Kiara Pipino. Italy 2013
Kiara is currently teaching classes including Acting, Musical Theatre and Movement for Actors at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.
She is Italian and earned her undergraduate degree in Architecture at the University of Genoa where she also pursued a graduate degree in Architecture for Performance.
In 2003 she started the Festival Internazionale Valle Christi, a summer theatre festival in Rapallo (Genova) whose iconic feature is its location: the remains of a Medieval monastery. She still serves as the Artistic Director of the Festival and directs the Festival productions.
She taught Evolution of the Performance Space in Greek and Roman Theatre at the University of Genoa, within the Department of Classics.
In 2008 Kiara moved to the U.S. She obtained an MFA in Directing from the University of Arkansas, where she also served as instructor.
Kiara has directed over 22 plays including musicals, straight plays and new plays both for the professional and academic stage.
Movement for Actors: fundamentals of physical approach to acting
The workshop will allow the participants to familiarize with their body and ground their acting choices in organic movement. The goal of the workshop is to help the actors understand how their body instinctively reacts to all kinds of stimuli before rationalizing the movements. Detecting these reactions is key in combining a more traditional psychologically oriented approach (Stanislavksi) to a physical approach to acting, which is ultimately how actors would be able to achieve their fullest potential on stage.
Participants will experience how “disabling” their brain could effectively improve their connection to their objectives/actions and therefore with their characters. They may discover qualities and shades they had never suspected even existed or they may find behavioral patterns of their own they should be aware of.
A combination of techniques, including but not limited to Viewpoints and Michael Chekhov, will be presented and explored through solo and group exercises.
Finally, the workshop whishes to stimulate the participants’ curiosity in pursuing any of the movement training techniques.