The Private Is Political. A workshop for people with biography
The workshop will explore the tension and the possibilities between one’s unique biography and a collective story. How our private dramas come in resonance with the Zeitgeist. How personal memories and historical remembrance can differ or seem interwoven. How an individual life is entangled with national identities. And how this encounter opens up authentic and post-authentic ways of storytelling for the stage. We will examine and stretch the theater’s boundaries of truth and fiction in our post-factual times.
The workshop is both for actresses*actors and writers and for those who are not afraid to show themselves. It will be a self-inquiry that will dissolve traditional roles of writers and actresses*actors. We will work with private materials, historical research, improvisations, writing missions, exercises of the therapeutic and the spiritual realm. It will be practical and personal. It will resemble the early weeks of our rehearsals and collective writing sessions. We will discover which are the stories you want to tell with your very own individual voice.
Within the GREC Festival of Barcelona 2023.
Yael Ronen, in-house Gorki director, was born in Jerusalem in 1976. She comes from a theatre family and is internationally considered as one of the most exciting theatre makers of her generation. The greatest tool at her disposal is black humour in the framework of historical conflicts. Ronen’s play Third Generation, featuring German, Israeli and Palestinian actors, was invited to numerous festivals. Another of her productions, Hakoah Wien, developed at Schauspielhaus Graz, was awarded the Austrian Nestroy theatre prize in 2013. She staged the world premiere of the adaptation of Olga Grjasnowa’s bestselling novel All Russians Love Birch Trees. Common Ground emerged as a meditation from Ronen and her actors on the aftermath of the war in former Yugoslavia. The play was invited to the renowned Theatertreffen Festival at Berlin and won the audience award at Mülheimer Theatertage.
Her first productions at Gorki were Erotic Crisis and Das Kohlhaas-Prinzip. The Situation premiered at the Maxim Gorki Theatre in 2015 and garnered Ronen a second invitation to the Theatertreffen festival. The play negotiates the political situation in the Middle East and was selected by the critics in the annual survey from the Theater heute journal as the play of the year in 2016. The Gorki opened its 2016/2017 season with her piece Denial, a project about personal and political repression. In addition, Ronen was awarded the Austrian Nestroy Prize for Lost and Found in the category Best Play – Author’s Prize. In 2017 she received a prize from the German centre of the International Theatre Institute within the framework of World Theatre Day, and directed the world premiere of Winterreise رحلة الشتاء with the newly founded Exil Ensemble at the Gorki. In the same year, she was also awarded with the 14 Europe Prize for Theatrical Realities. At the Gorki Theatre she has also staged Roma Armee, A Walk on the Dark Side, Yes but No and Third Generation – Next Generation. Her production Slippery Slope – Almost a Musical was invited to the 2022 Theatertreffen. In 2022 she dealt with conspiracy theories in Operation Mindfuck – Based on a True Story, but Not Really and directed Blood Moon Blues.
Since the 2019/2020 season she has been a member of the newly founded Artistic Advisory Board, which advises Artistic Director Shermin Langhoff on the artistic direction of the Gorki Theatre.
Admission to the course will be based on order of arrival and CV assessment, which should be sent (with photograph included), filling in the form on the right.
Places on courses are limited. Places will be reserved once the course amount has been paid. Payment must be made within one week of receiving the corresponding acceptance email.
The dates indicated for each course or seminar may be subject to variations in exceptional circumstances. These will be notified when applicable.
For the course to take place, a minimum number of students must be registered. If this number is not reached, the course will be cancelled and the student will have the option of registering for a different course (providing that there are places available) or alternatively will receive a refund of the amount paid (100%). If a student withdraws, a refund of 75% of the registration fee will be applicable, providing that written notice is given at least 10 days before the start of the course.