para active news

Performance and the voice - workshops

2007-12-05T14:05:00.000-08:00

In these sessions, participants will explore different and exciting possibilities for the use of voice and text. Vocal techniques and physical workouts will enable the students to develop an ever-expanding range of sound, using text and vocal improvisation in a safe and supportive environment.
The participants will experiment with various approaches to voice production through the use of solo and group improvisation and how they can be applied in performance.
No experience necessary.

For more information contact Course Administrator Nwando Ebizie on nwando@para-active.com
or Monika Maslanka on 07885 736234
To enrol on the course contact Michelle on 0208-279-1084
Enrolment will be on Saturday 12th Jan at Stratford Circus between 10am and 4pm

Ten weeks of Zero Hour Mutinies - a series of masterclasses

2007-12-05T13:48:00.000-08:00

Ten Weeks of Zero Hour Mutinies

From January, Para Active will invite tutors from various disciplines including Capoeira (Afro-Brazilian martial arts, acrobatics and music), mask (concentrating on Commedia Dell’Arte – the improvised Italian form featuring stock characters), Suzuki (physical performer training influenced by Tadashi Suzuki),
The Urban Performance Project presents Ten weeks of Zero Hour Mutinies

This term Para Active will invite tutors from various disciplines including Capoeira (Afro-Brazillian martial arts, acrobatics and music), mask (concentrating on Commedia Dell'Arte - the improvised Italian form featuring stock characters) , Suzuki (physical performer training influenced by Tadashi Suzuki), Butoh (movement form that is improvised and not dictated by the outside but appears from the interaction of the inner and outer world) African rhythms, songs, drumming and dance, text work (working on the embodied performer), and Corporeal mime (a vocabulary of precise physical actions inspired by the work of Etienne Decroux) to work with us at Stratford Circus.

Participants will be invited to engage with an active culture through work on rhythm, dances, songs and theatrical acts in order to create a world rich in possibilities, excitement and chance encounters.

The work will inspire strong discipline as well encouraging the participant to take greater risks in their work. Through the disparate elements, performers can find their own voices, their own rhythms and their own performance potential. The workshop will provide a different insight into creating theatre and explore approaches to engaging with an audience.

A high level of physical commitment will be expected.

The Zero Hour Mutinies will be a stepping stone for those who would like to participate in our professional touring work which will be featuring as part of the Aurora Nova festival at Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2008.

Price for term: £45
Venue: Stratford Circus, Theatre Square, Stratford, London E15 1BX
Dates: Every tuesday from 22nd Jan to 1st April
Times: 6-9pm

For more information contact Course Administrator Nwando Ebizie on nwando@para-active.com
or Monika Maslanka on 07885 736234
To enrol on the course contact Michelle on 0208-279-1084
Enrolment will be on Saturday 12th Jan at Stratford Circus between 10am and 4pm

The Zoo-oid Performance Laboratory

2007-06-16T07:15:00.000-07:00

The Zoo-oid Corporation opens its doors to the public for a two day
intensive performance laboratory.

Members of the Zoo-Oid Corporation will conduct their 2-day intensive
performance laboratory on strategies that favour the transformative
possibilities of collective dialogue. We will create a temporary space where
interdisciplinary actions and imagination can thrive.
Zoo-oid creates a zone in which radical impulses and progressive thought
are allowed to take place . We give ourselves the permission to adopt
various contradictory positions and identities. Here we blur all
distinctions between 'us' and 'them', the 'self' and the 'other' and art and
life. Our job will be to raise difficult questions that trigger a process of
reflection and create images that haunt.

This cross-art, cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural workshop is open to
all artists, experimental actors, dancers, theorists, and students
interested in the zoo-oid position.
.

The 10-hour days will offer two processes: participation in the Zoo-Oid
performance methodology of MCT (mutuality, contact and trust) as a group
training where we will introduce participants to a rigorous but exciting
physical and vocal practice. Later we will conduct a more inquisitive
approach where the group can raise their burning issues, complex desires
and relevant questions that can be addressed by this work, with its fluid
performance style, its pertinence to British culture and its political
importance.

WARNING: If you are attached to any social, sexual, gender, racial or moral
hang-ups in which people expressing themselves to the fullest of their
passion and their disturbances may upset you then this workshop is not for
you as all of your assumptions may be turned on their head.

Practical details:
Dates: Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th July
Venue: Stratford Circus, Theatre Square, Stratford, London, E15 1BX
(Nearest Station: Stratford - Jubilee, Central, DLR and mainline train
services)

Times: 11am - 9pm on both days

For expressions of interest or more information
Contact: Nwando Ebizie on 07916278949 / 0207474009
nwando@para-active.com

The Body as Memory Research Project

2007-04-27T10:53:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends and colleagues,

Para Active invite you to share in the results of their 10 day long research into the significant relationship between the Body and Memory. Our questions concern ourselves with the bodymemory that various training systems from various practioners i.e Stanislavski to Grotowski seek to unlock. We will be working with Fran Barbe (Theatre Training Initiative on Butoh) Dr. Giuliano Campo (British Grotowski Project on vibratory song and action) and Professor J. Rothwell based at the Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London.

We wish to investigate a dynamic interchange between body and memory that can be useful to an actors process. Where, if anywher are memories stored? Can we use the body movements to bring alive previously dormant memories and in so doing discover where they are held? Do different memories have different weights and produce different movement qualities? Do memories become more accessible when the spine is open and fluid due to the routes of the nervous system? What happens to the body when neurophysiological impulses are provoked?

This research has been led by Jonathan Grieve.

Chaired by Dr Dick McCaw the sharing will be held at Chisenhale Dance Space on Sat 28th April at 7.00.

Please RSVP to nwando@para-active.com

We look forward to seeing you there.

Onion Bar - The Film

2007-04-25T06:27:00.000-07:00

A short film featuring scenes from Onion Bar can now be viewed on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU8tktkxZ7o

The Urban Performance Project

2007-04-23T03:54:00.000-07:00

The Urban Performance Project is a physical training programme that draws on dance, theatre, acrobatics and martial arts. This is an exciting opportunity to create movement art that is vivid and provocative. Part improvisation, part happening, part workshop and part encounter, this will be a challenging and unique experience in physical performance and experimental theatre.
Capturing the intrinsic values of physical activity, the Urban Performance Project invites creative thinking and spontaneity as well as technical ability. A certain level of physical commitment is expected.

Price for term: £38 / Free to concessions, those on benefit, students etc
Venue: Stratford Circus, Theatre Square, Stratford, London E15 1BX
Dates: Every tuesday from 1st May - 10th July
Times: 6-9pm

For more information contact Course Administrator Nwando Ebizie on nwando@para-active.com / 07916278949
To enrol on the course contact Safia Ali on 0208-279-1084

THE HIDDEN VOICE

2007-04-04T04:23:00.000-07:00

Tuesdays 3-5.
From 1st May 2007
Venue: Stratford Circus

A unique opportunity to work with PARA ACTIVE theatre on voice. This course is open to all regardless of experience. We will work towards the empowerment of the voice and revealing the full range and potential of your creativity and expression.

One of our most important means of expression is the voice; not only as a tool for communication but also as a way of expanding the living articulation of the personality. Exploring the voice releases blocks that can lead to a stronger performance presence but also develops a stronger connection to the body and the self.

The voice is a complex way of exploring ourselves as inhabited by our histories, our past and our present and this journey can reveal many powerful sounds and we will work in transforming these sounds into song and spoken texts. We will work towards revolutionizing the voice through group and solo work using improvisation and exercises developed by the Director of PARA ACTIVE theatre.This journey will be both engaging and exciting with some challenges and surprises along the way. The course is open to anybody regardless of previous experience but we ask people to be sure that they can commit to the full length of the course as it is structured as a ten week process.

For more information please contact Nwando Ebizie on nwando@para-active.com or call 07916278949

The Urban Dolls Project

2007-03-17T12:07:00.000-07:00

I Survived St Ursuline's

2007-03-14T11:37:00.000-07:00

The Meek shall inherit the Earth!

31st March and 1st April 2007
7pm and 8pm
Stratford Circus
Created by PJM of Para Active and Jorge Lopes Ramos
Entry by Donation

Unresolved anxieties, unacknowledged terrors and violent desires are rife in this production that explores the classic menace that stalked shool life. I Survived St Ursuline's is a performance in cwhich the audience are guests at a school reunion. In this war zone the re-surfacing of old rivalries, humiliations and harsh memories of the past re-emerge to provoke a bitter-sweet ending.

For more info contact: lisa@para-active.com / 07870854723

SWORD OF 1001 CUTS

2005-09-10T13:10:00.000-07:00

The new show from para active performed by Persis-Jade Maravala
At Battersea Arts Centre as part of the October Fest.

From the Cult of Scheherezade

Each tale written on Scheherezade's body is like a scar, every word splintering the mind.

Princesses, prostitutes and rabid dogs pursue the key to the mysteries and misfortunes of life in a striking collection of tales, physically told, boldly staged and narrated from a pierced heart.

A penetrating work of classic nouveux punk theatre from the makers of Zoo-Oid Fight Night Experience and Onion Bar.

Sunday 2nd October at 6:00
Wednesday 5th October at 7:00
Battersea Arts centre
Lavender hill
SW11 5TN
0207-222-2223

workshops: PHYSICAL PERFORMANCE TRAINING TUESDAYS

2005-08-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

Para Active’s devised work generally relies more on movement and imagery than text and narrative to convey its particular meaning. In this session participants will explore and confront para actives energetic vocabulary through rhythm work, partner and contact work, and movement as a theatrical act.
The workshops will work on building a level of intuition between fellow performers; and to explore focus exercises for both the mind and the body.
The workshop will be dedicated to working towards a high level of physical energy and commitment.
They will provide a different insight into creating theatre as well as a new approach for devising and performing contemporary theatre.

Tuesdays 3-5 and 6-9.
Participants are welcome to join both classes or just one.
For further details contact Tony Coleman on 0208-279-1007
Classes take place in East London's Stratford Circus

5 DAY RESIDENCY

2005-08-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

Para-active will be running a 5 day residency at Debden House in Epping Forest from Monday 24th October to Friday 28th October. This project will have two elements:
i) an intensive & rigorous physical training from our para lab research
ii) an enquiry into the nature of identity incl culture, religion, sexuality, politics.

The week will culminate in a Zoo-Oid performance taking place at Stratford Circus London on Friday 28th October

We will explore cross-racial unity through experimental art. Participants are expected to be prepared to push their own physical and psychological boundaries and have a willingness to take risks in order to achieve ultimate success with the project.
This project is inspired by our God-Father Guillermo Gomez-Pena (www.pochanostra.com)
For more information on Zoo-Oids please go to
www.zoo-oid.com .

There are 10 places available and there will be a selection process via application form. This project is aimed at culturally diverse British based artists. Participants will be expected to have some experience in performance and a commitment to addressing their own cultural representation.
Debden house is a Victorian Manor House set on 50 acres of land on the edge of Epping Forest. We will be working in the studio space and outdoors making the most of our forest location. You will be expected to attend all sessions. The cost of the week will be £140.This includes bed and breakfast and an evening meal.

To apply, please fill in the enclosed application form. All successful applicants will be required to pay a £50 deposit.

For any further information please contact
Alice Fernbank at info@para-active.com
Or on 07812 909781

2005-06-29T10:36:00.000-07:00