action can be seen as the core of the actor's practice.
How does one approach it and access it organically? How to let this stream of behavior develop, grow and extend? What is the relation between composition and structure on one side and spontaneity and organic flow on the other?
The objective of the workshop is to utilize the tools of the actor's craft to search for intentionally articulated organic behavior. We will explore essential elements of the actor's craft such as organicity, relation, contact, impulse, intention, action, and reaction as the students explore the fundamental difference between movement and action. Under the direction of Mario Biagini, who closely worked with Grotowski from 1986 till Grotowski’s death in 1999, the workshop participants will work on "acting propositions." Biagini will guide students in experiencing first-hand the basic aspects of the practical research at the Workcenter.
In advance of the workshop, each participant is asked to prepare a 3-minute "acting proposition," based on either a song or a short text from any genre, including plays, poetry, and prose. Alternatively, participants can also choose to utilize both a song and a text, inside the same “acting proposition." The "acting proposition" should be a repeatable draft, with a beginning, a development and an end: a short performance with its own inner dramaturgy. These "acting propositions" will be further worked upon and developed during the workshop.
Feel free to bring significant objects or clothes needed for the "acting propositions”.
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Mario Biagini
Associate Director of the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards since 2000, Mario Biagini has been a central contributor to practical research in the domain of Art as Vehicle for more than twenty years. Working in the team led by Thomas Richards, Biagini quickly became a key member of the Workcenter practical research. He was a doer in Downstairs Action and a principal doer in Action, a performative opus created by Richards that underwent continuous development from 1994 to 2009. Beginning relatively early in his residency at the Workcenter, Biagini was entrusted by Grotowski with artisanal and pedagogical responsibilities that lead him in 1987 to direct a working team at the Workcenter in which he worked not only as principal actor but also as director. Biagini’s role as director/actor further articulated itself in the framework of Project The Bridge: Developing Theatre Arts (1999 to 2006), a branch of the Workcenter research for which Biagini exercised primary creative and pedagogical responsibilities. He was the primary director of One Breath Left, in which he also acted, and subsequently of Dies Iræ: The Preposterous Theatrum Interioris Show, for which he also created the textual montage and performed the lead male role. At the Workcenter in 2007, he began the supervision of the newly formed Open Program, continuing the investigative thrust of Project The Bridge in its exploration of publicly accessible performances that keep alive within themselves aspects of the subtle interior process characteristic of Art as Vehicle. To date Mr. Biagini has directed four new performances performed by the Open Program team based on the poetry of Allen Ginsberg: I Am America, Not History's Bones - a Poetry Concert, Electric Party Song, and Electric Party. During the last two years Biagini has also being working on a new piece, which explore texts of Early Christianity, mainly from Egypt, and songs from the Dee American South. In addition to his artistic contributions to the Workcenter, Biagini refined his pedagogical skills and knowledge by assisting Jerzy Grotowski in the preparation of lessons and conferences for the Collège de France. He also frequently translated for Grotowski in public meetings and assisted Grotowski in the translation and revision of texts. As a well a recognized director and teacher, Biagini is regularly invited to speak about his work and the Workcenter’s research, and to lead workshops in prestigious schools and artistic institutions across Europe and the United States. Among other places, Biagini has been a guest teacher or speaker in several countries, among which Italy, France, Poland, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Singapore, USA, Tunisia, UK, and in prestigious institutions such as The Lincoln Center (New York, USA); The University of Southern California, (Los Angeles, USA), The New York University (New York, USA); Anne Bogart SITI company (New York, USA); John Jay College (New York, USA); La Sapienza University (Rome, Italy), University of Torino (Torino, Italy), La Sorbonne, (Paris, France), Le Collège de France (Paris, France), The Goldsmiths College, University of London (London, UK), Kent University (Canterbury, UK), and many others.
Mario Biagini’s selected Bibliography:
Attisani, Antonio and Mario Biagini, editors. Opere e Sentieri, Volumes 1-3. Rome: Bulzoni, 2006. Attisani, Antonio, Mario Biagini and Lisa Wolford Wylam, editors. Doorways: Performing as a Vehicle at the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards. Forthcoming from Seagull Press, 2010. Biagini, Mario. “Meeting at La Sapienza, or On the Cultivation of Onions.” TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies, Vol. 52, no. 2 (Summer 2008), pgs. 151-177. Mario Biagini and Thomas Richards are currently in the process of launching with several publishing houses the publication of of Jerzy Grotowski’s Complete Works in Italian, English, French and Polish.
For more information on the Open Program and the Workcenter, please visit theworkcenter.org or facebook.com/openprogram.
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