Author Archives: RachelKarafistan

About RachelKarafistan

Rachel is an actor and theatre director based in Berlin. She is co-director of COSmino theatre together with her husband Kuba Pierzchalski and was also an actor with the internationally acclaimed Polish company, Teatr Biuro Podróży. Her PhD research into Shamanic dimensions within contemporary theatre practice has shaped both her creative and teaching processes. Rachel runs regular workshops internationally, exploring the connections between the actor and the shaman with her long-term collaborator, Professor Brian Bates. Rachel has taught theatre extensively, in particular at the University of Leeds where she was a Lecturer in Theatre and internationally in Europe, Brasil, and the USA. She is also director of BeintheworkFest (Berlin International Theatre Workshop Festival) and co-founder of Silver Key Solutions, a Berlin based creative industries enterprise providing actors / theatrical simulations for business and diplomatic training and development. www.cosmino.org / www.silverkeysolutions.eu

‘Fearless Hearts and Peaceful minds’ – Internalizing tradition and incorporating myself Reflections on the session of the International Platform for Performer Training, Wroclaw 2016

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My journey into theatre traditions started early. An intriguing new drama teacher arrived at my school at the age of eleven. She brought with her a dynamic and challenging way of creating theatre and I began to pay attention. I was subsequently a founder and for eight years a member of a most peculiar youth theatre. Our teacher turned director, Carran Waterfield, had been trained by Roberta Carreri of Odin Teatret and in the years that followed, I began to research the history and methodology of this now almost mythical theatre troupe and became fascinated by the writings of its director and founder, Eugenio Barba and by default, his mentor, Jerzy Grotowski. This early exposure to such an intense tradition created many difficulties and exhilarations for me in my youth. When other children were watching ‘Neighbours’ on TV in the 1990s, I was trying to do ‘training’ on a concrete floor in a cold church hall in Coventry.

Wroclaw has always been synonymous with the name of Grotowski. His Teatr Laboratorium 13 Rzędów (13 Row Laboratory Theatre) relocated here from Opole in 1965. The last time I visited Wroclaw was in October 2001 as an actor in the Polish premiere of Millennium Mysteries, a co-production by Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre and Poznan’s Teatr Biuro Podrozy, directed by Pawel Szkotak. It was also the year that I left life in the UK behind and joined Teatr Biuro Podrozy where I remained as an actor for three years.

So I found myself in Wroclaw (now the European City of Culture 2016) again, 15 years later and the location for the third session of the International Platform for Performer Training (IPPT). The IPPT was launched in Helsinki in 2014, its aim being to develop performer training on an international platform. It is a forum for theatre makers, pedagogues and academics involved in performer training within institutions offering higher education in the fields of performing arts. In Zurich last year the forum focused on the themes of Curriculum, Voice and Speech. This year, the subject of the session was Practicing Tradition in Performer Training. I have been out of theatre and academic circles for several years due to maternity leave, so the anticipation of witnessing presentations by and conversing with such an esteemed group of professionals from within my field, was immense.

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