Anton JuanChevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres and Chevalier de l’Ordre National de Merit is internationally recognized for his work that often challenges convention. A playwright and director, Anton Juan is a Tenured Full Professor and Theatre director at the University of Notre Dame du Lac in the USA. He completed his Ph.D. in Semiotics at the Kapodistrian and Panhellenic University of Athens.
He received the Alexander Onassis International Award for Theatre (Playwriting), and the Special Jury Prize for Screenplay from the CineManila International Film Festival. Beyond his work at Notre Dame, Juan is also the founding Artistic Director of the Step of Angels Theatre in Athens, Greece and was the Director-General of Dulaang UP, University of the Philippines where he has taught for thirty-three years. Anton Juan was selected as one of the 100 Philippine Artists awarded the Philippine Centennial Honors for the Arts, who have contributed significantly to and made an impact on the evolution of Philippine culture. He has also received the Balagtas Award from the National Writers’ Union of the Philippines, and has won several Playwriting awards from the Carlos Palanca Literary Awards. Anton Juan has received Fellowships and Awards from prestigious institutions, among them the Rockefeller-Bellagio Foundation Fellowship for senior artists, the Fulbright Foundation, Hitachi Foundation of Japan, Jack Lang Scholarship in France, Asian Cultural Council in New York, the Association of French Artists and the Ministry of Culture of France, the Ministry of Education of Greece, and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the British Council. Recently Juan received the Center for Social Concerns Award for social engagement with his Theatre and Social Concerns project with Juvenile Prison Residents. Juan is a board member of the International Playwrights’ Forum. (presentation Saturday, October 12, 12:15 p.m., Geddes Hall, Andrews Auditorium) http://ftt.nd.edu/faculty-and-staff/alphabetical-directory/anton-juan/ |
John Rudlinis the English speaking expert on Copeau having written a monograph on him for the Cambridge series ‘Directors in Perspective.’ He subsequently co-authored Jacques Copeau: Texts on Theatre and has written chapters on various aspects of Copeau’s work for compilation volumes one of which concerns Copeau’s conception of sincere acting and of play which broach the question of the real-life value of ‘play’ and theater’s ability to teach it. He founded the first drama department in the UK (at Exeter University) to be based on practice rather than history or theory. Courses were based on the ideas of Copeau and the study of traditional forms, especially Commedia dell’Arte, was central to them. A resulting study Commedia dell’Arte, an actor’s handbook is regarded as an industry standard and has been reprinted by Routledge many times since it first appeared in 1994.While teaching at Exeter, Rudlin founded, with a group of graduates, Medium Fair Theatre, a touring community company which he directed for ten years before concentrating on theatre-in-education with an offshoot called Fair Exchange. Besides acting, playwriting and designing, he has directed repertory, rural touring and Theatre-in-Education companies, and has mounted major community plays.
Leaving Exeter’s Drama Department with a top research rating and a massive undergraduate application rate, Rudlin emigrated to France to emulate Copeau, once more, by setting up a small rural base for performance research - Centre Sélavy - an international center for performance research. Now, theoretically retired, he is still writing books and plays, taking workshops and role-playing in learning environments. http://commediahandbook.com, Rudlin's lecture will focus on Copeau's legacy to theatre and his historical significance. He will also share his commedia exptertise in a practical theatre workshop (lecture Saturday, October 12, Geddes Hall, Andrews Auditorium; commedia practical workshop Sunday, October 13, 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.: registration recommended for conference keynote lecture; registration required for participating in commedia practical workshop, observers allowed). http://commediahandbook.com/workshops |
Barbara Leighis the founder and Artistic/Producing Director of Milwaukee Public Theatre, a member of ATME – Association for Theatre Movement Educators, and is the English speaking expert on Copeau’s school, the Vieux Colombier. She worked directly with Copeau’s daughter, Mme. Dasté in her research on the school. Her lecture on Copeau and his school will be of interest to arts educators and theatre historians. Leigh is also a practitioner of mime, trained by one of Copeau’s disciples, Etienne Decroux. Her second session, the lecture-demonstration will highlight her long experience in the arts and social activism and community building. After a serious accident in 1987,
she now performs in a wheelchair. With this new perspective she has been very
active on issues dealing with healing, disability and diversity, including a
One-Woman Musical Comedy, The Survival Revival Revue! and ADA, about the Americans with
Disabilities Act. Barbara and Karen
Stobbe also have developed workshops and performances that focus on issues of
Alzheimer's Disease and trauma and the challenges faced by caregivers, Sometimes
‘Ya Gotta Laugh. Barbara also performs in and helped to produce Unclothed,
the Naked Truth; Stories of Sexual Abuse and Healing. Dr. Leigh has worked as an Artist-In-Education throughout the state since 1975 and has developed hundreds of workshops and collaborative performances, including keynotes for diverse clients. Examples of her work include: Tap the Potential, a collaboration with VSA Arts Wisconsin, the Milwaukee County Office of Persons with Disabilities that counters stereotypes through public exhibits and performances by artists with disabilities; StoryBridge, a program that brings together elder storytellers with young children to increase literacy, communication skills and bridge the generation gap; A.R.T.S, Always Reaching to the Sky-- extensive and comprehensive arts workshops and residencies in all arts disciplines for children, and youth working with professional artists from diverse cultures; the All-City People’s Parade and Pageant, a public art project that tells Milwaukee’s story in collaboration with hundreds of children, youth and families through giant puppets, floats and masked creations, performed throughout the community in parades and exhibits. (lecture Sunday, October 13, 11:45 a.m. - 1:00, Geddes Hall, Andrews Auditorium; lecture-demonstration Sunday, October 13, 6:20 p.m. - 7:30 p.m., Geddes Hall)
www.milwaukeepublictheatre.org, http://atmeweb.org |
Olivier Fenoy(Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite) is the founder of Théâtre de l’Arc en Ciel – a theatre incarnating Copeau’s personalist vision of beauty and theatre-art (Paris, France; presentation in French with translation). Fenoy was trained as an actor by a close disciple of Copeau (Léon Chancerel). Throughout his acting and directing career he has dedicated himself to transforming culture as he was once inspired to do by Chancerel's conviction that creativity must never be separated from cultural 'animation' or activity. His work as an actor has included such roles as Mario in Le jeu de l'Amour et du hasard by Marivaux, Olivier in Renaud et Armide by Jean Cocteau, Pilade in Andromaque by Racine among many others and he has initiated multiple artistic and cultural festivals in cities across France with the goal of reinvigorating their communal, historic and artistic sense. Inspired by the personalism of Emmanuel Mounier, he founded the cultural association l’Office Culturel de Cluny in 1963 which took as its founding vision words culled from Pope Pius XII's addresses: "Beauty must elevate us..The function of all art consists in breaking through the narrow and agonizing space of the finite in which man is immersed while living here below and opening a kind of window to his spirit which yearns for the infinite..Faced with a culture without hope, consider art as the source of a new hope....Once you have made the reflection of Beauty and of divine light smile upon earth and humanity, helping humankind love all that is true, good, pure, just, lovable and noble, you will have contributed greatly to the building of Peace.." Working across religious and socio-economic divides, it spreads this artistic personalism through its theatre and cultural work. Fenoy founded his theatre, the Théâtre de l’Arc en Ciel, after being convinced that mainstream actor training had lost an essential element of Copeau’s actor training, i.e. the emphasis on valuing the human person as the keystone of all art and culture. Fenoy also initiated a congress with Umberto dell'Acqua Et si la beauté pouvait sauver le monde? It takes place every 2 -3 years and welcomes presenters from the five continents. (presentation Saturday, October 12, 2 :00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m., Geddes Hall, Andrews Auditorium) www.olivierfenoy.org, www.theatrearcenciel.com, www.congres-beaute.org
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Elisabeth Toulethas worked for many years with the Théâtre de l’Arc en Ciel. She is an educator who has developed multiple cultural activities around France and who founded the Académie Internationale de Théâtre pour Enfants. She has worked with the Movement ADT – Fourth World promoting artistic and educational activities among at-risk youth. She has also designed and implemented other arts education programs geared toward integrating disparate socio-economic and cultural groups in France, Belgium, Italy, Hungary, Lebanon, Algeria, Angola, Canada and Chile. She has also written, adapted and produced many plays for children and developed actor training exercises inspired by Copeau’s personalism. She works with artist, educator and minister for Education, André de Peretti and has integrated some of the fundamental ideas of the humanist Edgar Morin into her promotion of arts education in France. Toulet’s forthcoming book Le personnage de théâtre, ce grand éducateur de l’enfant, focuses on the role of theatre in the development of pre-adolescents. It also includes an overview of her work in promoting culture through the education of communities in the value of the arts in the quest for meaning, social integration and hope especially in more underprivileged areas of France. (presentation Sunday, October 13, 2:15 – 3:30, Geddes Hall, Andrews Auditorium) www.theatre-enfant.org
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IRIS AGUETTANTIris Aguettant and Elisabeth Toulet will give a practical theatre workshop on the art of expression and the art of relation – the basic elements of theatre performance. The theatre exercises demonstrated reveal the power of theatre to inspire personal integrity, sincerity and simplicity as well as the nature of the human persons/actors as innately inter-dependent. Copeau’s theory of acting highly valued the personal authenticity of the actor as the basis for sincerity in performance. (practical theatre workshop, Saturday , October 12 at 4:00 p.m; registration required for participation, no observers.)
SOPHIE IRIS AGUETTANT, was born in Lyon and received her training as an actress in the conservatory while studying Law. Having worked under Jean Meyer of the Comédie Française and in various avant-garde theatres, she joined Olivier Fenoy and helped found what was to become the Théâtre de l’Arc en Ciel. While continuing to act she began directing and creating historical productions and works based on popular culture (Le Creusot, Québec, Santiago du Chili), as well as play-writing (Amour et Colère). Since 1995, she has appeared in the principle productions of the Théâtre de l’Arc en Ciel as Madame in Feydeau's Feu la mère de madame and the title-role in Racine's Phèdre, as well as works by Raymond Poisson, Alexandra Devon and Benoit Mary. She has directed L’Alouette by Anouilh, The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov and various collective works. Her latest work was an adaptation of Dostoyevski's Brothers Karamazov. theatrearcenciel.com |