Making the body all eyes
Phillip Zarrilli & Kaite O’Reilly
UK
Summer School 2010

Making the Body All Eyes
Workshop
Fábrica dos Leões, Universidade de Évora
August 24th to September 2nd

Talk with Kaite O'Reilly and Phillip Zarrilli
A privileged opportunity to know more about the teachers of the Summer School's second workshop, their work processes and creations!
Anfiteatro (room 111), Palácio do Vimioso/Universidade de Évora
September 1st, 7PM
Free entrance

"The Évora Books": A Library of Hands
Performance
Biblioteca Pública de Évora
September 3rd, 9.30PM

Duration: 50min.
All ages
Free entrance*
*Limited sitting - booking is recommended. Make a reservation through one of the following contacts:
rvalente@escritanapaisagem.net, +351.932.514.803

After coordinating the second edition of the Summer School in 2009, the actor trainer and director Phillip Zarrilli and the dramaturg, dramaturgist Kaite O’Reilly offer a new workshop, addressed to actors, performers, dancers, and writers. The workshop will culminate in a work-in-progress site-specific performance, “The Évora Books”: A Library of Hands, in The Public Library of Évora.

In Making the body all eyes creation is approached from the perspective of performing and writing (to) performance through a psychophysical and imagination-oriented training.

Phillip Zarrilli introduces the participants to his internationally acknowledged intensive psychophysical training, which joins exercises based on Asian martial and meditation arts, like kalarippayattu and taiquiquan, with key principles and insights conceived by Western directors and theater theoreticians such as Stanislavski, Grotowski, and Artaud.

The other component of workshop focuses on writing for performance. Under the guidance of Kaite O’Reilly, participants will devise performance ‘texts’ via exercises which stimulate the imagination through the exploration of different starting points and aesthetics. These exercises are based on work with imagination, inspired by Michael Chekhov’s approach.

As the workshop progresses, Zarrilli and O’Reilly will collaboratively guide participants to create a performance starting from psychophysical exercises, authored text, ‘found’ text, and responses to the site of the performance — the extraordinary reading room of Évora Public Library. After a ten-days intensive work, a site-specific creation will be presented as a work-in-progress performance entitled ‘The Évora Books’: A Library of Hands. The performance will emerge from a combination of Zarrilli’s and O’Reilly’s work processes: generated text as a stimulus for creativity, performed texts, and structured improvisations. The piece will also reflect broad artistic concerns approached by these creators, as well as particular inquiries raised by working in the space of Evora Public Library and the notions of archive and archiving it bears: what performance possibilities does the space offer as a site? What do the books housed in the library offer as a stimulus for creating texts? What is the touch and feel of these books? What stories do in these texts bear?

Phillip Zarrilli and Kaite O’Reilly direct the workshop Making the Body All Eyes

Phillip Zarrilli is internationally known for training actors in psychophysical process through Asian martial/meditation arts, and as a director. He runs a private studio (Tyn-y-parc C.V.N. Kalari/Studio) in Wales, and conducts workshops throughout the world—including recent workshops or long-term residences at the Centre of Studies on Jerzy Grotowski (Poland), Seoul International Theatre Festival, International Workshop Festival (London), National Theatre of Greece, Theatre Training Initiative (London), Tainan-Jen Theatre Company (Taiwan), TTRP (Singapore), Gardzienice Theatre Association, and Passe Partout (Netherlands), among many others. His recent productions of Samuel Beckett’s plays in Los Angeles (2000), Austria (2001), and Ireland (2004) have won critical acclaim and awards for ‘best actress’ and ‘courageous production’ in Los Angeles. In 2002 he collaborated with UK-based award-winning playwright, Kaite O’Reilly and Theatre Asou (Austria) on a semi-devised performance, Speaking Stones, that opened in Austria in September, 2002, received its English premiere in Wroclaw, Poland, on invitation of the Centre of Studies on Jerzy Grotowski in 2003, and was again performed in Aflenz, Austria in 2004. In 2004 he also directed Ota Shogo’s The Water Station for TTRP at The Esplanade Theatres on the Bay in Singapore. During 2005-06 he directed Genet’s Die Zofen (The Maids) in Austria, and performances of The Beckett Project were on tour in the U.S. in March and September. In 2007 he directed the Singapore premiere of Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life (a TTRP production at Esplanade Theatres on the Bay). He recently directed the critically acclaimed world premiere production of Kaite O’Reilly’s The Almond and the Seahorse for Sherman Cymru, and a new translation of Sarah Kane’s 4:48 Psychosis at KNUA (Seoul, Korea, 2008). Between 2009 and early 2010, Zarrilli collaborated with Kaite O’Reilly and Jo Shapland in the creation of the performance Told by the Wind; the project was presented as work-in-progress at the Festival Escrita na Paisagem, in August 2009, and premiered at the Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, in January 2010.

Zarrilli is also noted for his work with Indian dancers/choreographers. In 2000 Walking Naked with bharatanatyam dancer/choreographer, Gitanjali Kolanad, opened in Chennai and toured internationally until 2004 with performances in Mumbai, London, Seoul, New York, Toronto, etc. In 2003 he adapted and directed the seventh century Sanskrit farce for the UK-based bharatanatyam dance/theatre company, Sangalpam, with performances at the Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall (Royal National Theatre, London), and throughout the UK. In 2006 he completed a new solo piece, The Flowering Tree, with Gitanjali Kolanad.

In addition to his professional work, Zarrilli teaches psychophysical process as part of BA and MA/MFA Theatre Practice program at the University of Exeter, U.K. His numerous books include (editor) Acting (Re)Considered (2nd edition, forthcoming), When the Body Becomes All Eyes (1998), Kathakali Dance-Drama: Where Gods and Demons Comes to Play (2000), and (editor) Martial Arts in Actor Training (1993). His new book with interactive DVD-Rom (by Peter Hulton) on his approach to training actors and performance, Psychophysical Acting: an intercultural approach after Stanisalvski is published by Routledge Press (2009).
More information at: www.phillipzarrilli.com

Kaite O’Reilly is an internationally known award-winning playwright and dramaturg. She was one of the winners of the 2009 international Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for The Almond and the Seahorse. Kaite was also awarded The Peggy Ramsay Award for YARD (Bush Theatre, London; as Schlacthaus, Maxim Gorky Theater, Berlin), MEN best play of 2004 for Perfect (dir. John E McGrath, Contact, Manchester) and 2003 Theatre-Wales Award for Peeling. Kaite was a 2008 Major Creative Wales Award winner for the ‘D’ Monologues, currently in development at the National Theatre Studio, London. She is writing a new version of Aeschylus’s Persians, to be directed by Mike Pearson for National Theatre Wales in August 2010. Kaite and Phillip have collaborated on Speaking Stones for Theatre Asou and Told by the Wind.
More information at: www.kaiteoreilly.com