I am starting a series of workshops called Meisner & … on Saturday 3rd June. This is a series of one-off workshops, usually on Saturdays, exploring Meisner in combination with some other theatre practice. I will work with experts in their field but the focus of the workshops will always be to see how we can apply the pillars of Meisner work – authenticity, improvisation and imagination – to other theatre practices. For this reason, you must have done a Meisner course with me or Meisner training with another teacher to be able to join these workshops.
Meisner & Mask workshop with Grainne Delaney
The first workshop will be Meisner & Mask with me and Grainne Delaney on Saturday 3rd June. To sign up, please click here. It will be held in the wooden room at Tugelaweg 85 and run from 10am to 1pm. Payment is by donation on the day of the workshop.
In this workshop, we will explore how we can bring what we are learning through the Meisner exercises – authenticity, working off each other unanticipated moment to moment, connection to ourselves and our imaginations – and bring that into contact with Mask work, which gives us the freedom to explore the non-verbal, embodied and often unexpressed sides of ourselves.
Short introduction to Mask by Grainne Delaney
Mask has always been seen as a magical medium: a way of embodying qualities, elements, characteristics and transformative Journeying to other worlds. The Mask provides a strong, multi-sensory memory, linked to a unique personal investment in a challenging physical experience.
Working with mask is about following physical impulses rather than rational thoughts. And using the body to show feelings and express emotions rather than words.
When we choose to work with mask we are engaging our whole(istic) sensory system.
The Mask is a tangible object, a thing to be held,
The Mask is a visible image to be explored, observed and described,
The Mask is an Archetype and a pattern of behaviour that is to be embodied, it has a
kinaesthetic posture, movement rhythm and a voice quality.
In this workshop we learn how to ‘read’ a mask and embody a quality, form or direction.
We will work with silence, stillness and scaling to create dynamic interaction.
We will play and tell stories.
We will step into another physical behaviour, and in doing so, we will learn more about ourselves.
Grainne Delaney has a Master’s background in Psychology & Theatre. She uses it to teach communication, pitching and storytelling to corporate beings, and mask, movement, and the Physicality of Voice, (an integration workshop) to Dancers at the Theatre School, Amsterdam.
Leila Gray 