Friday, March 09, 2007

Workshop news

The workshop "re-shaping rituals and performance" started last week.
The work was good and the group had a great energy and quickly bounded by the end of the session.
We will carry on meeting every sunday at 3pm. There are still places left.
Due to new financial arrangements we are now able to offer each session for only £5 per person, drop-in.
Bring confortable loose clothes, and come to learn, relax, discover and create.

WHERE?

The theatre at THE OXFORD HOUSE Derbyshire Street, off Bethnal Green, opposite TESCO.
(please call or text to confirm space)

WHAT Time?

3pm-5pm

WHEN?

Every Sunday till the end of May, except the 1st of April.

WHO?
Open to all.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

contacts

email: anabaldas2002@yahoo.com
phone: 0791 081 73 86

creating roofs for performance

RE-SHAPING RITUALS AND PERFORMANCE


Workshop proposition:
the work will focus on:
rhythm, image, form, and energy.


Through the exploration of individual (inner and social) and collective rituals and the expression of inner archetypes, we will arrive to the understanding of our own oppressions, boundaries, and identities.
By retelling our own selves, the stories that compose us, and projecting our bodies into space, we will build the scratch or first draft of a collective site specific performance based on the explored material.

AIMS:
1. To offer tools for participants to develop body awareness and body language, to get in touch with emotions and to learn how to express creatively their presence on stage.
2. To learn how to build a character and set up a scene.
3. To learn how to learn and deliver lines motivating research as well as creative writing.
4. To create a space for the group of free expression and experimentation without being judged in a work setting that cares for the process as much as for the result.
5. To create a collective presentation and present it to an audience.
6. To learn how to work in a team where each individual has the same importance.
7. To develop and encourage the expression of subcultures in London.



Plan: Will be revised according to the number of participants and the number of sessions to be delivered.

Setting line:

Preparation: first sessions will focus on physical, vocal and emotional training.

Process: this sessions will focus on creating an individual or collective performance.

Conclusion: to be delivered.

Monday, February 05, 2007

Workshops in East LONDON (February start)

Thanks for your interest in Roof Theatre.
At the moment we're still gathering subscriptions and therefore the exact starting date for the work has not yet been decided.

Currently "Re-shaping rituals and performance" is the only course open.
I have reduced the fees of the workshop and subscription fee is now cancelled. Also, if you would like to bring friends they would be most welcome and I can reduce the price to 25% to groups.

The workshop will run for twelve weeks and it should start by the end of this month.
(12 weeks, 12 sessions, sunday afternoons, 2 hours)
The cost is 90£ and there's a concession if you need for any reason. Feel free to talk to me.

In this course we approach the actors craft by using the self as a starting point rather then any other outside material such as text or objects. We don't explore character, but we intend to rather reveal our truthful and various characters.

We will explore different types of rituals to find our routines and ultimately reveal our subconcious and collective need for repetition.
It drives us back into the roots of Theatre, and brings up a reflection upon cultural and subcultural behaviours.

We work body-mind-emotions, and are specially concerned with finding an integral and organic healthy relation between them developing awareness physically and psychologically of who we are, what are our goals, our obstacles, our positive skills.

We will work voice, and will work as a group, in pairs and individually towards the composition of a physical score. In the last days I will direct people individually helping each participant to compose a first draft of what could possibly become a site specific performance.

For that, each participant will be asked at a certain stage of the process to bring their own personal material (memories, writing, texts, pictures images, etc).
There will be absolute freedom of choice regarding the material each participant will bring to work with during the process.

As a director I sense each actor's needs and work from there.

Finally, there's a possibility of creating an ensemble based in London and an opportunity for cross-cultural workshops in the other cities where Roof has been welcomed such as Lisbon and Calcutta.

Let me know if you'll be wanting to participate.
I'll keep in touch regarding dates and venue.

Best regards,

for Roof Theatre

ANA BALDAIA

Thursday, December 28, 2006

ROOF THEATRE NEW YEAR 2007



Click on the image to enlarge
In the year we now are successfully completing ROOF THEATRE has conducted great research finally contributing on its second long time investment in INDIA for the connection between eastern and western artistic practices. After working with classical Indian musicians, Kathakali dancers and Yoga Masters, Roof Theatre is back in London and ready for a new season of workshops.
As always the work will be open to all backgrounds and will adapt to its participants.
It is our aim to work towards a presentation and a creation of an ensemble.

New projects of co-production in a collaborative way are also being arranged for the next year in India and in Lisbon.

Ana Baldaia will be available for private coaching and New York Visits.

A great year to all,

ROOF
“creating roofs for performance”

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

ACTING COURSES FOR TERM 1 2007




Please click on the picture to enlarge.
Subscriptions for new term are now open.
Participants in past workshops do not have to pay the subscription fee.

Feel free to call to speak with director and ask for info....
Let's make a change and have a great new year!!!!

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

ANA BALDAIA


Roof Theatre is a project for performative anthropological research, aiming the creation of new methods of acting and the experimentation of different processes to create site specific performances.
As a director I have a multicultural and multi skilled approach to performance open to everybody.
My object of study is the performer, my material of research the ritual cultural behaviour and my aim the widening of acess of the arts to enlarging audiences.
Roof Theatre has promoted workshops in Lisbon, London, New York and Rio de Janeiro AND has undertaken research in India.
The project started in the roofs of Manhattan and has travelled presenting workshops and developing its acting techniques in Asia and South America.
Using influences that go from Stanislavsky, to Grotowsky, Augusto Boal , Yoga, Ayurvedic science and Actors Studio, the teaching is experimental but yet effective and successful giving participants a sense of development, integration and freedom. Courses are open to all professional and non-professionals.
We also present and promot public performances and jamsessions.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

SUBSCRIPTIONS NOW OPEN





Click on the image to enlarge.

Roof Theatre will be promoting a workshop in East London, near Liverpool Underground Station, during a week in October 2006. Contact for more detailed information about this workshop or others or to receive regular information on our events : anabaldas2002@yahoo.com

Roof Theatre - a multicultural event


Roof Theatre works in a multicultural environment, where each culture reflects the complexity and variety of the global society. Multiculturalism is a way of absorbing every influence, as a total osmosis where each culture can express its own identity.
Tolerance is not a contemplative position, but rather a dynamic attitude consisting in previewing, understanding and promoting the difference in the other.
Human cultural diversity is a wonderful fact that deserves our best attention: it's behing us, surrounding us, in front of us- it's within us. The only demand we can make is for it to happen in a way in which each culture becomes a contribution for more expression of generosity in the other.

Culture is the mirror of all theatrical and ritual manifestations in societies.
Roof Theatre proposes to find a) the basis for a new Transcultural communication through performance and b) the Extracultural basis for the actors creative process.

Where can the western performer find the material to create the basis of his art?
The essential is the collective movement, the alive aspect when society becomes aware of itself.
Each culture, each person, brings within a repertoire to transmit messages: stylized gestures, ways of dancing, silences, feelings, stories, believes- but the responsability of theatre goes further then a sociological and anthropological perception. What a book can't translate, a painter can't illuminate, a philosopher can't truly express, and a film can't make you sense becomes aware to society through PERFORMANCE.

Searching for a NEW THEATRE


Theatre is subversive.
It presents itself in one way whilst articulating itself in another.
Like everything in this world, really, if you think about it.Subversive.
There is subversion in the mechanisms of support and in the distribution of grants that come from the state in most countries. In general, popular music and events take the lion's share of the cultural budget as a result of a strategic deal between politicians, corporations and institutions, and the artistic creators themselves.#

It is no surprise, information is controlled, behaviour dominated, ideas sold.
But what aggravates the situation is the lack of cohesion and relations between the different artistic companies in the western theatre tradition.
There is no counterpoint of experience. We are not organized as a collective and programs aren't created for a collective audience but rather to different groups of different 'types' of theatregoers.
Therefore there is no circulation of information, no artistic collective reflection no cohesion within the system and in consequence, very little evolution in the significance of Theatre History.

The general audiences prefer big theatres, cinemas and TV where they feel more as a colective group, and they are not that interested in going to small theatres having replaced it with different rituals.
How can a theatre lab contribute to this scene?
1. Giving an opportunity for experimentation and encounter of artists.
2. Giving a contribution for the cohesion of internal structures.
3. Generation of theatre directors as theatre researchers
4. Renovation of theatre methods and techniques in performers.
5. The sharing of artistic ideas in a multicultural praxis, and the achievement of a more direct product to audiences.
6. The contact between artists and public.


The actor must be a visionary. The future theatre is a spiritual theatre that opens possibilities, proposing new models for society, presenting and undertaking new languages, seeking understanding rather then criticism or analysis, involving the audience without fearing it. Theatre is a practical tool. A vehicle.

Theatre RESEARCH - the concept of lab




Roof Theatre dare to exist for the creation of a Theatre Company within a Theatre research Laboratory, towards a cross-cultural praxis. Research is based in theoretical and practical questions related essentially with the creative process, looking into the performer's identity and own peculiarity.
Roof Theatre works in two phases: the first works as a seminar, for experimentation and practice open to all sort of people from all over the world, these happening in the form of workshops and acting courses. The second phases is the construction of a performance by The Company generated with the method achieved on the first part.

ROOF THEATRE WORKSHOPS






Workshops and research were made in different countries, with the most varied people and Roof Theatre intends to carry on creating new roofs for performance that can shelter all sorts of people and stimulate research and experimentation of new methods of creating and presenting performances. Here are some of the workshops directed by Ana Baldaia under Roof Theatre.

Creating the character animal, on Broadway Dance , New York 2002
Following The Flow, at the Albany Centre and at Southville Community Center, Bristol 2003
Flow, Rhythm and Organicity, at Universo Paralello, Brazil 2004
Art as a vehicle of energy, at Chisenhale Dance Center, London 2005
Re-shaping Rituals and Performance, at CCB- centro cultural de belem- Lisbon, 2006 www.ccb.pt