Number of participants: 8 to 12 people
Public concerned: Performing and visual arts professionals
Directors, puppeteers, actors, dancers, circus artists, singers, musicians, visual artists…
Prerequisites: Professional experience in the performing arts and committed attendance for the full 5 days of the course
Languages spoken: French and English
Cost of the course: 400€ (individual financing), 550€ (AFDAS or other funding)
Deadline for applications : Monday, January 3rd, 2022

Course objectives

The training aims to explore the creative process and to offer participants tools to improve their own approach through the transmission of Yael Rasooly’s research and creation method.
It will deal with probing into an intimate personal space with heightened sensitivity wherein it becomes possible to overcome artist’s block and create by effectively confronting the unknown and one’s vulnerability.
The days will be organized primarily around active research and the exploration and development of different relational channels between the artist and the object, with focus on ways in which this relationship can nourish dramaturgy, echo different levels of thought and consciousness and express a unique depth of meaning and emotion.
The dramaturgy of music and sound in manipulation will also be explored. Beyond the manipulation of objects, vocal work will also be a component of the daily training.

Targeted skills

• Becoming acquainted with Y. Rasooly’s method for manipulating objects out of meaning and memorial charge
• Learning a Method for creating a solo performance
• Becoming acquainted with the play of tensions between performer and object/puppet
• Understanding dramaturgy through music
• Acquiring a basic technique for corporeal and vocal training
• Discovering and exploring the paper mask technique (depending on the time available)
• Learning how to integrate these techniques into one’s own artistic work

Training programme

In a research-creation process, we will explore the complexity of the performer-object relationship as an element of metaphor, reflection and subversion. Participants will have the opportunity to develop a heightened sensitivity to the dramaturgy of “everyday” objects, objects full of memory, emotional, social, political, and often historically charged objects.
We will discover different methods of manipulation, analysing how these can become a determining force in the essence of creation, especially with the dramaturgy of music and sound in the manipulative arts.
With the creation of dramaturgical narratives and the development of an artistic language that is both common and personal to each participant, the training will combine different work modalities: collective with the group as a whole, in subgroups and individually.

The exercises will provide the opportunity and freedom necessary for each participant to express their inner voice and thus approach themes that inspire them personally.
The performing arts are inherently linked to address, so at the conclusion of this training, a time for meeting with the audience will allow for reflection on the notion of the “outside view”, a crucial dimension of our artistic medium. In an environment favourable to learning, a public presentation in situ will make it possible to experience this relationship with different types of response.

The workshop also aims to meet with the problem of the artist’s solitude in his or her creative process. It can actually happen that because of details, the artist loses sight of the overall project during this process and sometimes even the basis of his passion and the necessary energy.

A conducive environment will be created where everyone feels free to take risks and push beyond the limits of what they normally do.

The instructor

Yael Rasooly is a visual theatre director, actress, singer, and puppeteer.
She was born in Jerusalem in 1983 and first trained in classical piano and singing before studying theatre in London at Central Saint Martin. Her unique theatrical language, which she began to develop during her time at the School of Visual Theatre in Jerusalem, is based on a multi-disciplinary approach, where all the elements of the staging have equal importance in the narrative.
The relationship between the objects/materials and the performer are at the heart of her work, as well as the choices of scenography, sound, and music. Her visual universe makes what is usually silent heard, inviting the audience to travel into what is unspoken in our society.
Examples of her creations include Paper Cut, a solo performance that received numerous awards; The House by the Lake, a musical cabaret for actresses, dolls, and objects, describing the story of three sisters in hiding during the Second World War; Bon Voyage, a co-production with the Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes of Charleville-Mézières. Her latest creation, Un silence parfait, was presented for the first time at the 2021 Charleville Festival - it is the second part of a trilogy on violence against women and children.
Her creations have been performed in hundreds of festivals and theatres in more than 30 countries, have received numerous international awards (Grand Prix at the International Festival of Solo puppeteers (Lodz), the Excellence award for solo performance at the NYC Fringe Festival and the Diploma of Excellence from U.N.I.M.A) and have been received by an enthusiastic press (Télérama, The Guardian and the NY TIMES).
Having developed a growing taste for passing her experience and creative approach on to others, Yael Rasooly has led workshops and master classes in many institutions around the world. Her teaching method, combining stage direction, object theatre, puppetry and vocal technique, is based on encouraging the participant(s) and aims to empower them in their individual and personal creation.
She has been invited to teach at institutions such as Trinity College, University of Connecticut, The Eugene O’neill Theatre Centre, New York University, Atlanta Centre for Puppetry Arts, UQAM University, Nuku Theatre Tallinn, UQAM Montreal (Canada), Aria en Corse -Association des Rencontres Internationales Artistiques- (France), and Théâtre Odradek (France), FIAMS Quebec (Canada), Academy of Theatre Arts in Wrocław (Poland) and many others.