Contact:
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61590 Israel

 

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Play Summary

"Picnic" and "Frenzy for Two or More" are intertwined into one whole scenic piece of work, while the images and plots of these two plays slip from the one into the other. The whole play bears the earmarks of an unceasing aimless war. The plot develops with the thundering explosions and the whiz of the bullets at the background.

Delirious arguments of a pseudo-intellectual couple over the similarities and the contrasts between snails and turtles open the act. Intolerance towards each other, fear, war – they are everywhere. The war is very close; it is all around, it is right here inside their house. Shells explode, buildings collapse, people get killed. He and She are panic-stricken, and nevertheless keep arguing with ever-growing enthusiasm. Their disputes are full of passion, which is shown through images from the Kama Sutra and fantastical pyramids of bodies.

He – Seňor Tepan – is the prototype of the former military man, and, well, the war has been here since ever and he is mad about it. Every time he has an opportunity, he acts out scenes from his past battles.
She - Seňora Tepan – is the prototype of a woman with an unfulfilled destiny. She could have become an actress and succeeded in life, but, alas, it didn't work out. And now she holds it all against him.

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Even the fear of bombing does not extinguish their egoistic obstinacy, their spiteful desire to defeat their opponent at all costs. Turtle and snail – are they one and the same or after all they are two different things?.. Is it a stumbling stone or just the tip of an immense iceberg called "an odious marriage"? They bath in an imaginary jaсuzzi, or perhaps in a pool, and keep arguing, the same dispute as ever. They eat breakfast and keep arguing, they close the windows to protect themselves from the bullets and still keep arguing.

But, sadly, war has its own logic.

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The Theatre-Studio aspires to the creation of joint international projects
in the field of experimental theatre, as well as to the collaboration
between international theatre institutes throughout the world.

 

Sofy Moskovich's Tel Aviv Theatre-Studio is both an original experimental studio which trains actors and stage managers and a Biomechanics R&D laboratory.

The Theatre-Studio was founded in Tel Aviv in 1999 based on the theatrical traditions of the forefront theatre, namely those of E. Vakhtangov and V. Meyerhold. This is the only institution outside of Russia to develop the principles and methods of Biomechanics. The Theatre-Studio is an assembly of carefully selected young talents who get profound preparation in a wide range of fields based on a special approach that develops freedom of creativity and daring artistic solutions. The studio pedagogical process is built upon individual attention to each and every student, while considering his or her personality and unique imagination. The studio trains, polishes and brings up a new generation of artists, a generation destined to leave its mark on the advance of the theatrical culture and in the creation of new theatrical formations. There are two faculties in the theatrical studio: a three-year faculty of acting and a four-year faculty of stage managing.

p1Sofy Moskovich is the founder and artistic director of a performing arts school in Tel Aviv. She immigrated to Israel in 1975 as a graduate of a prestige faculty of stage direction at a college in Saint Petersburg, as well as of the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors at the Vakhtangov National Academic Theatre in Moscow. In Israel Sofy was nominated director of the Beer Sheba Theatre. Alongside working as a stage director, she also founded and managed numerous projects in the field of theatre and education. In the mid-eighties she began teaching acting classes in schools of dramatic arts. During this time several generations of leading Israeli theatre and cinema actors have grown and blossomed under her guidance.

In 2007 Sofy was granted the Tel Aviv municipal award for her achievements in the field of performing arts.

In the course of her educational work, Sofy Moskovich has created a new method of teaching acting skills and stage direction, developed on the basis of the principle of Biomechanics.

BIO – LAB: The Biomechanical Training of the Actor

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As opposed to Meyerhold's Biomechanics, which is focused on the actor's physical training, Moskovich's methods of teaching, or, by her own definition, "approach", are based on the synthesis of the emotional, intellectual and physical structures, linked constantly in the process of the improvisational Biomechanical training. Regular rounding out of the actors' skills helps them mastering the arts of dramatic improvisation to the highest standards and becoming true virtuosos. Sofy Moskovich's biomechanical approach is not just a training system: it is a far-reaching aesthetical language of the theatre.

p3Roman Grigoryevich Viktyuk, a famous stage director, while attending one of Sofy Moskovich's open shows, has stated that "the principle of Biomechanics was born in Russia in the twenties and slaughtered in the thirties, but eighty years later it was reborn anew in Tel Aviv". Moskovich gives international acting skills master classes of according to the method of BiO-LAB in leading dramatic arts colleges of Europe, inter alia in the B. Shukin institute in Moscow and the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts (GITIS) in Moscow, the largest theatrical institute in Europe.

The studies at the faculty of acting include practical and theoretical courses as well as a comprehensive 12-month traineeship show trial during the third year of studies. As part of the traineeship the students participate in eight theatricals. The studio repertoire includes classic theatre and modern drama. The intensity and depth of the studies during the third year allow the students to acquire vital professional experience and acting skills.

p4As for the students of the stage directing faculty, they take the full three-year studies with the students of the faculty of acting, and during their fourth year they embark on the stage directing and production traineeship.

Within the theatrical studio there is a fringe theatre performing. Its repertoire offers the most successful productions of the third-year students as well as plays performed by the young studio graduates.

One such production is NIGHTMARE PICNIC