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ACTING / SINGING
LOVE SCENES AND LOVESONGS
Chen
Shi Zheng und Qian
Yi
August 30th - September 6th
HOW TO SING A LOVE SONG
When Chen Shi Zheng started on the reconstruction of the opera
"Peony Pavilion", which dates back to the Ming Dynasty,
he had only a few original templates for a few scenes to work
from. A new canon of forms for the 16-hour opera had to be invented
and rediscovered that would be able to portray the most secret
and shyest moments of seduction and being seduced. The artificial
expressiveness and artistic refinement of the Chinese opera and
acting vocabulary struck a blow of liberation from the Western
emotional folklore of honesty and convention. And not just on
stage! In this country, people speak of love as the effect of
biomechanical occurrences, a product of misunderstood contexts
and projections or a repetitive phenomenon with a regressive character.
Love seems unavoidable as a feeling, an authentic passion. But
aren't authenticity, honesty and openness in love pure barbarity?
How gracefully, charmingly and elegantly are we able to speak
the language of love anyway? Is love sung and spoken about more
beautifully and more skilfully in other countries?
In his course, Chen Shi Zheng will work with love songs from different
countries. He will work with the students using material concerning
Chinese gesture and movement and the Chinese vocal art to work
out hybrid interpretations for musical love scenes. There is also
the chance to perform in public - and perhaps win - as part of
the love song competition! (see below)
Jossi Wieler, Switzerland
September 7th - September 19th
TRUE LOVE, HONEST BETRAYAL, FALSE DEATH
The opera Norma by Vincenzo Bellini (UA 1831) contains an abundance
of motifs that are drawn from mythology, folklore and pathos,
as well as some primal scenes that can appear at odds with the
narrative style of today. Norma is the priestess of the moon and
well versed in the ancient traditions and customs of druidism.
She is also the last subversive protector and representative of
a female ruled order and an opposing matriarchal world in the
age of the patriarch. An unhappy love connects her to the commander
of the Roman occupying forces in Gaul. A conflicting pair, that
go through all the dramatic events of a fateful love: desecration,
unfaithfulness, betrayal, feelings of guilt, death wishes and
self-sacrifice. A funeral pyre is burning at the end.
How can such dramas be told today? Concrete situations are needed
on stage, in order to tell stories and to re-discover them. The
love story in Norma may well remind us of the plot of a soap;
rituals involving mistletoe are well known from Asterix and Obelix.
A great deal of questions arises when we try to tell old stories
in a new way. Which collective picture archives do we make use
for this? Which tracks and reflexes of memory do we follow? Where
do the associations come from that we call up and use in this
process? "The voice is produced by something that has not
only a soul but the power of imagination at the same time."
(Aristotle). The moment when the voice of those creatures with
the power of imagination becomes song - when does it arrive and
what is necessary for it to happen?
The course will focus on the opera Norma and other examples of
musical theatre in a series of reproductions, scene experiments
and musical sketches. The actual moment and reasons for the change
from speaking to singing to playing will also be investigated.
Course participants: actors who enjoy singing,
singers who enjoy acting and directors.
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