WORKSHOP
THE PERFORMANCE AS A GAME
7 to 12 April 2025 - Antwerp, Belgium
. Please read below for details .
Description
Participative, immersive, interactive, sensorial, experience...
Regardless of how you name them, some performances transform the audience into a protagonist, being physically involved. All these performances have something in common : They are games or game-like experiences. Not necessarily literally games, but we can usually outline their structures as being those of a game. The main characteristic is that the audience play their own role and live their own story, within the «rules» defined by the creator.
The idea of this workshop is to discover, experiment and reflect on the basic principles of games, and to see how they can be applied to the creation of a performance. It is about using games as a creative process, a method, rather than creating games.
Why is it relevant to use the principles of games to create a performance, an artistic creation in general? How to include those fundamental principles into a poetical experience? What would be the shape of such an experience?
The goal is to investigate the poetical value of experience theatre. We will address the questions you may have as a creator regarding the audience involvement in your performances, the exploration of intimacy. We’ll be looking at the sens of this work, the artistic research it involves, the poetics it creates, but also the technical and logistical aspects of such a performance.
Who are you?__________________________________
You are a professional artist or art student, in the field of performing arts (theatre, dance, music, installation, cross-media performance,...), a performer, a scenographer, a choreographer, a sound or light designer. You wish to explore new ways and expand your artistic research towards closing up with your audience. You want to experiment with direct contact with the public, working more towards emotions, body memory, listening, sharing. You want to create performances that are poetically transformative for the public but are also live artistic laboratories for you : to touch and be touched, to give and to grow as an artist. You want to fill up your tool box with as many tools as possible, expand your own artistic boundaries and get a lot of inspiration.
What to expect?________________________________
We will explore the possibilities offered by the fact of considering a performance as a game. What does it mean for a performance to be a game and why is it a fantastic tool to create poetical and impactful performances, where the audience, the participant, feels it’s about them.
The idea is to experiment and observe the basic principles of games through a little bit of theory and a lot of practice, and how to apply those principles to a performance.
Most of our time will be filled with experimentations, improvisations, micro-performances, that we’ll share with each other.
We will play a lot, of course, and improvise a lot to concretly experiment ideas.
Towards the end of the period, we’ll evaluate the work done and see how to implement those experiences in your own work, by sharing artistic and technical questions.
Based on the results, we could put together some sort of puzzled performance for the last day and invite a public to test and share our findings, and get some valuable feed-back.
Additionally, we will have along the week a series of short live video chats with various international artists I invited.They all work around the theme of game, participation, immersion of the audience, sensorial performances, building experiences etc...
Who am I?_____________________________________
Since 1992 I work as a scenographer, theater and performance maker, installation maker and performer. I developped along my career a deep research in the field of sensorial theatre, the poetics of the space, intimate performances. Educated as a visual artist I gradually began to question the importance of all the senses, wondering how art can be transformative, a tool for connection, deeply touching, both for the public and the artist.
I had the chance to work several years with Teatro de los Sentidos, and many other companies and artists, who profoundly shaped my journey through art making. I gradually began to integrate questions like memory, darkness, silence, emotions, language, as I began to experiment and discover how to work in connection (literally and figuratively) with the audience. Questions such as, what would be an invisible scenography? How to create curiosity? How to create a space that would be a performance in itself? How to connect? What if to touch, was to listen?
Practical info___________________________________
- We will work from 10am to 5pm, with a short pause for lunch.
- You need to take care of your own meals and accomodation.
- Snacks and drinks throughout the day are provided.
- Having a notebook and a pen with you is a very good idea, or any other way you like to document your work.
- At the end of the workshop, you will get a digital memo with all the questions we talked about, the exercices and research we did, a summary of our experiences and improvisations and some references about related works from the artists we met on video.
Important note : This masterclass is designed for a group of 12 participants. Under 6 attendees, it will be unfortunately canceled.
Location, dates and fee_________________________
De Veerman
Marialei 25
2018 Antwerpen - Belgium
(10mn walk from the train station Antwerpen-Berchem)
Dates : 7 April to 12 April 2025.
Fee : Early bird (4 spots) : 280€ - Regular (8 spots) : 310€
Book here : https://www.eventbrite.fr/e/1231121269859
Contact for further information or questions :
Drop me an email here.