The course will begin with 8 sessions of social therapy followed by 7 sessions of participatory art.

The course will serve as an introduction to social therapy, a community-based psychosocial support process focusing on positive engagement with community, community networks, and self-expression.

Throughout the course, the student artists will explore Vygotsky’s social development theory about ways to empower people to help one another. They will also learn about different methods of using social therapy to promote a healthy social environment through community work, in which all members contribute what they can. 

In the participatory arts sessions, the group will explore lives, contexts, politics, and ethics. How do we work with different communities and groups? How do we lead sessions, using the personal as the basis for the creative process, and apply these ideas on the streets?

The starting point for our journey into the world of masks and storytelling will begin with the neutral mask where students-artists will increase self-awareness as we explore what makes each person unique, learning how to release personal idiosyncrasies in order to work towards neutrality. As a result, the body experiences calmness, a state of receptivity. This expanded listening capacity awakes stage presence and is the gateway to continue our journey with the larval mask. This mask complements the neutral mask through its subtle lines, shapes and asymmetries. By completely covering the face, we are pushed to a playful non-verbal world of body, gesture and emotion. It also allows us to wake up and become aware of the space around us as these masks demand the amplification of gesture and movement, encouraging clear physical choices. The third mask of our journey is the expressive mask. These masks reveal their potential through the lines, colours, asymmetries and volumes proposed by the mask, leading us to further defined characters. The world of physical masks (Neutral, Larval, Expressive) is a magnificent tool that invites us to immerse ourselves in a poetic language, out of the ordinary, where nothing is banal. This world provides us with the tools to physically remove the mask but create a world in which it still exists in the poetic work of storytelling. Here we draw from the investigations that we have done with the masks as well as the previous worlds and works done at the school. As students jump into a unique storytelling structure they will harness the imaginative power of each individual, and discover the magic ingredient that turns a group of individuals into a chorus of devising storytellers. 

In this class, we will draw on inspiration from objects, nature, and one another to create compelling characters from physical theatre techniques. We’ll learn movement analysis, tension and dosage, improvisation techniques, and quick-change scene structuring. We’ll also use trateau techniques to begin to place these characters in rich, nuanced environments, created through ensemble physical storytelling.

This course will introduce the students to the use of music as a means of self exploration and as a way to create universes that touch and speak to their diverse audience.

Through exercises that evolve at the crossroad of theater, physical theater, storytelling and therapy (music therapy) the students will be taught how to explore expression at a personal level for self-consciousness and authenticity and at a performance level for creation, presence and artistic expression.

On the personal level, the students will be listening, while observing the sensations and emotions and thoughts that the sounds and music provoke. They will be invited to experience the therapeutic side of music, in order to use it as a tool to work with vulnerable communities. They will also enlarge and enrich their personal musical libraries.

The students will later work on producing sound and music, liberating the voice and developing its expressiveness, in order to explore the full range of vocal possibilities. This will also work to break the students’ internal boundaries and establish a playful and confident relationship to their voice. 

Finally, the students-artists will explore ways of using music in their performance as a means of expression that completes and compliments their storytelling.

Puppetry is an ancient and incredibly fun and powerful art that has a great potential to bring some magic in the eyes of the audience, both old and young alike.

Puppets stimulate people’s imagination, encourage creative play and discovery, and are a wonderful, interactive way to deal with difficult topics.

Puppets are both entertaining and captivating. Young children, as well as adults, can believe and relate to them.

But to be truly effective, the art of puppetry requires a lot of tecnicity. Just like a magician needs a lot of training for his magic tricks to succeed, a puppeteer, who also plays with illusion, needs to train enough to give an inert object a life of its own. 

Based on that, our 15 classes will cover:

– Discovering and playing with different types of objects as puppets and focusing on the eye-line.

– Introducing the human-scale puppets, which the students-artists will be using, focusing on movement and breathing, and how to move one puppet with 2 or 3 manipulators;

– Introducing the articulation of the mouth and making the puppet talk, as well as working on the voice, and focusing on the dissociation of the manipulators;

– Creating the characters and their individual, particular ways of moving, talking and gestures, as well as their names and backstories;

– writing scenes for the puppets, taking them to the streets to improvise and meet people;

and finally  the students-artists will write, direct and play their own scenes in groups of 3 or 4.

Clown and Bouffon are two archetypical comic techniques that provoke laughter in two fundamentally different ways.

The Clown is about individual stupidity: the sublime, universal, naïve stupidity of every human being. It is a celebration of human imperfection that reconnects us with the vulnerability of the child. In the process of discovering what is uniquely funny about themselves, the student artists will explore the poetic power of the red nose clown, which can bring humor to even the most difficult aspects of life.

The student-artists will then dive into the world of Bouffons and Grotesque. Bouffons are mocking creatures who expose the hidden and grotesque sides of humans and society. They provoke outrage. Bouffon play is about shaking the audience with representations of the collective games that humans play: politics, economics, education, and morality. The Bouffons will teach the students the essence of satire, a very, very precious tool for theatre activism. It is how we provoke and entertain at the same time, mocking the powerful and questioning authority with humor and folly.

In the words of the very, very great French master of Movement Theatre, Jacques Lecoq: “The audience laughs at the Clown, and the Bouffon laughs at the audience.”

The Bouffons seduce the audience and hold a mirror to the underbelly of human greed, power, sexuality. How do they speak such truth to power and make us laugh at the same time?

In this class, we will play and rejoice with the darker and more disturbing side of clowning, the incorrigible outcasts –  the Bouffon. Through games and improvisations, we’ll revisit and redefine elements of the Bouffons. How do we create the stylized mask realm? How to maintain presence and tension to keep the critique relevant? What is the game?

We will sharpen mask techniques, keep a state of urgency, serve the moment, surrender to our id and, most importantly, make each other laugh. Via children’s play, we will explore different logics and rhythms, design grotesque masks, and engage with a creative process to collectively unleash folly and fun.

Be ready to be challenged, to shake your own ground, and to find the freedom to let go: you will be magnifique!

Bring your silly, your joy, your fears and fearlessness…and some comfortable clothes to move in.

This course aims to equip the students-artists with the technical and practical knowledge of how one can use various multimedia tools and produce videos. As part of this class, the students will be taught how to use videos to deliver performances or shows.  

Students-artists will learn: 

– To create professional videos with the equipment they already have (whether with a  smartphone, a DSLR, or a professional camera) 

– Cinematography basics such as exposure and lighting, how to compose good shots, how  to get good focus, and how to stabilize their shots.  

– How to record better audio in different environments. 

– The process of editing a video, to make what we shoot more engaging. 

This course aims to familiarize the students with the process of making their own videos, from conception and production to editing and posting online.

The class sums up all the courses taken previously. Students-artists will be divided into 3 main working groups to delve into the details of teaching and using the different tools they have acquired, in order to tell stories and tackle themes that the participants raise. They will also learn how to divide tasks and work on the ground.”

As part of the IIVVSS, each student will attend a workshop on sound design. This will focus on the technical aspect of sound installation in public spaces, working with microphones, mixers, speakers, sound software (Digital Audio Workstations) how to properly choose equipment needed for a performance, as well as problem-solving when encountering technical problems.

The course will also cover the creative aspect of sound design, how to tell a story through sound and when and how to use sound design with a performance through:

• Creative and technical use of effects (reverbs, delay…)
• Equalization and human perception of frequencies 
• Dynamic controls (compressing, limiting) 
• How and when to use music in a performance 
• Basic audio editing skills