Welcome to our International Summer School Program 2023 !

Our International Summer School 2023 offers performance makers from around the world over five weeks an exciting opportunity to connect with us and each other – for professional development and exchange and also an exciting summer experience in Berlin, still considered to be “Europe’s wildest child”. As an internationally recognized training and research center in the field of devised theatre and performance, we have welcomed students from over 60 different countries – performers, dancers, actors, writers, directors, choreographers, architects, designers, etc – all interested in exploring the links between practices of embodiment, Self-growth and the development of one’s own artistic voice.

The Program
The program, offered in the format of independent workshops, reflects the diversity of our research practice in the ever-changing landscapes of devised theatre and performance. It allows you to choose your favorites “a la carte”, giving you the autonomy to create your own summer school curriculum. No matter which workshop/s you decide to attend, they all aim to introduce you to practices of embodiment and how to use them for the creation of original work. From weekend workshops to 10-day Intensives, contemporary street art to traditional mask work, object theatre to devised video projects , trickster tales to night sea journeys, instant movement composition to improvised sound and musical worlds, we hope you find something of interest for you in this year’s summer school program.

The Teachers
The teaching team comprises independent practitioners from Argentina, Belgium, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. All of them are also members of the arthaus.berlin teaching team, whether in the international school or the Thomas Prattki Centre for Integral Movement and Performance Studies. Most of them have completed one of the MA, MFA or certificate programs at arthaus.berlin and/or regularly collaborate within the different courses we offer. This allows them to link their own performative research practice to the pedagogical matrix of arthaus.berlin, which is rooted in the pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq and the integral performance practice of Thomas Prattki as the founder and director of arthaus.berlin.

The Participants
Whether you are interested in performing, acting, directing, filmmaking, composing, writing or choreographing, whether you work in the performing, healing or educational arts, whether you are an advanced practitioner or in the early phases of your career, you are very welcome to apply for our summer school program. Participants come from around the world, are curious and open-minded, interested in new horizons, whether around or within. They wish to move the world and be moved by it, discover their own voice and contribute to the voice of their generation.So if you feel this talks to you, come and join us this summer. We very much look forward to meeting you.

Participants considering to apply or wishing to receive more information about our MA/MFA and certificate full-time programs at arthaus.berlin, please contact us so we can set-up an individual meeting with you or a group conversation with arthaus.berlin staff members during the summer school. If you wish to receive more information about our workshop program 2023/24, please let us know as well.

With best wishes,

The entire arthaus.berlin team

22-23 July 2023, two days
Led by Valentina Bordenave

A vigorous, physical and refreshing journey for actors, dancers and other movement performers interested in experiencing the huge potential of movement in theatre.
One, two or many… bodies in the space, levels of awareness, themes, stories. The work focuses on physical interaction with a partner and with the group. It invites us to improvise and compose in the moment, using the body, the voice, time and space, respecting the uncertainty whilst adapting to constant change. We receive, process and propose material in a continuous feedback flow exploring different strategies to compose scenes of dramatic tension.
By applying the Unfold method (unfoldmethod.com) throughout the research, we can expect our improvisations to be born from an awakened and more finely tuned state. Elements of the Alexander Technique and dance provide clear information and concrete tools to detach from habits of movement and creation.

Location: Dock 11
Times: 10.00-17.00 ( inclusive of a 60-minute break )
Fees: 240€

24-28 July 2023, five mornings

Led by Cat Gerrard

“It matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what concepts we think to think other concepts with.” ~ Donna Haraway

This workshop is an exploration into the capacious possibilities that story has to offer us and how we might bring them into our bodies, into the space and alive through objects. With myth and fairytale, and paintings as our starting point, we will work with archetypal images, with the poetic imagination and the poetic body. We will take the opportunity that objects and puppets offer us: the invitation to make the object into a subject. To dive deeper into multiple subjectivities, multiple perspectives of the same story, to uncover multiplicitous stories. Perhaps we will find some new kinds of stories or new ways of telling stories, ways that we might urgently need in the world in which we are living.

Location: Dock 11
Times: 09.30-12.15 ( inclusive of a 15-minute break )
Fees: 250€

24-28 July 2023, five afternoons

Led by Ariel Gutierrez

The workshop explores the relationship between the human body in movement and the dynamic structures, opposing forces and dramatic composition within music and architecture. It invites you to develop the ability to look at architecture as “frozen music” and at music as an architectural construction. This can only be done through a deeper understanding of the fundamental movement dynamics which are present in both of these art forms. This approach offers an insight into how you can learn to discover these movement dynamics and use them for the creation of your own work, whether as a dancer, actress, director, writer for the stage, musician or architect. You will be invited to make links between movement and emotion, the physical body and the poetic body, embodied memory and its performative transposition to open a space for interdisciplinary exchange between practitioners with different backgrounds.

Location: Dock 11
Times: 13.00-15.45 ( inclusive of a 15-minute break )
Fees: 250€

31 July-03 August 2023, four mornings

Led by Jelle De Wit

Berlin is known as a Mecca for street art. With roots in the movements of Punk and Hip Hop, street art remains to the present day one form of activism to express protest and visions for the future in the public urban space. The workshop invites participants into the world of Berlin’s street art and to investigate the relationship between dominant paradigms and “sub-cultures” through means of devised performance. A Graffiti painting might turn into a soundscape, a movement choreography, a video or a piece of performative writing, that challenges existing cultural conventions. The workshop will combine movement-based studio work with a devising process, that allows each participant to develop performative vignettes of their own interest.

Location: EDEN Studios
Times: 09.30-12.45 ( inclusive of a 15-minute break )
Fees: 210€ (includes costs for a Berlin street art guided tour during the workshop)

31 July-04 August 2023, five afternoons

Led by Ariel Gutierrez

The workshop is an invitation to explore the dynamic relationship between the human body and their environment, and how this relationship informs, nurtures, and provokes the artistic/aesthetic/ideological work as artists. Using the practice of “drifting,” participants will explore Berlin in the open-minded spirit of “Flanerie”, allowing themselves to stroll without a destination, being fully in the Now, at different moments of the day or night. Participants will take the somatic experiences of their drifts as a point of departure for the creation of original work. This lab/workshop also seeks to analyze how the performing arts pursue a closer connection between the urban context and the social fabric; how they are reopening a direct dialogue – and a meeting point – between the performance, the city and the citizens.
Note: Some of the drifts into the city will take place outside the studio hour, so plan for extra time in the evenings or early mornings in the first two days of the workshop.

Location: EDEN Studios
Times: 14.00-17.15 ( inclusive of a 15-minute break )
Fees: 250€

04-06 August 2023, two and a half days

Led by Michelle Madsen

This three-day collaborative laboratory will explore writing as a political, physical and playful practice in the three-dimensional space. Using aspects of Pochinko clown technique, instant composition and the embodied poetics of Jaques Lecoq, we will ask how the body can be the author of the unknown, creating new realities in space and on the page. Participants will be guided in solo and group work through movement and visualization to write from the inner microcosm, and then engage with the human and non-human environment beyond the studio to play with the poetics of the space, asking how do we as bodies open ourselves to be written upon?

Location: EDEN Studios
Times:
9.30-12.45 / Friday
9.30-12.00 / 13.15-15.45 / Saturday and Sunday
Fees: 195€

07-11 August 2023, five mornings

Led by Maria Eugenia Blanco

In Bali, masks are understood as capable of momentarily collecting a portion of cosmic energy, the vital life of the universe. As such they are understood to help visualize the divine powers, as well as providing them momentary material manifestations.
The play with the mask is, hence, the attempt to illuminate and the dare to connect to bigger themes than the individual. In Bali it is known that through the mask both extremes, the universal and the individual, can be connected. The workshop will offer an exploration of these beautiful, rich masks, of their dynamics and structures, and how they can enrich your deeper playfulness and aliveness and inform your understanding of different levels of play in life and art. For María, mask research is a journey to be pencipta, which is Balinese for a certain “creator“ who wrestles with being an interpreter, investigating into a mask, daring to let the mask live fully, and sharing stories through them.

Location: EDEN Studios
Times: 09.30-12.45 ( inclusive of a 15-minute break )
Fees: 225€

07-09 August 2023, three afternoons

Led by Patrick Soul

In this workshop, across three afternoons you will explore the connections between body, movement and music, leading to instant group compositions and improvised musical worlds. Through games and experiments in sound, rhythm and movement, you will connect with the musical knowledge of your body and with the ancient human experience of making music in a group setting.
No previous experience is required to join this workshop – all are welcome! There will be rhythm games, body percussion, vocal experiments, movement explorations, improvised Circle Songs and pre-existing ensemble songs. You will be challenged to improve the coordination between the different parts of your own body, and the coordination between yourself and others within the ‘body of the group’. You will create much of your own music with the other participants, informed and inspired by outside provocations and from and to each other in the space – and through experiential learning, become better at listening actively in the moment to what yourself and others are doing, in order to find a balance between their contributions and your own, in support of the music itself.

Location: EDEN Studios
Times: 14.00-17.15 ( inclusive of a 15-minute break )
Fees: 180€

14 – 24 August 2023, ten days

Led by Thomas Prattki

(Integral Movement and Performance Practice, IMPP)
Taking trickster tales and shapeshifter myths from around the world as a point of departure, the workshop explores the archetype of the boundary-crosser, the rule breaker, the holder of opposites. We will playfully approach the trickster’s cultural and social function as well as our own relationship with the trickster within. As a shapeshifter, dream weaver, mythmaker, healer and bringer of chaos and new visions, the trickster is a powerful and mysterious presence not only in ancient mythology, but also in our creative process. Through movement, embodiment, painting, sculpting and writing, participants will connect with mythological images and stories, and also create performative vignettes using different modalities such as movement, soundscape, video, collage, etc
The first 6 days of the workshop will be dedicated to explorations into the archetypal motif of the Trickster and touches on some of the many manifestations of this archetype, led by the team. The second week’s focus will be on developing performative vignettes, individually or in collaboration with other group members. This devising process will allow participants to explore elements of their first week’s process more deeply through an embodied writing practice and using their own choice of performative modalities. The team members will support the embodied writing process through small group mentoring and individual meetings. Participants are invited to share their performative vignettes at the end of the second week.
The workshop addresses advanced practitioners in the field of the performing, healing and/or educational arts interested in a deeper exploration of the links between performance-making and Self-development.

Location: EDEN Studios
Dates and Times:
14.-24.8. 2023 ( Sunday, 20.8. day off )
10.00-12.00 / 13.15-16.15
Fees: 850€

Practitioners interested in applying for the MA/MFA or certificate program starting in Oct 2023 can use this intensive or the IMPP intensive in May 2023 to get an insight into how we work. It is also a good opportunity for the TPC to get to know possible applicants to the MA/MFA or Certificate Program in order to decide whether an application can be accepted.

EXTENDED! : Early bird discount: 10% discount on all fees if you book and pay before 15th April 2023
Please quote the Early Bird discount when applying.

Application
We require a CV and a short letter of motivation, along with the booking form (available here PDF | DOCX or by contacting the school using our Contact form below)
Once we have received your application, we’ll contact you as soon as possible to let you know whether you have been accepted.

Locations

All our summer school workshops will take place at either DOCK11 or the Eden Studios in Berlin:
dock11-berlin.de/raeume

Facilitators
You can read more about the workshop facilitators online at the arthaus website here.

We look forward to welcoming you at arthaus.berlin !