MAIN EXPERIMENT WITH THE DANISH PERFORMING ARTS SCHOOL

The scenographic actor

The experiment is a collaborative project between The Danish National School of Performing Arts and The The Lab station and is an investigation of the outer technique as a path to a new method for the creative processes of the actor, puppeteer and set designer.

Photo: Rolf Søborg Hansen

Through concrete physical constraints and obstructions, it explores how external limitations can liberate and open up new possibilities for the actor’s work and expression.

This is done by changing the weight, posture and balance of the actor through the costumes of the set designer and by looking at the actor as if he/she were the puppeteer’s marionette being modeled and sculpted.

The aim is for the actor to absorb and assimilate these qualities; which he/she would probably not have created on his/her own. In the actor’s mind and movements, new and differently nuanced characters are therefore created.

The experiment runs in week 43, 2017 – and is a collaboration between the Danish National School of Performing Arts and the experimental station under the leadership of Charlotte Munksø, Rolf Søborg Hansen and Øyvind Kirchhoff.

The experimental team consists of 12 people including 5 third year students from DDSKS Copenhagen and several professional puppeteers/actors.

COME TO AN OPEN LABORATORY

Friday, October 27, 16-17:30 – we had ‘opened the workshop’ and let an audience join us in our investigation of the “scenographic actor”. There was no direct communication to the audience, but the aim was to give the audience a unique insight into an artistic research process.

We bring together the visual documentation of the experiment’s process and findings on this page.

BACKGROUND

The experiment is part of a three-part study led by Øyvind Kirchhoff entitled ‘The actor and the über-puppet‘.

Photo: Poul Storm

The first part was carried out in autumn 2015 and the second part, entitled “Aesthetics of Death” was held in October 2016, as a 5-day development project and an open knowledge sharing seminar. Read more about the trial here, and the recently published report is available as a PDF here.

The main experiment of the experimental station is supported by the Danish Performing Arts School and through operating funds from