17.11.2008

On Monday, November 17th we had the last meeting with Sylvia Toone. It was one of three lessons in total, one on Friday and one on Saturday in Salerno. She gave us a series of theoretical and practical advices about how should an actor hold the stage and improve his stage presence.
We made exercises like “zip-zap-zoop” to experiment with new techniques of improvisation, which are based on the direct and immediate communication of what you want to show or express to others.
We made also excercises of relaxation and slackening which are very important for an actor because they give him the possibility to place himself in a specific situation or get into the character that he is going to play.
According to Sylvia Toone, an actor should play as he really sees what he speaks about. But to do that, a good actor has to mould his mind and put all his senses together to find a unique point of concentration (sense of hearing, smell, seeing, touching and taste). In this way he will become more aware of himself, of his body and gestures.

Grazia Carbone

14-17.11.2008

Sylvia Toone's Workshops

In order to achieve our goals (first year students should interview immigrants and build a story in English; second year students should create a stage and screen adaptation of Macbeth in a Neapolitan setting), the three meetings with Prof Sylvia Toone (The Department Library, Santa Maria dei Barbuti and the University Theatre) have offered first and second year students examples of techniques and craft which help to build trust and memory, improvisational methods - which are supports for the actor’s individual talent.


First day - 14.11.2008 – The Department Library
The body has been at the centre of our exercises and discourses. The focus of concentration have been senses and their memories with consideration of individual responses and reactions.

The eye and simulation of watching a game.
The ear and simulation of hearing.

Group solidarity formation techniques:
1-8
Zip zap zoop (receiving and transmitting impulses)


Second day - 15.11.2008 – S. Maria dei Barbuti
(photos by courtesy of Michele Mari (C))

Trust in one’s body and in others.

One in the centre with his/her eyes closed and everyone pushes him again towards the centre

Mirrors in two

Sense of tasting and smelling


Third day - 17.11.2008 - University Theatre
(photos by courtesy of Michele Mari (C))

The third day saw the active and enthusiastic participation of a large number of students. Sylvia usefully repeated that a team meets on the basis of an agreement about a common task. Every exercise has to deal with a p.o.c., point of concentration. Students and teachers have focussed on touch memory. Two teams think about an object or a substance and then individually they perform the manipulation of that object/substance in front of an audience.
Sylvia made everyone concentrate on the body and then the body moving through cold and hot elements.

The second half of the lesson was devoted to the creation of a set up. A couple of actors had to perform, the first a WHERE - a location working with physical objects and the second a WHO - trying to establish a relation. In order to share with the audience the sounds and the pictures the movements on stage may take an upstage curve or a downstage curve

In order for the show to go on the improvising actor does not have to say NO and doesn’t have to ask questions, but the impulse has to be taken and continue with a YES AND…
And also you must remember that everything takes place in the moment.

Sylvia left us with one recommendation:
- everyone has to, for some minutes every day, consciously think what his/her eyes see, ears listen to, tongue, nose throat smell taste and feel, what the body touches and by what is touched…
and the most welcome promise:
...she will come again soon!

14.11.2008

Prof. Stuart Marlow from Stuttgart Media University has shown two DVDs as examples of digital story telling (Stage on Screen):

Sacco and Vanzetti and the anti-communist, anti–anarchist, anti-immigrant hysteria in America in the twenties and thirties

Testimonies of immigrants in Germany (German and English)

11.11.2008

Macbeth's storyline

04.11.2008

28.10.2008

Pina Bausch

21.10.2008

From page to stage to screen

There's a text...and there's an actor on a stage...and he's talking about the theatre...

For a Muse of Fire

...and how interesting to see how many different performances can come out from the same written text...even different from the "scene" we had in mind while reading...

Once More Unto the Breach

14.10.2008

Is there any link between Shakespeare's Macbeth and Saviano's Gomorrah?

Macbeth is one of the most well-known tragedies by William Shakespeare. There’s the Scotland, a prophecy, a tyrannicide, and the rise and fall of a ‘wannabe-king-became cruel tyrant’ knight and his egoisme a deux with the calculating Lady. Gomorra is the groundbreaking 2006 book by Roberto Saviano, already staged and quickly transposed into the 2008 movie by Matteo Garrone.It features Naples, Camorra, money, violence, illegality, ambitious boys and ‘entrepreneurs’ who never listened to their conscience. A world in a word, the so called “Sistema”.Do the “Scottish play” and the Camorrists’ Chronicles have anything in common ? Of course they do, and we, students of the “English Language II” course, here at the DaViMus, are going to catch similarities, work on the differences, shape atmospheres and characters merging two worlds so distant and different, and at the same time so close, in our wonderful, amazing, forthcoming theatrical performance.During the 14th October lesson this project was presented (obviously, enthusiastically received by the students) and there was the first debate of a -likely- long series. We first tried to point out some of the concepts shared by both of the texts, for example the avidity, the eagerness of power, above all; then the betrayal, which paves the way to a new ‘boss’ both in Macbeth and in many of Gomorra’s tales, as well as the role of the woman in this cynical universes (Lady Macbeth is not very far from some of the Camorra women), and the use of fear as a mean to subdue the will of people. After some more or less abstract speeches, somebody suggest to start thinking about something more concrete, like the location of our play… well, maybe we’ve really gotta start talking concrete: but let’s not forget that our adventure has just begun, and there’s still a long, long way to go…

Pasquale Parisi