Solo under construction
A workshop by Clair Heggen
Are you an actor, dancer or puppeteer wanting to learn how to create and perform your own work?
This course gives you the tools that will help you reach your dream of making a solo production. The course is divided into two modules:
Module 1 - Gestural Dramaturgy
Module 2 - Creating your solo performance
Solo Under Construction
Module 1 - Gestural Dramaturgy
8th to 19th of April 2024
This course aims to open the creative toolbox of the Claire Heggen Company - Théâtre du Mouvement, in order to approach and allow a greater understanding of how to compose your own solo work with “gestural dramaturgy” and how to make precise and communicative compositions.
1st week: 8th-12th of April 2024
We take on elements of composition.
2nd week: 15-19 April 2024
Elements of dramaturgy for gestural composition.
This course can be followed by Solo under construction (Module 2) where participants can get individual direction and feedback by Claire on their own solo in progress. Max 6 participants.
Solo Under Construction
Module 2 - Creating your solo performance
4th to 14th of June 2024
Application deadline: 1st of May
Claire has been mentoring many artists (actors, dancers, circus performers, puppeteers, mimes, singers etc.) through the challenging process of creating a solo performance.
There is no instruction manual for this. And it is a big step from the desire to make a solo performance to its creation. So how is a solo composed? In order to create your own solo performance, the performer first needs to understand the complexity of the task:
The performer is both the subject and object of art — so you are both the instrument and the instrumentalist — and your story, wants to be transformed into a work of art. You are thereby your own author, too. As actor, subject and author, you want to say something. This is difficult, especially because blind spots prevent us from seeing ourselves from the outside. During the process, you will be confronted with what you really are communicating that you are not necessarily conscious about. Often the outer eye can see this. The challenge: how to be both the actor and the witness to what is presented, while integrating the view of the spectator? How and with what tools can you compose your solo and keep the necessary distance?
In the workshop, these questions are addressed by Claire in a small group. Maximum 6 performers will be led into a unique and personal process where each participant will play the important role of support and outer eye. In a safe and respectful working space, the group will provide each other with constructive and honest feedback to be more productive and inspired towards the creation of his/her solo.
This course is for performers with an interest in working with the body (actors, dancers, circus performers, puppeteers, mimes etc.) offers the possibility to begin or perhaps rework a creation of a solo:
A presentation of each solo project - giving rise to individual feedback from Claire but also collective feedback, comments and recommendations that will give possible directions for the work to be developed.
A contribution of analytical, technical and dramaturgical tools facilitating awareness of what is involved in the solo and its composition, for its staging.
Individual work, taking into account the previous stages.
A second presentation of the work, as is, with feedback, self-evaluation and recommendations in the directions of work to be clarified or explored.
A possible presentation of the work in progress on the last day.
Claire Heggen
Claire Heggen started Théâtre du Mouvement together with Yves Marc in 1975. She studied corporal mime with Etienne Decroux and she masters various techniques and aesthetics such as classical and contemporary dance, eutonie and kinesiology. She conceives the art of acting and contemporary mime as a larger concept, integrating Etienne Decroux' heritage based on the dramatization of movement and gestuality. This includes textual and object theatre engaging the body. Hence the actor's means of expression – her/his body – is placed at the very core of their artistic process of creation.
Since the beginning, Théâtre du Mouvement have been invited to teach in France and abroad to textual or movement actors, puppeteers, dancers as well as mimes. Claire ceasesly and passionately develops her methods and passes on her knowledge in a precise, analytical and highly competent manner. Because of her broad experience within different stage arts, she has the ability to guide artists from many backgrounds to their full potential.
Under her management, the company has created more than 30 performances, played in 60 countries and in 2017 they published their book documenting 40 years of studies. Claire is the driving force behind many of the new productions. The company has been essential in the development and renewal of the theatrical movement at the edges of mime, movement, dance, and object theatre.
