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

Monday, August 21, 2006

Friday, August 18, 2006

ROOF THEATRE PROJECT

is a way to re-integrate art and ritual in our daily lives, a way to re-connect the world and the arts, ourselves and each others.

The project started as a search of an acting method and became a method of action.
I started trying to find an universal method that would suit any actor independently of his age, gender, cultural or economical background.
Workshops and research were made in different countries, with the most various people and the understanding of that method extended into a social action.
More then a method the work became a practice, and that practice is fundamental for the understanding of its method.

For us theatre is a way to meet the self, an encounter of our body, mind and emotion- bringing awareness into our presence.
Theatre is a practice, an exercise,a tool, a vehicle to develop a more articulate consciousness of the all.

ROOF THEATRE METHOD

Roof theatre method is one to embody mind experience.
The performer listens to their inner journeys and concentrates on the actions, realizing it's intention, and consciously responding to impulses.

The performer as an object of study is divided in parts that are organically connected between them, and must be re-connected whenever he is performing, as a different level of energy is being used. These parts are designated mental body, physical body and emotional body, and the relation between them is energy.

For energy we understand a movement of opposite forces or an interaction between concentration and release of tensions.
It's a very physical experience and there's nothing mystical or metaphysical in it.
The energy is classified in terms of quality, rhythm, direction, and intention, and must be realized objectively by the performer in action and in pre-action.
Therefore, all energy is spent in conscious movement or conscious stillness.

The awareness of this process is germinated in the performer through exercises that decompose his actions into stimulus, motivation, need, impulse, action and re-action.
The emotional body awareness is raised by exercises that work with memories, dreams, and motivations that are artists creative material.
Relaxation exercises, postures, massage, voice exploration and movement compositions are used to develop physical awareness.

Roof Theatre process is one of de-mechanization, the retuning, or de-tuning of the performer.


ROOF THEATRE promotes workshops in LONDON.
FOR MORE INFO CONTACT.