18 - 22 March 2024, Monday to Friday from 10am to 5pm
Espaço da Penha, Travessa do Calado 26B, Lisbon/Portugal
In 2024, O Rumo do Fumo begins a series of training courses focusing on improvisation in contemporary dance. We begin with the American choreographer and dancer Mark Tompkins, whose CV is unrivalled in this area. Lasting one week, this workshop aims to bring together people interested in improvisation in dance and the performing arts, in order to share ideas, tools and creative levers for this work.
When improvising, each performer is working simultaneously on many different levels of perception; listening, watching, sensing, acting, reacting to one’s self and one’s partners in a given space and time. The art of real time composition resides in the ability to remain open to the wealth of internal and external impulses AND to receive, process and propose material in an uninterrupted flow of feedback. How to stay attentive, how to avoid overload, how to do nothing and still act?
These are some of the questions we will address through a series of improvisations, games and simple scores, from solo to group, that explore vision, listening and touch. Then, we’ll practice performing the essential keys of Real Time Composition: the question of choice, intuitive and voluntary states, simultaneous time, letting go, the relationship between the performer and the witness. Moments of analysis accompany the atelier.
- Requirements: minimum age 16, for people interested in dance, creative processes and performance practices, with or without professional experience in the area.
- General conditions and Regulations: Download
Address: Travessa do Calado 26-B, Penha de França, 1170-070 Lisboa
Transport: METRO Arroios / BUSES 37B, 706, 718, 730, 735, 742, 797
Ficha Artística
Mark Tompkins American dancer, choreographer, singer, and teacher founded the Company I.D.A. in 1983. His way of fabricating unidentified performance objects by mixing dance, music, song, text and video became his signature. Solos, group pieces, concerts and improvised performances are elements of this journey initiated in the 70’s, and with the complicity of set and costume designer Jean-Louis Badet since 1988. His passion for Real time composition leads him to collaborate with dancers, musicians, light designers and video makers. Renowned for his teaching, he travels around the world. In 2008, he receives the SACD Choreography Prize for all his work (Society of Dramatic Authors Composers). Fascinated by the frictions and resonances between high and low entertainment, his performances are inspired by popular forms like cabaret, music-hall, musicals and burlesque and also themes of ambiguity and ambivalence. He sings and dances in the concerts of Sarah Murcia & musicians, NEVER MIND THE FUTURE and MY MOTHER IS A FISH, collaborates with choreographer Mariana Tengner Barros in A POWER BALLAD and RESURRECTION. He recently published ONE SHOT dialogues on real time composition, with Meg Stuart and the images of Gilles Toutevoix at Editions L’œil d’or. His most recent performances: a solo STAYIN ALIVE (2018) and a trio CELEBRATION (2021).