Theatre Workshop Held by State Institute of Performing Arts, Russia

On the afternoon of October 24th, 2017, Professor Andrei Andreyev from State Institute of Performing Arts, Russia, brought an excellent theatre workshop to the teachers and students from all over the world. With warmly active atmosphere, students were extremely engaged in the workshop.

At the beginning of the workshop, Professor Andreyev told everyone that all the trainings presented today were parts of their daily trainings. Russian theatre originated from the French theatre and drew experience from Italian improvisation comedy later. Finally, there appeared many theatrical masters in Russia. The training contents to be practiced today came from a great master, Meyerhold - the famous Russian director, actor and theatrical theorist.

At first, Professor Andreyev asked his students to conduct the simulation exercises of imitating normal animals, from wolves to frogs and leopards to hippos. The performers' vivid and meticulous imitation of animals won the ovation and applause from the teachers and students from all over the world. The imitation training afterwards seemed to be a human evolutionary history, from the complete imitation of animals to the imitation of human beings. The actors performed as the walking birds, angry leopards and laughing cats on stage. The aesthetics of Traditional Naturalist could only produce a model of performance. Or rather, it was only suitable for the interpretation of a specific play. According to Professor Andreyev’s opinion, the essence of a theater is the performer's performance art, and performance is the externalization of the actor's internalization. But this externalization is not equal to the principle “to reproduce emotional experience in inner mind" advocated by Stanislavsky. It is about how to take advantage of the convention elements in some dramas. Therefore, he came to the conclusion that drama must be "theatrical" and the "theatricality" should be created based on the convention. All performances shall be performed in accordance with convention.

Later, the performance was more challenging. The actors implemented Meyerhold's "biomechanics" theory through a variety of trainings, such as undressed method, different walking styles and different standing positions. Professor Andreyev asked actors to practice "dynamic" action training to maximize their control of their bodies and to take full advantage of their entire body during their performance, not just sounds and facial expressions.

The atmosphere of the workshop was very warmly active. All the actors on stage concentrated their attention. Although there were different language barriers, people also could communicate with each other through the medium of drama. International student and teachers achieved so much in this workshop training.