Workshop with Iben Nagel Rasmussen
19 – 23 Jan 2022
Let’s get straight to it, before we divert you
Dates: 19–23 Jan 2022; daily from 10:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., followed by a lunch break and then consultations and a video seminar from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.
For: actors, dancers, musicians, performers, drama students, anyone interested in authentic expression regardless of purpose. No prior experience is necessary; all that is needed is a healthy body, comfortable clothing for training, and a favourite text that the participant knows by heart.
Instructors: Iben Nagel Rasmussen and Elena Floris. The workshop will be held in English.
Registration: If interested, please send your CV and short cover letter (1800 characters/250 words max.) to info@dox.cz.
Price: CZK 5 900/€ 240 | The price includes 18 hours of training, consultations every afternoon and participation in the video seminar, admission to the final combined evening White as Jasmine, and on the workshop dates free admission to all areas of the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art.
Accommodations: not included, but we can help you make appropriate arrangements.
DOX+ building
Poupětova 3, Prague 7
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Five days with a legend of Odin Teatret
Bridge of Winds, an exclusive workshop with Iben Nagel Rasmussen
Theatrical legend Iben Nagel Rasmussen came up with a unique way to train
performers that demolishes the barriers between theatre, dance, and vocal
performance. Since 1966, Iben has been a member of Odin Teatret, which
under the leadership of Eugenia Barby became a worldwide theatrical legend
thanks to a comprehensive approach to working with its troupe. It has been in
existence for 55 years.
Iben Nagel Rasmussen is fascinating both as a performer and as an
individual. She gave up teaching several years ago, and since then has been
focusing solely on Bridge of Winds, a closed group. For this reason, among
others, DOX is honoured to be able to offer a singular opportunity: to
experience the exceptional development of the acting, dance, and vocal
abilities of Bridge of Winds with its author, who will conduct the five-day
workshop with violinist Elena Floris, also a member of Odin Teatret.
The workshop is open to all interested, not only students of theatre/dance or
professionals. Participants will develop a strong presence and dynamic action
through movement and voice in space, thus discovering their personal poetry.
Bridge of Winds has already raised two generations of theatre/dance artists
from Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
Bridge of Winds exercises develop various types of energy. The performer
generates their flow, creates and transfers a message through physical and
vocal action, work with space, props, and text, in contact with other
participants in the exercise.
Each day’s training session will be followed by personal consultation and a
video seminar. On Sunday, 6 Dec at 7:00 p.m., the workshop will culminate
with a combined evening with Iben: a showing of the film Bridge of Winds, her
work demonstration entitled White as Jasmine, and a discussion.
We saw Iben Nagel Rasmussen, actress and emblem of Odin Teatret, in
Prague at the Farm in the Cave festival in 2007 with her original performance
Itsi Bitsi. It is about her life and is her life. In it, she harks back to the sixties: to
young people it seemed that the revolution was around the corner, and so
with friends and Eik Skaløe, Danish beatnik and poet, they apparently melted
the “postwar glaciers” by participating in the peace movement – through
debates and poetry. They read, listened to Bob Dylan, experimented with
drugs, and led a nomadic lifestyle. “Erik played and I collected money.
Desert... village, desert... towns, desert. Morocco, Algeria, Libya. Bedouins gave us goat milk to drink,” says Iben, whose pet name Itsi Bitsi is the name
of a popular song by Eik. In Itsi Bitsi she says: “Narcotics were supposed to
open doors, but they closed them instead. Some were standing on the wrong
side when they slammed shut.” Eik died in 1968 at the age of twenty-five in
India at the edge of the jungle.
In 1966 Iben joined Odin Teatret in Holstebro, Denmark. A both an actress
and teacher, she wanted to free the body and spirit from drudgery and was
searching for flowing, quality energy through precise tasks, constantly looking
for the “transparent body”. She summarized her experience with long-term
projects with inter-cultural groups (Farfa, Vindenes Bro, New Winds) in a
documentary by Claudio Colberti, The Transparent Body (2002). Since the
1980s she has repeatedly met with the same people for longer periods of time
to develop their abilities and co-create various performances. She doesn’t
direct, but rather emphasizes the work of actors, interaction between
associated groups, and mutual inspiration. Theatrical theoretician Lluís
Masgrau characterizes her teaching as follows: “The main goal is to obtain
abilities that are so coherent and deep that they can lead to technical, ethical,
pedagogical, social, and humanistic values.” Odin Teatret founder Eugenio
Barba would probably say that Iben knows flowers don’t grow so we have
something to put in vases.
Iben Nagel Rasmussen summarized her professional experience in The
Actor’s Way (ed. Erik Exe Christoffersen, 1993), her life experience in Den
Blinde Hest (The Blind Horse, 1998), Breve til en Veninde (Letters to a Friend,
1993), as well as in her original performances Itsi Bitsi, Ester’s Book, and
White as Jasmine. In 1986 she was given the “Best Actress” award at BITEF
in Belgrade, and in 1991 the Danish Håbets Pris (Hope Prize). Her acting
work in a white mask in contact with the people and landscape of rural Italy
was captured by Torgeir Wethal in the film Dressed in White. A chapter of the
story of a town crier (1974–76).
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