Fall & Spring Semester Physical Theatre Program
The undergraduate program in Physical Theatre at the Accademia dell’Arte offers young artists the unique opportunity of developing their creative potential through exposure to European performance trends. The curriculum offers a high level training in specific yet interrelated disciplines with the aim of providing skills and competence while encouraging experimentation and innovation. Grounded in the spirit of the Commedia dell’Arte, an extensive work in Voice and Movement, an introduction to the Philosophy of Art and Performance, and the study of the Italian Language, the program welcomes highly motivated students who pursue proficiency in actor-created theatre.
The upcoming semester provides physical theatre training with an intense focus on Commedia dell’Arte, Movement/Body work, Vocal techniques, the Philosophy of Art and Performance and Italian language. Over the course of the semester, students will meet 3 to 4 times a week for Voice and Movement work and will attend an intensive block of Commedia dell’Arte and Mask Making, enhanced by guest artists. The guest workshops converge on the same core pedagogical aims but confront it from different sides, for a synergic contribution to development of the student process. Guest teachers will integrate body-based contemporary performance backgrounds such as Butoh dance and Contact Improvisation with Roy Hart Experimental Voice and Fitzmaurice Voicework®, and with training in acting principles according to Moreno psychodrama technique.
Within the academic seminar the Philosophy of Art and Performance, and with the addition of the Contemporary Performance Seminar which includes lectures and screenings, students will gain knowledge about modern and contemporary art inside the social and historical context of the aesthetic phenomena of performance, being encouraged to think critically about the social and aesthetic conditions that shape artistic creation as well as to define their own stance in discourse of art and performance.
The academic program will be enhanced with a study tour to Ljubljana, Slovenia, where students will be artists in residence and encounter the unique artistic milieu of the Slovenian capital. In Ljubljana, students will take part in workshops with renown contemporary artists in the fields of dance and physical theatre as well as attend contemporary performances and theoretical lectures.
During the semester students will create collaborative devised work based on a horizontal organizational approach and participate in self-managed collectives as well as present this work both in-house and locally, as assessed by the faculty. All programs allow room for peer to peer exchange which feed into the empowerment of autonomous creation.
Core Courses:
- Commedia dell’Arte
- Voice and Ensemble Performance
- Movement and Body Work
- Philosophy of Art and Performance
- Italian Language: Beginner or Intermediate
- Contemporary Performance Seminar
- Physical Preparation
Lectures, Workshops and Intensives:
- Voice in the Mask
- Leather Mask-Making
- Butoh
- Capoeira
- Vocal Improvisation
- Juggling
- Contact Improvisation
- Art and Activism
- Psychodrama Techniques and Creative Process
- Contemporary Music Improvisation
- Tarantella
Excursions: