DasArts / Master of Theatre

The thematic block started on 11 September 2004 and ended on 19 November 2004 and the semester started on 1 September 2004 and ended on 28 February 2005

Mentor

maatschappij discordia: Jorn Heijdenrijk (NL), Elske van de Hulst (NL), Maureen de Jong (NL), Matthias de Koning (NL), Annette Kouwenhoven (NL), Jan Joris Lamers (NL), Miranda Prein (NL)

Locations

In and around the building of DasArts and in the warehouses of theatregroup maatschappij discordia, Driekoningenstraat 5 hs, Amsterdam

Activities

• physical trainings with Patrice Kennedy (NL) in Ten Cate Hall
• theatre trainings with Anne Buurma (NL) in Toubab II
• sessions drawing and authenticity with Rob List (USA) in Studio East
• peripateticon, theoretical walkings with discordia
• group discussions with members of discordia
• lunches and diners at discordia and DasArts

Presentations

• Konsert 1- 4, internal presentations: small presentations by the participants, which have taken place every Friday at discordia and in the Ten Cate Hall at DasArts
• the final presentations on 17-21 November ‘Open Lab 117-121 – op onze tooneelen, everything teaches except experience’ have been cancelled

Visits to

• De (Internationale) Keuze van de Rotterdamse Schouwburg ‘Looking for a missing employee’ by Rabih Mroue
• Zandvoort Beach
• screening by Jack Moore (USA) of the film: ‘The Holy Mountain’ by Alejandro Jodorowsky
• ‘Konsert 5’ presentation by Matthias de Koning (NL) and Jan Joris Lamers (NL) in the Ten Cate Hall
• ‘Galapagos’ by Abattoir Ferme in De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam
• the discordia warehouses in Antwerpen, Belgium

Participants

Saar Frieling (NL), Jeanette Groenendaal (NL), Steve Heather (AUS), Tashi Iwaoka (J), Rima Kaddissi (LB), Claire Leenaers (NL), Zbigniew Maciak (PL), Jan Mech (D), Nicola Nord (D), Hila Peled (IL), Janja Rakus (SLO), Anat Stainberg (IL)

Guest teachers

Anne Buurma (NL), Patrice Kennedy (NL), Rob List (USA), Jack Moore (USA), Loek Zonneveld (NL), Helmert Woudenberg (NL)

Content of Block 21

first act (the first part of a play, in which all ingredients [elements needed in order to prepare something] are more or less indicated): starting on eleven (cardinal number, nominal and attributive; ten + one; he was in the first eleven, he was in the A team; eleven percent alcohol) september (the ninth month of the year [30 days], autumn half term; septembrisade, the murder of prisoners in paris in september 1792) 2004 (numeral; one thousand plus one thousand plus four [three + one]) a number of (an unspecified amount, comprised of individual units; distinguishable from number as the name of a certain amount, which without further specification is generally understood to be quite a lot) students (according to UNESCO’s very broad definition, a student is anyone between the ages of 15 and 30 who can demonstrate to be enrolled in a non-paying, comprehensive daytime educational program lasting longer than six months) from various lands (that part of the earth which rises above the water; solid ground, at times as large as embankment, shore, coast; to feel the ground; an area within certain boundaries, subject to a particular rule; state, realm, territory; an area not necessarily defined by boundaries, such as region, district; the place where a person is born) and a number of members (people who are, and insofar as they are, part of a community or circle) of the actors association (an actor is the intermediary between the text, the world and the audience; looking at the world with fresh eyes and not avoiding a thing, neither the filth in your own soul nor the beauty of the rubbish on the street; running up against the bars of your cage with wittgenstein and being king of the universe with hamlet; dreams and delusion.) maatschappij discordia (an association [being united with, in combination, amalgamation; body, formed by the joining together of a number of people for the advancement of some (non-commercial) interest, with a board of directors, based on bylaws] of actors, dramaturgs, directors, designers, teachers, entrepreneurs, administrators, translators, chauffeurs, producers, technicians) will be working (labour; productive or operative activity; being engaged with greater or lesser exertion or effort directed at producing or accomplishing something; very hard and tireless; being busy in a certain manner; contemplating; working to form something; producing results; inducing said condition through what one accomplishes) together (together is often taken to mean only two people) for (during the continuance of; within the prescribed length of time; throughout; in order to obtain, gain or acquire) ten (cardinal number, nine + one; the position of the second digit to the left of the decimal point) weeks (period of seven [six + one] days; week considered as a short time period).
you will be kept informed.

Discordia and DasArts

dasarts asked discordia to be mentors of block 21 shortly before summerholidays 2004, after two previously invited mentors had cancelled. several preparatory meetings were held between dasarts staff members and members of discordia in which dasarts and discordia agreed upon the following:

• discordia will ‘teach’ as a collective including all current members of the group.
• discordia will not plan far ahead but will make a new proposal each week based on developments and choices in the previous week
• discordia will teach by working with dasarts participants as artists/performers/colleagues and will as a consequence not give any judgment about individual progress of participants as participants of a school
• every participant will be asked to keep a diary, that diary will be (part of) the individual report
• it is discordia’s intention to end block 21 with a series of presentations
• discordia will invite some guest teachers that will provide daily training for block 21 participants; except in the first week and last (2) weeks.
• discordia prefers not to work with the proposed theme (‘terror’) to maximize openness to themes brought in by the artistic preoccupations of the participants.

The final presentations

The final presentations as a result of the DasArts/discorda Block 21 on 17-21 November 2004 entitled: Open Lab 117 – 121: op onze tooneelen everything teaches, except experience have been cancelled.

Although DasArts had invited colleagues and interested members of the public for the final presentation ‘Open Lab 117-12’ on 17 November, the audience was confronted with an unforeseen, let alone staged, chain reaction of misunderstandings - which was not our intention at all. Naturally, DasArts had invited maatschappij discordia in order to engineer the opposite of concordia. Naturally, we are aware that with our subtitle of ‘everything teaches, except experience’ we were tempting the (theatre) gods. And naturally we realised only too well the extent to which an open theatre evening at all times is (and remains) an equally powerful and vulnerable undertaking - which thus can get out of hand. But in no way do we want to let it to be misunderstood that it was our intention to invite the public for nothing. On the contrary.

Nevertheless, under the given circumstances it was agreed that it would be the best to cancel all five Open Lab presentations in November. The participants showed their individual works in a Surprise Open Lab presentation on 7 February 2005.

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