YEAR COURSE - Winter term / Jan-March

The Winter Course is made up of three different subjects which follow the stream of Philippe Gaulier’s pedagogy. This course is the beginig of creating. At the end of each workshop, students will present the piece they created.

Melodrama is a form of ideological theatre born in France around the mid -19 th century and in which the actors played for all they were worth.

Bouffons  Entering the world of Bouffon you need to have a special spirit. The Bouffon is an out cast. They have the eyes of outsider. Look at GOYA’s ‘black paintings’.You will see fantastic humanity in hell.

Feydeau-Vaudeville is a classic French comedy and it helps you discover how you could be light.
“Panache!” Vaudeville actors are very light and elegant. Both men and women are captivated by their charm.

Classes will be hold everyday Monday to Friday

Movement class: 90 minutes + Improvisation class: 120 minutes
 

Students may choose to do one course, a number of courses or to do the whole year – it is up to the student to decide.

You can take any combination of courses, it is not necessary to do a full term or a full year.

The discount price was set up for students doing a full term or seasonal courses.

This class has a capacity of 35 people. Classes may be canceled if the number of applicants is less than the specified minimum (20 people).

The discounted price is exclusively available to students enrolled in a full Autumn course.

Philippe turned 80 years old this year, and he will no longer teach, so we appreciate your understanding. The remaining classes will be led by his assistants, who have collaborated for many years. All our teachers have inherited Philippe Gaulier’s teachings and are active artists internationally

Merodrama is a form of ideological theatre born in France around the mid -19 th century
and in which the acotrs played for all they were worth.

They copiously exaggerated their gestures, spoke in loud, slow voices full of pathos and
rolled their ‘r’ s a great deal. They greatly amplified the noise of their shoes and when
they stopped moving, their fixed point lasted a long time, a very long time. The
solemnity of their thèmes – the poverty of the poeple, the tubercular prostitute, the
lighthouse keeper who must kill his rabid son etc- can explain this grandiloquent ,
bombastic style, but so too can the lack of material means : the lighting is dim, the
audience in the gods rowdy and drunk . They must be subdued at all costs by raising the
actor’s voice more and more. The man who has been drinking must be given strong,
resistant fixed points in order to help him not lose his balance.
The melodrama actors show an incomparable pleasure in playing and the exageration
on which they built this style remains today a great lesson in theatre. Of course, the
themes treated can seem a bit ridiculous but a good melodrama reminds us that around
the age of eleven we cried a great deal Reading ‘‘Sans Famille’’ by Hector Malot or
‘‘David Copperfield’’ by Dickens. Those were the good old days ! The melo days…

The Bouffon is a crippled out cast, a lame person,  a legless or one-armed cripple,  a dwarf,  a midget,  a whore, a homosexual,  a witch,  a heretical priest,  a madman.  He has not been chosen by the gods.  He has been chased into the swamps and ghettos by the children of god in fact,  who have seized the opportunity to announce that in view of the bouffon’s physical and moral ugliness,  the father could not be a great artist of international fame. So his father was the opposite of God,  his father was the devil Lucifer. The Bouffon was elected son of the devil and he was happy about this.  He was happy to be the son of the first Tempter and of the first women seduced: Eve.

In the Bouffon workshop we learn to be a big person who enjoys being Small, with a special additional pleasure enjoyed by those people: blasphemy.

“Vaudeville”, a play by Feydeau. To laugh! No problems!
Everything there is rich, luxurious, and sumptuous. That the actor, on stage, may not be concerned with the problems of society. That he makes us laugh! That he invents many and peculiar loves. That he forgets his keys in his pants at the house of his ex-mistress! And that it rebounds and rebounds all the way to the conjugal bedroom. Vaudeville is beautiful: therein are astounding intrigues that take us directly to the conjugal bedroom. Vaudeville?