Sounding the depths, workshop

Sounding the depths,  body, voice & images. The Actor’s Craft.  Exceptional workshop conducted by Ryszard NIEOCZYM,
former student and collaborator of Jerzy GROTOWSKI.

Intensive workshop for actors, singers, dancers, performers, pedagogues, creative therapists
& recent graduates of theatre schools interested in exploring the depths of their craft through intensive work on rhythm, body, voice & text.

The aim of this Workshop is to search for and achieve the full presence and life in the performance by going to the depths in body & voice through monologues and songs. This process is called Soundings ; a nautical term used to frame the exploration process for depth in the craft and art of the Performer and by extension to the process of making theatre performance; specifically, to sound the depths of images within the energy centres of the human body, the written text and the cultural context where theatre is created and performed.

The soul/ body / mind create images, fantasies, rooted in archetypal depths. For the performer these depths illuminate his/her craft and art with a power, presence and luminosity that is otherwise missing both from the ordinary life and in performance.

The Cycles of the Training Process :

Cycle 1: Wake Up The Body
· The Breath: relearning to breathe deeply and in the process to recognise the blocks in the body especially in the solar plexus
· Wake Up The Body & The Spirit of Play via the process of Immersion: by which we open the energy centres
· 6 Planes of Action: precision in movements and rhythm with and without partners
· Running and Rolling: with partners; stop and go; friezes; contrast of energy levels, from fast and furious to gentle repose
· Emphasis on Contrasts: to free the colours of the physical imagination within the body; every performer must find his / her own way through the cycles and develop a training program suited to individual needs

Cycle 2: The Voice
Voice is the barometer of the soul: to liberate and to meet with one’s true (animal) voice is to see an objective, and independent force flowing within the body intimately fused with Eros. Unblocking the Vocal Centre is based on a two-fold approach inspired by Stanislavski’s perception of the organic basis of all physical actions, and Grotowski’s process of unblocking the body resonators, to recover the power of the individual voice we once possessed as children: the true voice

Cycle 3: Image Song & Text
· Integration: The Process of working with text and song is an integration of voice, body, rhythm, with images and this often requires unblocking the psycho-physical barriers in the vocal & emotional centres
· Images: to recognize that all WP within theatre including the voice, body, song and text is rooted in archetypal patterns,: love, betrayal, rejection, abandonment, hate, sorrow, joy, revenge: the total life of the actor. Images are developed through a series of conscious actions & reactions; e.g. silence and conscious do-nothing can be powerful images
· Articulation: in full voice and full body and not just in the throat. This means breaking many bad speech habits of daily life from the home, school, cafes, etc. This means that the mouth and tongue and the whole face need to be played with, stretched and the daily masks broken.
Finally the Work Process is a progression and integration from Deep Breath to waking up the body via a series of physical images, to freeing the animal voice, to Song and Text with emphasis on Articulation. Participants are asked to bring their own song & texts to work on. The Work Process is very physically intensive and we sweat a lot. Bring extra shirts!

BIOGRAPHY OF RYSZARD NIEOCZYM
The professional experience of RYSZARD NIEOCZYM, his great intuition, his ability to uncover the depths of the human soul, which pulsates behind each human mask, allows
each participant to make a significant step along their individual artistic path. Ryszard Nieoczym is founder & co-artistic director with Dawn Obokata of LeTHAL / Le Theatre
de L’Homme Actor’s Laboratorium a theatre research and performance centre Toronto Canada. He has directed over 50 professional theatre productions in Europe, Canada and
the USA. He is a former student and a collaborator of Grotowski in both his theatrical and Para theatrical work. As a playwright, has written over 40 plays which have all been
produced. His artistic vision is the creation of Imaginal Theatre rooted in mythic sources;  and the focus of his work is theatre research and the deepening of the actor’s craft, which he calls Soundings. Ryszard Nieoczym sees theatre as wilderness within civilization, sounding and revealing the depths of the invisible realm of imagination: the Underworld. The theatre experience
for the audience in the performance and for the performer during the research and rehearsals periods is an immersion into the realm of the mythic. We call our type of
theatre Imaginal that is based on poesies of soul; that soul is primarily a poetic process of cognition and as such is closely linked to the theatrical process of creation. Imaginal
Theatre research is a way to sound the depths of soul and images. He calls this process Soundings.