Movement as Language

with Eilon Morris

14 April - 17 April 2020

10:00 - 16:00

Dansalliansen, Stockholm, Sweden

This work is a combination of Zoe and Eilon’s practices and research, whose collaboration offers a holistic psychophysical training for actors and dancers.

Rhythm, Choreography and Language

Shifting seamlessly between movement, voice and text, this four-day workshop will offer tools through which performers can cultivate greater versatility and integration within their performance practices. In these sessions we will work with voice as a means of establishing deeper connections to movement, and inversely, we will draw on movement and somatic awareness to sensitise participants to their internal rhythms as well as the underlying rhythms of the language and text in their performances.

Throughout this workshop participants will be offered a collection of tools and strategies for creating and responding to performance material with clarity, sensitivity and creativity. Encouraging play and experimentation, we will work with improvisational tools, as well as choreography, text and devising techniques for movement and language. We will draw on simple elements such as the pulse of our heart and the pathways of our movement and voice, as well as working through imaginative and creative processes. This workshop will hold a safe environment for the participants to cultivate greater awareness of their bodies and voices and rhythms, as well the rhythms and musicality of text and choreography and the synergy of these elements.

The workshop is a collaboration between Dansalliansen and TeaterAlliansen.

To reserve a place, please visit Dansalliansen.

*This is a public workshop, but Stockholm-based artists will be prioritised.

International Conference -

The Makings of the Actor: Embodiment in Acting Practice

I am delighted to announce that I have been invited to present a paper and parts of my practice at this International Conference organised by

Dr Kiki Selioni Post-doc Researcher Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (as part of her research Biophysical Acting), CISPA (Copenhagen International School of Performing Arts), Labanarium, and MCF (Michael Cacoyannis Foundation) and hosted by CISPA.

The Entanglement of Choreography and Text in Performance Practices

This paper comprises of reflections on my research around the entanglement of text and choreography within my training and performance practice. Underpinned by Tim Ingold’s notion of entanglement, “a meshwork of interwoven lines of growth and movement” (Ingold, 2010, p. 3), and by Cicely Berry’s exercises on linear walking for embodying the punctuation of a text, I will examine how embodied choreography and spoken text can influence each other. Inspired by philosopher Henri Lefebvre, Ingold discusses commonalities between the ways text, or ‘tissue of lines’ (Ingold, 2013, p. 223) as he names it, is put on paper and the ones through which the human body registers its movements in space, and proposes texture as a way of experiencing these.

What does the structure and flow of a choreography teach me about the ways I embody, perform and listen to a piece of text? How does the musicality and punctuation of a piece of text inspire a variety of qualities in my movements? Does the embodiment and entanglement of these two elements contribute to a greater presence?

Responding to predominant pedagogies which foster a parallel training of movement and voice, through my research and in this paper I am interrogating this separateness and encourage a training and performance approach which acknowledges movement and voice as entangled tissues of an embodied ecosystem.

Choreographic Approaches to Embodying Language

Aiming to the entanglement of movement and speech, this demonstration will offer tools through which the voice will establish deeper connections to movement, text will inspire choreography, and movement will awaken new ways of speaking a piece of text. Movement as language, text as choreography.

Through choreography, text and the synergy of the two elements, we will ask the questions:

What can we learn from our movement with regards to the ways we speak a piece of text? What can the structure of a choreography teach us for the structure and musicality of text? How can a choreographic approach to text support and strengthen the integration of speech and movement?

Using simple tools such as instant composition, walking and the mechanics of our movement and voice, as well as through imagination, play and creativity, this workshop will hold a safe environment for the participants to cultivate greater awareness towards their bodies and voices, the musicality of a piece of text, and the synergy of these elements.

This body of work has been developed by Zoe Katsilerou whose influences include practitioners such as Cicely Berry, Peter Brook, OBRA Theatre Company, Lisa Nelson, Steve Paxton, Pina Bausch and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker.

Conference Venue: CISPA – Copenhagen International School of Performing Arts, Glentevej 61, 2400 Copenhagen NV, Denmark