Acting Craft in Polish Theatre 03-AP-ACP-I
The course, of a highly practical nature, aims at studying elementary skills of performer such as abilities to be open to dialogue, to integrate action and speech, and to react swiftly and adequately to impulses which come from various sources: partners, texts, images, music, space and inner environs of associations, imagination and memories. Part of the course is devoted to devising and performing a short scene based on a text fragment selected individually by a student.
The course is aimed not only and not primarily at those students who wish to study acting but above all at those who would like to deepen in practical way their understanding of human creativity and expression.
Some of the work techniques employed during the course relate to or are inspired by influential contemporary Polish theatre directors who centered their work on performer: Jerzy Grotowski, Tadeusz Kantor and Włodzimierz Staniewski with his Gardzienice Theatre.
Week 1 Impulses and group’s integrity
Sending, receiving and passing different kinds of impulses in a group; work on the group’s integrity and freeing students’ expressive potentialities
Week 2 Interactions and theatre games
Various ways of interacting with the partners in the framework of theatre games
Week 3 Spatial awareness
Sharpening of students’ spatial awareness
Week 4 Action dialogues
Basic partnership techniques; dialogue in actions without speech based on ‘yes/no’ principle
Week 5 Oppositions
Study of oppositions in an individual work based on an ‘open/closed’ principle; integration of music into the work
Week 6 Contrasts
Study of contrasts as a base for comic expression; partnership work on different movement qualities (dimensions, tempos, intensities, dynamics, and directions)
Week 7 Score
Elaboration of individual choreographies taking inspiration from iconography; deepening the study of movement qualities in individual scores
Week 8 Score and music
Refining the work on the movement scores; integration of music into the score work; work to transform movements into actions with intentions
Week 9 Text work
Study of text fragments selected individually by students; focus on texts’ sound qualities and, later, on their meanings
Week 10 Score and speech
Further work on text fragments selected individually by students and their integration with the movement scores
Week 11 ‘Journey’ through the space
Study of different trajectories in the space; focus on clarity of movement directions, changes of tempos and dynamics; special attention to beginning and ending of the compositions
Week 12 Score and the ‘journey’
Integration of individual acting movement/text choreographies into the space
Week 13 Work on individual or partner acting scene 1
Elaboration of the draft of the scene on the base of earlier work on movement, text, space and music
Week 14 Work on individual or partner acting scene 2
Further elaboration of the scene and work on the scene’s milieu (space, light, sounds, music)
Week 15 Presentation of acting scenes
Work evaluation
Module learning aims
Information on where to find course materials
Major
Methods of teaching for learning outcomes achievement
Course module conducted remotely (e-learning)
Student workload (ECTS credits)
Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of the course, the student will:
• recognize ethical behaviour in the artistic work and will follow ethical principles in this field;
• collaborate eagerly with other group members;
• use basic theatre voice, movement and improvisation techniques in individual and partner work as part of theatre creative process;
• select and analyze text materials, iconography and music as the basis for theatre creative process;
• choose lighting and props, and solve basic technical questions in relation to the environment of the student’s own theatre work;
• compose her/his work, repeat, refine and present it within the framework of an individual or partner theatrical scene.
Assessment criteria
Attendance is required. Students who miss more than two meetings (except for illness or other serious matters) will not be assessed. Students are assessed on the basis of an individual acting scene elaborated during the course.
Practical placement
non applicable
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: