Cross Pollination – dialogues in-between practice and critical thinking

This workshop offers a brand new opportunity to experience living and working in the laboratory theatre spaces of Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium (NTL) in Holstebro, Denmark. In this intensive ‘hands- and minds-on’ workshop, students will investigate the role of technique and research, both in training and in the creation of artistic material, in terms of producing knowledge. This workshop offers an introduction to the interplay between artistic practices and critical thinking. Participants will receive a reader with theoretical and praxical texts on contemporary philosophy, feminism and ecological concepts which will be explored in the studio.  

Students will be guided by Adriana La Selva and Marije Nie, experienced research-practitioners from two platforms connected to NTL: Cross Pollination and The Bridge of Winds. In addition there will be interaction with the Odin Teatret archives and some of the resident artists of NTL. 

The workshop integrates praxical and reflective methods to critically experience a theatre laboratory as an expanded frame for artistic research and an incubator for personal practices. Over the course of the workshop, two complementary approaches to professional laboratory work will be explored: vertical and codified psychophysical and vocal training, enriching the theatrical presence, precision and energetic qualities of the  performer; and the horizontal and dialogical approach of the Cross Pollination Research Platform, which stimulates the development of training, dramaturgical tactics for creation, collaborative modes of reflection and the nourishment of poetic practices. 

The workshop envisions yet a third layer of work, leading to questions of documentation, transmission and archival practices. Specific works developed in the course of Odin Teatret’s history will be explored, in order to stimulate novel and alternative ways of reflecting on and supporting training, artistic research, and creative processes.