Moltóir Video Blog

The short videos on this page are suggestions for movement-based exercises and activities from just some of the participants on our Moltóir training course. Moltóir was a training course that brought together 50 theatre-makers and cultural youth workers from Germany, Azerbaijan, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Austria, Palestine and Ireland for 5 days in Ireland (plus 2 travel days) in July 2023. The project was funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. It is a project of Crooked House Theatre Company, Ireland. Each organisation brought 6 participants, all aged over 18.

The training programme had several aims. They were to:

(1) train cultural youth workers in movement methodologies that they can use with groups of young people in their own organisations.

(2) show how this type of youth work, when done well, can improve the wellbeing of young people.

(3) bring together cultural youth workers, from mainly youth theatre organisations, who can exchange practice, ideas, cultural differences, and approaches to performance work with young people.

(4) lay the foundations for establishing a strong network or consortium that can explore other opportunities in the Erasmus+, Creative Europe, and European Solidarity programmes.

CONTENT

The training consisted of 4 repeated workshops every morning (these were two hours long, and every participant did one in rotation during the week). Then there were 4 fixed groups working together each afternoon. The morning workshops were:

BURLESQUE. This workshop introduced dance as a burlesque clown. A workshop aimed to ground participants in their bodies through dance movement and play, helping them to release shame and return to their physical being. This was an introduction to the art of burlesque through the lens of physicality, clowning and neo burlesque movement. In this workshop we looked at getting out of our heads when moving, through the medium of dance, by looking at confidence building and carrying yourself shamelessly in life. Facilitator: Jenny Oleinik (Ireland)

STAGE COMBAT. This workshop explored the question – We know that “drama is conflict” but how, being storytellers first and foremost, can we use stage violence to heighten that storytelling without falling prey to gratuitous displays? This session introduced basics of stage combat and how we use those elements to heighten theme, character, relationship, given circumstances and dynamic physical storytelling. Facilitator: John O’ Hagan (Ireland / USA)

MOVEMENT FOR THE ENSEMBLE. In our understanding of ensemble, we looked at how a disciplined collective is composed of unique individuals. An individual’s own physicality, thoughts, and desires should be at the core in order to collectively create a piece. In this workshop, we used various approaches to see how you can organically create group dynamics, and a common physical language as a starting point to making physical work. Facilitator: Elliot Nolan (Crooked House, Ireland / UK)

THE IMPROVISATIONAL BODY. Using improvisational theatre techniques, body contact, and animal work, inspired by Meisner and Jacques Lecoq, the workshop explored our relationship to our bodies as actors and movers, how we communicate, how words and emotions live in our bodies and move us. The focus is not only on the self, but on the other too. Facilitator: Emile Saba (Ashtar Theatre, Palestine)

The afternoon devising sessions were:

THE BODY AS NARRATOR. In this programme of workshops we studied the body as part of a whole: bodyspirit-imagination. The body, through which we are present, the strong and the weak body, the body of memory, history, pain and joy, the body in society. The body that tells the world’s myths but also the stories of our lives. How does the body narrate when speech is absent? Taking contemporary dance and physical theatre as our starting point, we proceeded from individual to group creation. We used technique to expand our movement vocabulary, communicate through physical movement, and finally compose our narratives. We explored how different qualities of movement, tension, breath, flow, gravity, body contact and interaction within an ensemble come together with our experiences, memory, fears and desires to create our stories. No previous experience was required. Facilitator: Ioanna Mitsika (Hellenic Drama/Education Network, Greece).

CHORAL AMPLIFICATION. In this programme we explored how to amplify the unspoken sub-text, or the tension, in a dialogue. Participants played with making realistic scenes in which there was a growing emotion (tension, delight, discomfort, shock, etc). We showed how the chorus emerged as representations of the physically and psychologically felt emotion, and expressed it for the audience, through movement. The process is useful for young people in that it supports them to (a) explore interpersonal relationships and the unspoken emotions that can be hard to express; and (b) shows a young person a step-by-step way to express themselves through movement that is not overly synchronised or hard to learn. No previous experience was needed. Facilitator: Peter Hussey (Crooked House, Ireland).

DEVISING GROUP MOVEMENT. We used Eugenio Barba’s extra-quotidian technique to devise the piece. We started, on the first day, understanding and experiencing the technique, and its step-by-step process. During the second session, the participants were divided into pairs. One member of each couple lead the other through this extra-quotidian improvisations while the other explored different movements. During the third session, within the same couples, they changed roles. On the final day, we put together all the created movement pieces to create a cohesive group piece. Facilitator: Juan Escalona Corral (FOCO, Spain).

A NARROW SPACE. Despite our different stories and body language we worked together on sharing one story, building one body and language; with which we can understand and develop movement under special constrains. The idea of a narrow space allowed us to examine our bodies when it gets confused. It put the focus on details that you will only see through a narrow space, as the process involved research through rhythm and spoken and physical stories to build individual and group movement. It is about working under conditions of confinement, imprisonment, constraint, and oppression yet being able to be creative. Facilitator: Khalil Al-Batran (ASHTAR Theatre, Palestine)

RESULTS

The project met all of the aims we set out. The project increased the participants’ skills and abilities, specifically in understanding the ethos and methodology of leading movement workshops for groups of young people, as well as how to approach and deliver such programmes practically. The participants improved their confidence in working with young people and also in promoting their work and creating further opportunities for themselves. The project explored non-verbal collaborative creation, how we can use movement to tell stories, generate ideas and make theatre with groups, especially when they are multilingual and multicultural. The project fostered young people’s sense of citizenship and helped them to understand their role as part of the present and future of the EU’s and the international cultural sector. Crooked House created a film documentary for the project with footage from the training course activity and interviews from the participants and trainers. It is available to watch here. At the end of the training the groups staged short performances which led to a facilitated discussion with the audience (we always have a post-show discussion exploring the issues presented in the dramatic performance). End results also included organisations deepening their connections with each other and forming new collaborations. Several came together to plan new projects under Erasmus+.

PARTICIPANTS

The videos here are from Juan Escalona Corral (FOCO, Spain), Marta Peniza Portillo (FOCO, Spain), Abdelmoneim Nassef (Crooked House) and Carmen Ortiz Vittorino (Crooked House) each of whom were participants on the programme. Juan also lead a workshop in using ensemble movement with young people.

SHORT PERFORMANCES

As part of Moltóir we created short performances with the groups. They worked on using movement to explore their opinions, ideas, experiences and challenges. In these two short performances we see some of the group exploring key themes promoting European Union values. In the first video, we created scenes in which one character takes away the power or agency of another character. They are the Oppressor. The other character is the Oppressed. In these scenes, the Oppressed seems to give away their power, and do not put up much resistance to it being taken. We explored how this could happen. Through various colonising techniques, the Oppressor ‘grooms’ and ‘overwhelms’ the Oppressed until they are able to get them to do absurd things. In our short scenes, the situations are taken from every-day, daily life, inspired by experiences of the group members. However, through the action of the Oppressor they develop into surreal and absurd situations. The rest of the group appears as a chorus after each scene to represent the internal anxiety and feelings of the Oppressed.

In the second performance movement is explored as a vehicle to share pure joy. It is important when working with young people to also celebrate their experiences, affirm their positivity, support their confidence and self-esteem. The participants here are all women who work with young women and with young people. They come together in various formations through the short performance to express elements of their identity, especially when it merges with communal experience and shared values.

In both cases, a lot of discussion, exercises, experimentation, workshopping and exploring happened in order to create these short pieces. They serve as simple insights to the work that happened in the week. After each one there was a discussion with the audience.

PHOTOS