Seminar-Workshops
Seminar and Workshops
Digital Technology & Ancient Drama
Organized by ArTeC – Labex Arts – H2H
1-7 October 2018
Each Seminar / Workshop thematic unit includes a lecture by renowned researchers and artists of new media and the performing arts from France. The thematic axes developed during each Seminar are as follows: The digital body/The sound mask/Augmented reality/digital fragmentation/Hybridity/Interactive systems/Mythology, tradition and the digital equivalents/Adapting Greek Tragedy/Contemporary productions of Greek Tragedy. Contemporary metteurs-en-scènes Seminars are an introduction to the Workshops that are thematically and functionally related to each Seminar module. They aim to trigger the theoretical discussions in practice. The Workshops are led by professionals and artists from France, Italy, and Brazil.
1st thematic unit: Voices on the stage
An Approach to Ancient Greek Tragedy in the Digital Era through experimentations with voice and sound.
Instructors: Chloé Larmet & Ana Wegner in collaboration with the participation of Roberto Moura and Christophe d’Alessandro
2nd thematic unit: Masks and Avatars
Instructors: Erica Magris & Giulia Filacanapa, in collaboration with Guy Freixe, Georges Gagneré, Ferdinando Falossi, Théo Semet.
Content and schedule of seminars and workshops
Rationale
The Ancient Greek tragedy of 5th century oral society meets 21st century digital and audiovisual world. The gods, fate, hubris, the mask encounter immersive environments, augmented reality and cyborgs. The power of poetic text and bodily expression communicate with the binary world and the dream-like reality that they can construct. On the one hand, we have the oldest genre of western theater, and, on the other, the most modern form of technology. Myth and technique.
The tension between technique and culture has existed ever since the anthropogenic myth: Prometheus gave fire and the techniques of Hephaestus and Athena to human kind, yet without politics, managerial skills, a value system, self-restraint or the way of governance. Pandora with her box was man’s punishment; nevertheless Hope had been trapped and left alone in the bottom the box: it is about the question of ambiguity of the world of art and machine, about curiosity and discovery. The 21st century man is developing techno science, which, being another form of fire (or another Pandora’s box), helps him to live, to survive, to create societies and states. However, the controversy about the way and the purpose of its use, as well as about limits still remains. Somehow, man has the obligation to continuously cross-examine this relationship, and the inquiry never ends.
Include in each Seminar / Workshop thematic unit, is a lecture by renowned researchers and artists of new media and the performing arts from France.
The thematic axes developed during each Seminar are as follows:
The digital body
The sound mask
Augmented reality/digital fragmentation
Hybridity
Interactive systems
Mythology, tradition and the digital equivalents
Adapting Greek Tragedy
Contemporary productions of Greek Tragedy. Contemporary metteurs-en-scènes
Seminars are an introduction to the Workshops that are thematically and functionally related to each Seminar module. They aim to trigger the theoretical discussions in practice. The Workshops are led by professionals and artists from France, Italy and Brazil.
3.1.
1st THEMATIC UNIT: VOICES ON THE STAGE (Seminar & Workshops)
An Approach to Ancient Greek Tragedy in the Digital Era through experimentations with voice and sound.
Tutors: Chloé Larmet & Ana Wegner in collaboration with the participation of Roberto Moura and Christophe d’Alessandro
Conditions / Criteria: Up to 20 people. It is compulsory that participants attend the entire seminar and workshops during the 5 days.
It is addressed to: Artists, students, researchers. No previous experience in singing or acting is required.
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Seminar, Monday, 1st October 2018, 16.00-20.00
Description
This seminar will be an opportunity for the participants to consider how the use of new technologies on theatrical stages has changed the understanding of voice, theory and practice. How does the use of a microphone or a synthesized voice, for instance, question the very definition of the actor’s presence or its perception by the spectator in the audience? On a larger scale, what are the impacts of digital technologies on the actor’s vocal technique and on vocal training methods?
The first part of the seminar will present the main historical evolutions and orientations of vocal training in Europe since 1945. Major vocal trainers like Cicely Berry, Kristin Linklater, or Jerzy Grotowski and Zygmunt Molik each have a specific understanding of the dynamics at stake between voice, body, sound, and meaning. What can we learn from them? How can we understand the increase in vocal coaches and trainers for actors during the second half of the 20th Century? Among the numerous tools used by such teachers what is the role of digital technologies, and how did those technical evolutions modify the creative process itself? We will look at examples including the use of medical technology in the visualization of the phonatory system, and the use of audiovisual techniques to transform and manipulate voice to create sound masks. This will also be an opportunity for us to present the work on synthetic voices that our workshop will explore.
The second part will be dedicated to the aesthetic consequences of such contemporary technological evolutions observing some specific theatrical realizations – more precisely some contemporary adaptations of Greek tragedy. Do new technologies give a new frame to the show? Do they modify the dynamics with the audience and, if so, to what extent? Again, our reading will observe major artistic figures of the 20th and 21st Centuries, such as Anatoli Vassiliev and his concept of verbal movement; the Italian stage director Romeo Castellucci who, in Orestea for instance, questions the spectator’s fascination with images and myths thanks to digital sound modifications and who explores the physiology of voice; or even French stage director Claude Régy who works on slowing down elocution so that the audience can listen to silence within the voice. Those concrete examples will allow us to understand why ancient Greek tragedy can still be a relevant model for contemporary explorations of voice and, on a larger scale, to better comprehend what is at stake in this growing interest for voice on stage – a voice that is no longer considered to be a meaningless means to an end (the vocal performance) but the core of any theatrical creation.
Links:
https://presses-universitaires.univ-amu.fr/pratiques-voix-scene http://pratiquesdelavoixsurscene.labex-arts-h2h.fr/en/content/program
http://www.labex-arts-h2h.fr/pratiques-de-la-voix-sur-scene-de-955.html
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Workshop, 2-5 October 2018, 16:00-20:00
Duration: 16 hours (4 sessions of 4 hours each)
Description
In relation to the questions raised by the seminar “Voices on stage – contemporary perspectives”, this workshop will experiment, from a practical point of view, with the dynamics between the sound and the meaning of a text once it is vocalized, and especially when this vocalization is mediated by new technologies. Each session will be organized along the following steps:
1st Session: Vocal awakening, a first sense of the sound/meaning relationship: the physical and rhythmic impulses of voice.
The first step will be a guided exploration of the sound quality of voice (resonances, tone, strength) without the support of a text, meaning explored only through physical and rhythmic impulses. To guide us, we will use vocal improvisations inspired by Native American, African, and European polyphonic traditional songs. It will also offer a kinesthetic approach to voice using the Feldenkrais method.
2nd Session: Exploring the vocalization of a text: listening to the body and the words.
The second step of our workshop will focus on listening: listening to the sound, to the meaning of a word, but also to one’s own voice and to the voice of someone else. What does listening to a voice mean? Our listening abilities will be challenged even more since we’ll be using different languages: the first part of the exploration will be executed in English with a collection of ancient Greek tragedy extracts, but after that each participant will have the opportunity to develop a vocal improvisation in the language of their choosing.
3rd Session: Playing synthetic voices: a new balance between voice, body, and text.
The final step of the workshop will test the result of our previous explorations and improvisations with a digital device allowing the participant to play a synthetic voice (recorded or captured). Using different parts of their body (hands, foot, knee), they will be able to sing and articulate an artificial voice thanks to simple gestures on a graphic tablet and basic beats (pedals, keyboard). Participants will improvise with those voices separated from their body, and our attention will focus on the physical reactions of each individual towards those synthetic voices. Out of this last stage a new understanding of the interconnections between voice, body, sound, and meaning will emerge.
CREDITS
Chloé Larmet
Holds a PhD degree in Theater Arts from the University of Picardie Jules Verne and currently teaches at the University of Poitiers in the Theater Department. Her research covers philosophy, psychoanalysis, aesthetics, literature, and theater arts, and questions the growing interest for voice in the contemporary European theatrical stage and its impact on the relationship with the audience. She has published papers in French periodicals about major stage directors such as Claude Régy, Angelica Liddell, Guy Cassiers, Jan Fabre, etc. She is also a dramatic critic for the Insensés – scènes, a group of scholars and artists working at the Festival d’Avignon.
Ana Wegner
Holds a PhD degree in Theater Arts from the University of Paris 8 and of Sao Paulo (Brazil). Her research thesis, Vocal Methods for actors: voice vs body and sound vs meaning (1970-2010), led her to follow the work of major vocal teachers such as Cicely Berry and Jorge Parente. In 2015, she organized, with Chloé Larmet, an international symposium called “Practicing Voices on stage: from teaching to vocal performance”, She has published numerous scientific papers about the actor’s training and vocal aesthetics on contemporary theatrical stages. As an actress, she founded the theatrical company Cia Silenciosa (2002-2014) in Curitiba (Brazil). She also has a degree in Educational Sciences and teaches theater, theory and practice, at the University of Paris Nanterre and at the University of Picardie Jules Verne.
Christophe D’Alessandro
Researcher and musician, with a background in mathematics, computer science and signal processing, keyboard performance, improvisation, and music composition. Senior scientist (Directeur de Recherche CNRS), he published numerous papers in major journals and conferences in the fields of Speech Processing, Musical Acoustics, and Organology. He is titular organist of Sainte-Elisabeth’s church, Paris, and is also a composer. His pieces for organ and electronics in real time received much critical acclaim (CD « Les douze degrés du silence », ed. Hortus, 5 diapasons, 2012) and his research on voice and new musical instruments received the first Prize of the Margareth Guthman Musical Instrument Competition (Atlanta, 2015) for the Cantor Digitalis. Christophe d’Alessandro is currently working on the clavicord, vocal synthesis and gesture, and 19th century Parisian organs.
https://cantordigitalis.limsi.fr/index.php
Roberto Moura
Singer, vocal-coach, and practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method. Born in Brazil, he started singing brazilian music as a child , before studying classical music. Once in Europe, he went to the Lausanne Conservatory and at the Scola Cantorum in Basel (Switzerland). Since 2000, he is based in Paris, teaching vocal technique at the Bobigny Conservatoire and singing at the Music and Theater Department. He also supervised the actor’s vocal training for theatrical productions such as Garrincha – a street Opera staged by Robert Wilson in 2016, and Tchekhov é um Cogumelo, a show staged by André Guerreiro Lopes in 2017 at São Paulo. He has a degree from the IFELD (Institute of Formation Feldenkrais) located in Lyon.
http://www.luscofusco.art.br/tchekhov-eacute-um-cogumelo.html
http://www.robertwilson.com/garrincha/
2nd THEMATIC UNIT, Masks and Avatars (Seminar & Workshops)
Coordinators & Tutors: Erica Magris & Giulia Filacanapa, in collaboration with Guy Freixe, Georges Gagneré, Ferdinando Falossi, Théo Semet.
Conditions / Criteria: Up to 30 people, consisting of 2 sub-groups. It is compulsory for participants to attend the entire seminar and workshop during the 5 days.
The first sub-group is composed of 15 students / professional actors who will be actively involved in the workshop. For the 15 students / professional actors, a theatre experience is required. Experience in the theatre masks, marionette, circus and dance techniques will also be appreciated.
The second sub-group consists of 15 theorists/scholars with interest in dramaturgy and theory of new media and they will be involved as observers under the direction of Erica Magris, who will encourage a critical observation of the workshop procedure.
Fluency in English language is essential as the seminar/workshops will be held in English and participants need to memorize one or more tragic acts. There is a possibility that those of the 15 students / professional actors, who prove to be highly engaged in the workshop, with strong motivation, will participate in the Lysistrata performance, presented on October 7th during the Forum “Ancient Greek Tragedy & the Digital Era”.
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Seminar, Monday, 1st October 2018, 16.00-20.00
Description
The seminar will be structured in two parts.
First, the presentation Greek drama on contemporary stage given by Erica Magris will address the importance of Greek drama in the 20th and 21st centuries, the age of modern mise en scène. After a broad overview, the talk will focus on the three critical points which will be explored during the workshop – the space, the chorus and the mask in both tragedy and comedy – by analysing some influential staging by Luca Ronconi, Peter Stein, Ariane Mouchkine, Katie Mitchell, among others. Specific attention will be payed to the texts used for the workshop and the performances showed during the Symposium, the Oresteia by Aeschylus and Lysistrata by Aristophanes.
In the second part, the leading members of the team, Giulia Filacanapa and Guy Freixe will present their perspective on contemporary staging of Greek drama and introduce their contribution to the workshop. In particular, Ferdinando Falossi will talk about his research on Greek masks and his work as a mask maker, and Géorges Gagneré will present the technological device.
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Workshop, 2-5 Οctober 2018, 16:00-20:00
Duration: 16 hours (4 sessions, 4 hours each)
Description
The dialogue between two distant worlds, theatre and video games, is at the origin of the Masks and Avatars practice-based research, which a team of scholars and artists in both theatre and computer science conducted as a part of the Labex Arts-H2H project Augmented stage: actor’s techniques, creative practices and training methods (2015-2017). The research investigated the relationship between the artefacts and practices inherited from the theatre mask and the digital technology of the avatar. The mask is traditionally an enhancing instrument that extends the actor’s body and makes it hybrid, in a similar way to the computer generated avatar animated by a performer. Through several workshops we explored the immersivity and the expressivity of these two different augmentation artefacts, as well as their potential for interaction. How do the masked actor and the avatar performer experience their physical transformation? How is this perceived by the audience? Can they play together? In which ways?
As a result, we developed an acting and staging device which combines theatre masks and Perception Neuron motion capture data suites connected to a digital platform created by the INREV lab at Université Paris 8, based on an existing game engine and designed to real time preview of digital animations. This device has been tested both as a pedagogical instrument for actor training (Masterclass CNSAD en September 2017, Workshop at Warwick University in March 2018) and as a creative tool for three experimental performances shown the 14th and the 15th of December 2017 at the CUBE – Centre de création numérique (Agamemnonn redoux by Andy Lavender, La vie en rose. De la Clinique à l’éternité by Giulia Filacanapa and La psychanalyse augmentée by Mathieu Milesi). The dialogue between masked actors and digital avatars has turned out to be very fruitful and relevant.
For the Forum Ancient Greek Tragedy & Digital Era, we intend to use our mask-avatar device in order to address some issues arising from the ongoing research project Functions and uses of masks in western stage practices from Aeschylus to Goldoni that Giulia Filacanapa, a leading member of our team, is running at MSH Paris Nord (2016-2019). By working on both tragic and comic attic dramas, we will question how a double form of theatre augmentation, traditional and digital, could shed new light on contemporary staging of the ancient repertoire in its extreme form of alterity and open new possibilities to it: for instance, chorus’ movement and chorality through the multiplication of avatars; proxemics and gestuality during the dialogues between characters, and between characters and chorus (kommos); design of multilayer space and time combining physical and virtual worlds. We will be using leather and wood masks created by leading makers Stefano Perocco and Ferdinando Falossi for attic dramas, as well as their 3D scanner digitalization. Also, the musician Théo Semet, will accompany the exercises and staging experiments. During the workshop we will work on tragic and comic texts and in particular on Lysistrata by Aristophanes because the strength of the themes it deals with – war, inequality, male domination, loyalty, sex – make it an absolutely modern and up-to-date comedy that allows us to reflect on the world around us, its economic system and politics.
CREDITS
Erica Magris
Lecturer in Theatre studies at the Département Théâtre of Université Paris 8. In 2009 she obtained her European PhD in Theatre Studies and Modern Literature from the Université Paris 3 (FR) and the Scuola Normale in Pisa (IT), with a thesis on audiovisual technologies in Italian theatre from 1965 to 2005. Her research focus on contemporary Western theatre, staging and creative practices. In particular, she works on intermediality and transmediality, on documentary theatres, as well as on traditions, ideas and organisations in Italy and in France. She was principal researcher of The Augmented Stage: actor’s techniques, creative practices and training methods, a three-year project funded by the Labex Arts-H2H (2015-17).
She has authored many scientific articles, published in Italian and French peered-reviewed journals, collections, and proceedings of international conferences. She is co-editor, with Prof B. Picon-Vallin, of the book Les théâtres documentaires (Deuxième époque, forthcoming).
Giulia Filacanapa
Assistant Professor at University Paris 8. She obtained a double PhD in History of Theatre (University of Florence) and in Italian Study (University Paris 8) in May 2015. Her dissertation concerns the renaissance of Commedia dell’Arte in the 20th century in Italy and France. Along with Dr. E. Magris she managed The Augmented Stage: actor’s techniques, creative practices and training methods, a three-year project funded by the Labex Arts-H2H (2015-17). In 2016 she created the experimental research programme Masks and Avatars as part of this research as a whole. She has presented papers at different conferences in France, Canada, Italy and Switzerland, and has authored many scientific articles, published in Italian, French and English, such as « Giovanni Poli: The Missing Link » (The Routledge Companion to Commedia dell’Arte, Oxon, Routledge, 2015). Moreover, she is in the process of developing practical and artistic research as President of the Stefanoperocco Association that promotes the creation and the dissemination of theatre masks, as well as being founder and director of the theatre company GenteGente.
Guy Freixe
Professor in theatre theory and practice at the University of Franche-Comté, Besançon. He trained at the Jacques Lecoq School and was an actor at the Théâtre du Soleil from 1981 to 1986. He founded the Théâtre du Frêne, a company approved by the Ministry of Culture, and directed nearly 30 performances. He regularly gives workshops on acting, and teaches in several National Drama Schools in France and abroad. Among his main publications: La Filiation Copeau-Lecoq-Mnouchkine. Une lignée du jeu de l’acteur, L’Entretemps, 2014 ; Les Utopies du masque sur les scènes européennes du XXe siècle, L’Entretemps, 2010 ; Le Corps, ses dimensions cachées (direction d’ouvrage), Deuxième époque, 2017.
Georges Gagneré
Stage director and member of the collaborative platform didascalie.net, focusing on real time intermedia environments in performing arts. In 2007, he initiated the project VIRAGE (ANR French National Research Agency) about methods and software prototypes for cultural industries and for the arts. He directed productions in national theaters (Théâtre National de Strasbourg, La Filature, Scène nationale de Mulhouse, etc.) and organized numerous workshops on the impact of real time new technologies on theater texts and playwriting. He collaborated with Stéphane Braunschweig and Peter Stein as stage director first assistant on 40 opera productions. He is also associate lecturer in performing arts at the University Paris 8 and teaches acting and directing in mixed reality environments.
Ferdinando Falossi
Researcher in history of the Greek-Latin theatre and creator of masks of ancient theatre and of Commedia dell’Arte (studied with Donato Sartori). He has given seminars and workshops for several universities in Europe (Pisa, Florence, Turin, Paris 8 Saint-Denis) and has collaborated with Italian and international theaters: Footsbarn Travelling Theatre, Bottega del Teatro by Vittorio Gassman (Florence), Città del Teatro (Pisa), Théâtre du Soleil (Paris). Among his main publications: L’incanto della maschera, Torino, Prinp, 2014 and La Poesia della Maschera, Torino, Prinp, 2015 (with Professor Fernando Mastropasqua).
Programme SCHEDULE
1ST THEMATIC UNIT
Seminar: 1/10/2018, 16:00 – 20:00
1st Workshop- 1st Session: Tuesday, 2/10/2018, 16:00 – 20:00
2nd Workshop: Wednesday, 3/10/2018, 16:00 – 20:00
3rd Workshop: Thursday, 4/10/2018, 16:00 – 20:00
4th Workshop: Friday, 5/10/2018, 16:00 -20:00
2ND THEMATIC UNIT
Seminar: 1/10/2018, 16:00 – 20:00
1st Workshop- 1st Session: Tuesday, 2/10/2018, 16:00 – 20:00
2nd Workshop: Wednesday, 3/10/2018, 16:00 – 20:00
3rd Workshop: Thursday, 4/10/2018, 16:00 – 20:00
4th Workshop: Friday, 5/10/2018, 16:00 -20:00