AGAINST REPRESENTATION
Workshop at Teatro Camploy, Verona
> directed by Luca Giacomoni
What remains of theatre when representation no longer constitutes its foundation? When the character ceases to be the centre of the action, linearity no longer shapes the meaning of a story, and the stage is no longer called upon to produce an illusion? This workshop arises from these questions. It offers neither techniques nor methods, but a practice of subtraction: exercises designed to remove obstacles, move through resistance, and strip away masks. For if theatre’s vocation is to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature – as Shakespeare reminds us – such a gesture is only possible once that mirror has first been turned toward oneself.
The workshop is intended for those who recognize the stage as a space of inquiry and wish to explore it as an open practice: a place where the crisis of theatrical forms is not a loss, but the very condition from which a new gesture may emerge. In this sense, being “against representation” does not mean rejecting it, but resisting it and inhabiting its limits. It means examining what comes into being between the person who performs the act and the one who bears witness to it – and what continues to come into being when we no longer know how to name it.
Dates
From Monday 7 to Wednesday 9 September 2026
10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Teatro Camploy
Via Cantarane 32 Verona, Italy
Up to 15 graduates
of the Carlo Goldoni Theatre Academy
selected through an open call
Information and registration :
accademia@teatrostabileveneto.it
TO REGAIN CONSCIOUSNESS
Workshop at La Boutonnière, Paris
> directed by Luca Giacomoni
For many years, following Peter Brook’s advice, I kept theatrical creation carefully separate from what is commonly called “inner work.” You’ll see – he would tell me – with time and practice, these two dimensions will eventually come together of their own accord, without forcing anything. Today, that seems self-evident to me. There are not two separate realms, but a single movement, in which one reality mysteriously nourishes the other. My encounter with the work of Jerzy Grotowski – through some of his longtime collaborators – made this continuity even more tangible, until it became clear to me that work on physical actions is inseparable from work on oneself.
Something in theatre has shifted. It is no longer a matter of illustrating or pretending, but of passing through states of presence in which action engages the whole of one’s being. Perhaps that is what it is, ultimately: a passage. Not toward some spectacular elsewhere, but toward a place already known and yet forgotten. As though something within us had once glimpsed Ithaca without ever truly making landfall, and has been learning the way back ever since. This workshop belongs to that exploration: refining one’s capacity to listen, cultivating a more open quality of attention, and reminding ourselves of the necessity of the theatrical act – one of the rare moments in which the invisible becomes a concrete, shared experience.
Dates
From Saturday 26 to Wednesday 30 September 2026
9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., at La Boutonnière
25 rue Popincourt, 75011 Paris
Fee / 520 euros per person
440 euros for students
and job seekers
Information and registration :
contact@centrehagiasophia.com
A DISCORDANT HARMONY
Workshop at UCLouvain, Brussels
> directed by Luca Giacomoni
Some time ago, a dramaturg friend told me about her experience in L’Aquila in the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated the city. Amid the rubble, she said, everyone seemed to know instinctively what needed to be done. Some searched for survivors; others carried water, moved stones, or simply remained beside the injured. The actions differed, as did their rhythms, yet everyone shared the same horizon and the same sense of urgency. For a time, the usual hierarchies seemed suspended: there were no fixed roles, no clearly defined social categories, only a provisional community confronted with something greater than itself.
Can theatre teach us something about this way of being together? If so, does the tragic chorus not embody what the philosopher Sophie Klimis calls a discordant harmony – a form capable of allowing the individual and the collective to exist together? Throughout this workshop, we will seek out that shared space where differences are not erased but respond to one another. The work will draw on physical actions, voice, rhythm, and collective composition – not in order to produce a form or an outcome, but to approach a state of openness and receptivity. For, as Plato writes in his final dialogue, one who has not taken part in a chorus has not been educated.
Dates
From Monday 5 to Saturday 10 October 2026
UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles
43 Boulevard du Jardin Botanique
B-1000 Brussels
Workshop reserved for students
of UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles.
Limited to 15 participants
Information and registration :
sophie.klimis@uclouvain.be