This workshop aims to open the door and set participants on the path to start their Shakespeare practice in its original language with awareness, technique, clarity and creativity.
How can Shakespeare still make our hearts beat faster after 500 years? The answer is that he found the secret to keep his heart beating even after his physical death, through the voice and body of each actor/actress who speak his lines, especially when they are performed in their original rhythm and language.
Shakespeare’s own words are like a spell that can transport both actors and audience to another magic dimension across space and time, once the performer manages to tune his/her heartbeat to the blank verse. All exciting and true, but how can contemporary actors face the challenge and overcome the barrier of the Bard’s apparently obscure and obsolete language and difficult metre?
There is only one way in and this is to experience it with no fear:
”drumming, breathing, dancing and singing the lines with commitment and joy until Shakespeare’s words run through your veins, flow out «trippingly on the tongue”
Quote from Hamlet
”make you fly until you are able to «cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine. That all the world will be in love with night”
Quote from Romeo and Juliet
The programme will address the following topics:
* Experiential study of Shakespeare metre (Iambic pentameter and variations. How to scan a Shakespeare verse line, how to develop an ear for blank verse). The study of Shakespeare’s poetry will be approached through a practical acting method, rather than a scholarly theoretical approach
* How to tune the metre with breath
* How to speak the verse lines tuning the breath to the metre and carrying forward the meaning
* How to understand Shakespeare’s stage directions embedded in the text
Shakespeare’s world (how to unlock Shakespeare’s deeper meaning through the knowledge of his time, environment, belief)
* Who wrote Shakespeare? A look on Shakespeare’s original theatre company and ensemble work.
Shakespeare’s figures of speech and how Shakespeare’s work itself is a powerful timeless metaphor
* How to enact a text driven Shakespeare performance, supported by sound technique to awaken strong emotions
* How to «translate» Shakespeare’s words into voice and body work.
The participants are asked to bring:
Please bring a notebook and pen. A choice of monologues and sonnets will be provided to all participants beforehand. Please bring along Shakespeare Complete Work in English, if you have it.
The participants are asked to wear:
Please wear comfortable black rehearsal clothes, character shoes or bare feet or black socks. If you have it please bring a long black rehearsal skirt.
Quotes from previous participants:
”Paola’s Shakespeare course didn’t only orientate my career, but changed my life”
”I knew that you were a very good storyteller, but your knowledge of Shakespeare is outstanding”
”Her Shakespeare clearly sounds divine”
”I haven’t decided yet whether I like Shakespeare, but I surely love your classes!”
Paola Balbi: Actress, storyteller, artistic director and Drama school professor. Paola is a graduated actress with BA in Performing Art from National Academy of Dramatic Art Silvio D’Amico in Rome (Italian State Drama School), as well as a worldwide renowned professional performing Storyteller and artistic director of Storytelling events and Festivals. She lives between Dubai and Rome and often on tours around the world with her shows and workshops. After her acting degree in Italy she lived in the UK for three years where she specialised in Shakespeare acting (The Actor’s Centre, London) and had the chance to develop her skills under the guide of Shakespearian legends such as John Burton, Julian Glover and Susanna York. Paola has completed all steps of the Linklater voice training (from Freeing the Natural voice to Advanced Shakespeare www.linklatervoice.com) studying with Kristin Linklater herself in New York and London and has a complete mastery of her voice and body instrument on the stage.
As a performing storyteller, artistic director and Festival organizer Paola shares her career with long standing partner Davide Bardi and together they feature on a regular base in the line-up of the most prestigious International Storytelling Festival. Raccontamiunastoria opened a branch in Dubai in 2016.
Språk: engelska. The class will work on Shakespeare original texts. No experience of «Shakespeare English/ Middle English» is required. You will learn how to unravel it during the workshop.
Platser: 2
