Contemporary Theater Laboratory
Contemporary Theater Laboratory
Curators of the laboratory

:Alexander Savchuk, stage director Alexey Yankovsky, stage director Alexander Dunaev, theatre critic Pavel Smirnov, curator of theatre productions

Course duration and tuition fee

2 years (4 semesters)
100,000 rubles per semester
Classes start on October 1, 2020
Application deadline: the information will be updated in March 2020

About
1.

The Contemporary Theatre Laboratory
is a space where theatre is understood and studied as a process.

The Contemporary Theatre Laboratory is a space where theatre is understood and studied as a process.

Unlike any other genre of art, theatre always takes place “here and now”: a play is performed over and over again, but every time there is a different energy to it, both on stage and in the audience, which brings new experiences and adds new dimensions to the play.

The goal of the laboratory is not to preserve theatre traditions, but to carefully study, analyze, process, and advance them.

Students explore the possibilities of various movements and situations from avant-garde and post-avant-garde to archaics, from working on the stage to site-specific projects, from creating a work of visual art to participatory and socially engaged practices. But the main goal is to acquire practical skills for creating independent theatre projects.

The laboratory combines traditions of Russian and European theatre schools. It has adopted a modular system of training, keeping the curators supervise the learning process and support the student work throughout the entire period of training.

The laboratory combines the traditions of the Russian and European theater schools, assuming, on the one hand, a modular training system, and on the other hand, keeping the curators in charge of supervision of the learning process and supporting students throughout the entire period of training.

The key difference between the laboratory and the traditional theatre education is that the main focus of the learning process is kept on the personality of a student rather than the master.

Learning process
2.

Four semesters
represent four different vectors of studies.

The training process involves a consistent practice under the guidance of remarkable theatre personalities who represent various genres of contemporary theatre (artist's theatre, physical theatre, participatory theatre, etc.), as well as understanding of contemporary performance theory and cultural studies.

As a result of the two-year training, students will create independent theatre projects, as well as take part in collaborative plays, actions and performances. They will gain practical skills, theoretical knowledge and understanding of modern theatre, that are equally useful in creating independent theatre projects as well as in working for traditional theatre institutions.

Two years is a perfect amount of time to master the necessary disciplines, acquire practical and theoretical skills, and begin to work on individual projects. The duration of studies corresponds to the curriculum of the best European theatre schools.

The students of the laboratory are free to attend any shared theoretical classes at SNCS. We encourage them to collaborate with students of other laboratories and participate in filmmaking workshops.

Program
  • I semester
  • II semester
  • III semester
  • IV semester
3.

The first semester is devoted to a general introduction to theatre theory and practices.

Practice

  • Object theatre workshop
  • Physical theatre workshop
  • Acting workshop
  • Theatre interpretation of modernist writing
  • Introduction to Psycho-Physical Approach to Actor Training 

Theory

Reading seminar with theatre critics Alexandra Dunaeva and Marina Israilova devoted to contemporary philosophy and a general overview of social and human sciences 

“Сultural models”: theoretical course on modernist culture involving lectures and seminars on art history, cultural studies, and anthropology.

Guest teachers: Victoria Evtukhina, Yana Tumina, Oleg Zhukovsky, Elena Venzel, Ksenia Petrenko.

The second semester is devoted to dramatic structures.

Practice

  • Writing and analyzing a play
  • Production of one-act plays
  • Working with an actor according to the etude technique
  • Object theatre workshop
  • Physical theatre workshop

 

Theory

  • Novel and classical drama structure analysis
  • History and theory of performance
  • Reading seminar with theatre critics Alexandra Dunaeva and Marina Israilova, devoted to cultural studies of the modernist era and the latest philosophical texts

Guest teachers: Victoria Evtukhina, Yana Tumina, Ksenia Petrenko, Masha Danzis, Vladimir Rannev, KLIM, Circumambulation Collective.

The third semester focuses on environmental projects.

Practice

  • Exploring theatre outside of designated theatre spaces
  • Environmental project based on epic poetry
  • Stagecraft
  • Documentary theatre and participatory theatre workshops
  • Staging a theatre production

 

Theory

  • Epic poetry
  • Reading seminar with theatre critics Alexandra Dunaeva and Marina Israilova devoted to cultural studies of the modernist era and the latest philosophical texts

Guest teachers: Ksenia Petrenko, Dmitry Egorov, interdisciplinary laboratory "Around and around".

The fourth semester is reserved for students to stage their graduation projects.

Practice

  • Producing individual graduation projects with supervision and support of the laboratory curators. Students are encouraged to work in any style or genre that is kin to their artistic interests and vision. 

 

Theory

  • Reading seminar: exploring most up-to-date writing about and for the theatre
  • Brief introduction to anthropology.
  • Contemporary art practices: general overview.

 

The result of two-year training in the new theatre laboratory will be an independent theatre production.

During the training students also take classes on the theory and practice of video art, intensive courses on documentary art, drama, lighting, sound, theory and practice of participatory art.