[Reader-list] Fwd: A Super Hot January in Bangalore!

Mon Jan 11 11:33:42 CST 2016

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Arka Mukhopadhyay <arka.arshinagarproject at gmail.com>
Date: 11 January 2016 at 13:49
Subject: A Super Hot January in Bangalore!
To:

Hello friends,
        Deep wishes for a creatively fulfilling year ahead to all of you.
This January looks super hot - with a host of fabulous iniatives we at The
Arshinagar Project are kicking off at one of my favourite places in the
country - Bangalore! There's our own research and pedagogic work, and the
beginning of a very special, month-long period of research with Greek
director and pedagogue Stamatis Efsthathiou, who will be with us from this
month through to March.

We kick off at the wonderful Shoonya Centre for Arts and Somatic Practices,
with Towards the Stillpoint, a workshop on physical theatre for
professional performing artists, which will be based on *Sahrudaya *- an
approach to the performer's craft I have been developing over the last
several years through collaborations with masters of various traditional
forms and organic research into the body and voice. The workshop is a
curtain-raiser to a monthly series of workshops we will start from February

A brief note on the workshop:

Philosophy:
More than trying to become 'actors' or 'dancers', producers of cultural
commodities, what we are trying to do in this session is to dive underneath
the surface of conscious, everyday reality, where we are forced to wear a
thousands masks, and live a thousand lies, taking us far away from the
source of our humanity and creativity. Can we go deeper, to a place where
buried memories, dreams and desires are unearthed. Can we go on a journey,
as if body and voice were a country with its holy mountains and sacred
forests?
Through simple acts - breathing, looking, walking, moving, can we awaken
rhythm in our bodies? And through these acts of the body, can we touch
something which is higher than us? Can we have the courage to not hide, to
be vulnerable, spiritually naked before the human being in front of us? To
work with honesty and absolute rigour?
When we work with words, can they come 'from the depths of truth?'

Who the workshop is for, and what shall we be doing in it?

The workshop is for the following kinds of people:

1) Actors with a certain amount of stage experience and possibly training
in different theatre techniques/ processes, physical or otherwise, who
recognize the body as the centre of creation.

2) Trained dancers (classical or contemporary) who also wish to explore
dimensions of the voice, or more accurately, to step beyond the formal
aesthetic boundaries of dance and seek wider creative possibilities

3) Aspiring actors who want to take up theatre/ performance at a serious,
professional level, and are hence interested in imbibing a detailed,
precise, technical training that involves a lot of repetition and rigour

4) Practising directors/ writers/ dramaturges/ performance makers, who
again wish to explore a body-centred approach towards writing for
performance or the creative process, rather than starting with a bound
script or a purely intellectual concept

5) Those interested in the healing and self-integrative potentials of
performance, though in a broad and not a strict, clinical sense

What we shall not do in the workshop:

1) Learn dance or movement 'technique' or 'routines' or 'sequences' or
'choreographies'

2) Follow a synthetic, additive approach where we acquire a goody-bag of
skills and tricks which we can paste together to create performance-products

What we shall do in the workshop:

1) Work on 'opening up' or 'tuning' the body - develop an embodied,
perceptive presence that is characterized by a quality of listening and
watchfulness. This we shall do through specific warm-ups and structured
exercises developed over the last few years through original research

2) Work on how to transform our inner energy for a daily to an extra-daily
quality

3) How to find grounding and an energetic centre through specific,
repetitive actions, transforming our inner sense of time from 'normal' to
'ritual' time, revealing the 'body of ritual'.

4) How to be receptive and responsive. Not to do, but to respond.

5) How to develop a sense of lightness, effortlessness and flow in our
presence, how to work spontaneously yet with precision, to engage
rigorously in free play making specific choices at each moment

6) How to develop an awareness of breath, and the oneness of
breath-gaze-gesture

7) How to connect the voice and body - to 'speak' and move with the whole
body-voice, which becomes a landscape of the imagination. To weave together
patterns of movement-gesture-song-text into emotive, poetic actions.

8) To work with fundamental principles, which apply to any style or genre:
proprioception, impulse-intention-action, tension-opposition-symmetry,
balance-imbalance, transposition/shift, buoyancy, curvilinearity, spiral
lines of force, push-pull, the fluidity of space and how to 'open it up'
with our bodies

9) Work on the pre-expressive: pre-song, pre-dance.

9) To work on 'inner actions' or 'personal mythologies', revealing
dimensions of the poetic, grotesque and fantastic within us, finding our
inner messiahs and monsters

For more details, visit: https://www.facebook.com/events/459535850904442/

The workshop is at Shoonya from the 14th to the 17th of January, 10:00 AM
to 2:00 PM

***********************************************************************

This month, I also introduce Khel - Kalari, a complete system of awareness
for the body, mind and spirit, comprising martial arts, movement and voice.
Based on the core structures of the southern style of Kalaripayattu and
organic work on voice and movement, this is open to anyone and everyone
above the age of 15: teachers, training professionals, skill development
professionals, public relations and HR professionals, copywriters,
designers, musicians, photographers, painters, sculptors, actors, dancers -
everyone! I am very happy to return to Atta Galatta, one of the loveliest
places I have worked in, with this module, after a gap of a few months.

19th-21st January, 7:20 PM to 9:00 PM, at Atta Galatta

Additional sessions: same dates, 9:30 AM to 11:30 AM, venue to be confirmed

16th and 17th Janury, 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM, Nrit Yog Studio, Sarjapur -
Marathahalli outer ring road, Kaadubeesanahalli.

For details, contact: Rohini Joshi, 9663317731/ rohini at thetreeoflife.in

event: https://www.facebook.com/events/164468753916701/

I promise you sweat, aching muscles, and much joy :)

*************************************************************************

And now for the big one: this month we welcome Greek director and teacher
Stamatis Efsthathiou, director of Atropos Laboratory Theatre. Between
January and March, Stamatis will be leading 'Sacred Paths in Theatre', a
research expedition within the framework of the KOSMOS PROJECT, a long-term
study of the interconnections between theatre, ritual, sacred traditions
and the environment.

>From January 26th to 29th, he will be at Shoonya, leading an introductory
workshop on the Theatre of Connections, his acclaimed approach to
performance. This is open to people from all backgrounds, not just
performers. Some participants may also be offered a place in our research
expedition which will take place in Kerala from January 31st to February
17th. This is a once in a lifetime experience, not to be missed!

https://www.facebook.com/events/126494717727100/

>From February 19th to 28th, we are organizing TRAINING-UNTRAINING-UTOPIA,
an open international residential workshop based on the theatre of
connections. This'll be a deeply immersive, experiential space where we
question the very notion of 'training', and the roots of our creative
presence. Open to people from all backgrounds, and places are limited.

Do visit: https://www.facebook.com/events/1731718007048563/

For full details of the KOSMOS PROJECT in India, please see:

https://www.facebook.com/events/160481364318796/

I look forward to your participation and support in our endeavours.

Love and Light,

Arka