Darren O’Donnell
Telling by involving: the seminar on participative theatre
This training seminar is for whoever wants to gain some advice and innovative strategies to develop site-specific and participative plays, that can be both provocative and original.
The work is based on the active involvement of people (not actors) of different ages and social context.
Artistic director and founder of the Canadian Mammalian Diving Reflex (considered the international expects in this area, always present at the most important international theatre festivals) Darren O’Donnell will guide you in the ideation and test of small performative actions based on his method: social ago puncture, designed to explore and systematize innovative devices to interact with the public.
The seminar in in English, with Italian translation, and is free.
To participate you should have a strong interest in this social practice. Experience is not necessary.
At the end of the seminar, who is interested can produce and send to ZONA K a participative theatre show to realize in Milan (following some parameters set out by ZONA K) to participate at the residence selection of ZONA K 2019.
———————————————————-
Darren O’Donnell is a novelist, essayist, playwright, director, designer and performer. His books (published by Coach House Press) include: Haircuts by Children and Other Evidence for a New Social Contract (2017), Social Acupuncture (2006), which argues for aesthetics of civic engagement, and Your Secrets Sleep with Me (2004), a novel about difference, love and the miraculous. His stage-based works include White Mice (1998), [boxhead] (2000), and All the Sex I’ve Ever Had (2012), all produced by Mammalian. Darren was the 2000 winner of the Pauline McGibbon Award for directing and has been nominated for a number of Dora Awards for his writing, directing, and acting, winning (with Naomi Campbell) for their design of White Mice. His play [boxhead] was nominated for a Chalmers Award and he received a Gabriel Award for excellence in broadcasting for his CBC radio piece Like a Fox. Under his directorship, Mammalian won the 2010 Mayor’s Arts Award for Youth, and his Mammalian Protocol for Collaborating with Children was awarded the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children Supporter Award in 2012. Darren has an MSc. in urban planning, a BFA in acting and studied shiatsu and tradition Chinese medicine at The Shiatsu School of Canada. Follow Darren on Twitter: @darrenodonnell Instagram: @o.darren Periscope: @darrenodonnell Snapchat: photoshine
FOCUS PEOPLE
The power of people, of ordinary people. The authentic strength and drive that comes from below. “People have the power”, “Power to the people”, songs and slogans from the 1970s that still endure in a world so different from that time. And yet, in spite of everything, people still think that they have the power to change the world.
PEOPLE tells of the strengths and contradictions that permeate our society: the strength of feelings, the exchange between generations, the relationships of solidarity; but also the relationships between individuals where power games become more ambiguous and sometimes ruthless. Above all, it talks about people: young people, teenagers, curious women, independent, aggressive but always and in any case topical.
Events:
26 April – 19 May 2018
Mammalian Diving Reflex / Darren O’Donnell (CA)
TEENTALITARIANISM with 3 dates + 1
23 – 24 May 2018 h. 20.00
Guinea Pigs (IT)
ACTS OF WAR
[show]
25 May – 10 June 2018 h. 10.00 – 19.00
Barbara Miele (IT)
FOREVER YOUNG, THE DREAMS OF SIXTY-EIGHT
[photo exhibition]
In collaboration with PHOTO FESTIVAL MILANO
30 – 31 May 2018 h. 20.00
Marta Dalla Via (IT)
POLITICAL PENTOTHAL – Rap opera for Andrea Pazienza
[show]
5 – 6 June 2018 h. 20.00
She She Pop (DE)
SPRING SACRIFICE
[show]
A project ZONA K and Teatro Franco Parenti
Mammalian Diving Reflex
Darren O’Donnell (CA)
Nightwalks with Teenagers invites a group of teenagers to take over a neighboyrhood in their city, organizing a night walk in which they will guide the spectators.
“A performance that is a small miracle.” The Guardian
In all the work of the Canadian group, guided by Darren O’Donnell, the social dimension is at the center of a research that materializes in active participation that aim to increase the critical spirit of the public.
With this project, Mammalian Diving Reflex creates the conditions for a unprecented encounter between young and adults, between people from different geographical, culture, socio-economical and race backgrounds that normally don’t have the occasion or motives to spend time together.
The performance is the result of the collaboration between the artists of the group and the group of youngsters involved, developed in a series of workshops that last two weeks.
Premiere
A ZONA K and Triennale Teatro dell’Arte project.
Here the TEENTALITARIANISM project
Concept and direction: Darren O’Donnell. Co-directed by: Tina Fance, Kiera O’Brien, Virginia Antonipillai, Sanjay Ratnan. Executive producer: Eva Verity, Tina Fance. Photography: Martin-Steffen, Amish Morrell, Paul Blakemore, Mammalian Diving Reflex. Created in collaboration with the students of Liceo linguistico Itas Natta, Milan. Production: ZONA K and FOG Triennale Milano Performing Arts.
This presentation of Teentalitarianism is made possible in part by the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
