International Theatre Conference: The Actor and Characters

Organized by Dr Kiki Selioni, Post-doc Researcher at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (as part of her research Biophysical Acting), Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Labanarium, and MCF (Michael Cacoyannis Foundation) and hosted by LMTA, Vilnius, Lithuania Conference Venue: LMTA, Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre

Following the successful conferences held July 2018 in Athens,in March 2019 in Copenhagen,in June 2019 in Paris and the upcoming Conference in July Athen,s Post-doctoral Researcher Dr Kiki Selioni, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, LMTA, Labanarium and MCF have taken the initiative to organize the fith event in Vilnius. The aim is to create a series of international events to meet colleagues, practitioners and researchers, to share experiences, knowledge and current research practices in the field of actor-training and performance practices.
The final goal is to create an international network to exchange dialogues of the arising challenges of the 21st century academies, institutions, as well as the arts industry.

Keynote Speakers:
Prof. Vladimir Mirodanm FRSA, Emeritus Professor of Theatre
Dr Ben Spatz, Senior Lecturer in Drama, Theatre and Performance, School of Music,
Humanities & Media, University of Huddersfield
Prof. Frank Pecquet, Professor at the “Ecole des Arts de la Sorbonne”, Paris1 University
Researcher at the ACTE Institute (Art Creation Theory Esthetic) : Team design-art-media

The Actor and Characters
One of the main questions for an Actor, is in what way he can build the character he wants to present. For this reason, we have a great number of methods that address the problem. What is a common knowledge is that Stanislavsky first offered a method of creating a character as in his book Building a Character. Definitely, this is the first complete written method, although one can find principles in Aristotle’s Poetics or in Lucian’s book Peri Orcheseos. After Stanislavsky, a lot of well known methods (Adler, Strasberg, View Points, Malgreen, etc), are used by institutions and practitioners for creating the character. Some methods create the character based on actor’s personality. Vladimir Mirodan in his book The Actor and the
Character notes and quotes:

I therefore start from the premise that can and should be considered as ‘other’ than the actor. As Michael Chekhov once wrote: ‘it is a crime to chain and imprison an actor within the limits of his so called ‘personality’ thus making him an enslaved laborer than an artist’. Mirodan (2019:3).

However, the issue must be addressed in a slightly different way. Namely, how to create different characters. Actually, we are dealing with the art of transformation of actor to ‘others’. If the art of acting is the art of transformation of actor, so a method of building a character must provide the ability of being more than one character. 

Stanislavsky in his book Building a Character admits that the actors must have skills and special abilities for acting a certain character. Because if you do not use your body, your voice, a manner of speaking, walking, moving, if you do not find a form of characterization that corresponds to the image, you probably cannot convey to others, its inner living spirit. (Stanislavsky 1949: 5).

The questions arise are:
– What are the abilities that an actor must possess before playing different characters?
– Isn’t this question the main issue of characterization, namely the synthesis of the character?
– What are the main principles for building characters?

This Conference will discuss methods and practices that approach the issue of building different characters in contemporary theatre practices. 

Call for papers Call for Demonstrations, Papers and Performances

We welcome submissions from theatre practitioners, actors, directors, training practitioners, theatre researchers, practice researchers within varying aspects of practice across disciplines including movement, voice, acting, music and dance. The Demonstration allows practitioners/researchers to demonstrate their works in teaching in a dedicated session of 60-70 min. they are followed by a 20 min discussion with the audience/participants. A number of 8-10 students will be provided for all accepted demonstrations. The paper presentations will be 20 min.

Please send you proposal to kiki.selioni@cssd.ac.uk . If an official invitation is required earlier for research funding purposes, please contact
kiki.selioni@cssd.ac.uk and ensure that you submit your abstract as early as possible.

The themes are, but not limited to:
Practices and methodologies for creating Characters
Teaching the creation of character
Voice training for actors
Movement training for Actors and in Acting
Acting on Screen
Transformation in acting
Actor’s presence on stage and on screen
Directing as practice for Actor
Rhythm and the character
Truthfulness and emotional involvement on stage
Execution and synthesis in acting

Paper Submission Due: 16 th July
Acceptance Notification: 20 th July
Conference Dates: 6, 7 ,8 September 2019

Paper presentations and teaching/demonstrations will be held on the 6th, 7th, 8th
September 2019.
Registration fees for paper presentations: 100 €
Registration fees for presentations: 150 €
Conference Attendant fees: 50 €

Workshops will be held on the 7th and 8th September 2019
Saturday 7th September: Ben Spatz workshop
14. 00-16.30 part I
16.30-17.30 break
17.30-19.30 part II

Sunday 8th September:

13.00-15.00 Vesta Grabštaitė, Suzuki Training Workshop

15.30-17.30 Brigita Bublytė, The Mask of the Voice Workshop

18.00-20.00 Vasilis Arabos, Returning To Ground Alpha Zero: Drama Harmonics and
Formative Forces of the Stage in the Ancient Tradition of Greek Lyrical Amphitheatre

Registration fees for Participants: 150 € (Student & unwaged fees: 70 €)
Attentants fees: 100 € (Student & unwaged fees: 50 €)

For further info please send to: kiki.selioni@cssd.ac.uk