I was recently interviewed about mask making materials associated with Commedia dell’Arte Masks. I thought I’d share this mask makers response here. Question posed: I know you’ve worked (fabulously) with neoprene and other synthetic materials. What would you say to the traditionalists who believe that a mask needs to “breathe” or be made of “organic” […]
The larval mask or Basel Mask has its origins in the celebration of Carnival in Basel, Switzerland. This mask has become an integral part of the actor training sequence developed at The International School of Theatre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, France. Lecoq’s research and teaching is an extension of the work begun by Copeau at […]
Mark Fortier once said, “The purpose of theater is to put the audience in a better position to understand the world around them.” Theater can be an introduction to the truth about life that comes to light through the expressions showcased within the masks. Practitioners in professional theater and educational know that a theater mask […]
Since man appeared on the timeline, masks have represented characters in theatrical performances. Primitive man used them. All indigenous cultures have mask traditions. In Greece, the significance of theatre masks increased from ritual to ritual-drama. Theatre masks have gained immense popularity with the passage of time. In the Middle Ages masks were used in the […]
The Question of Masks in Devising I was recently speaking with a colleague about a devising workshop that we are planning and he asked me, “why use masks?” This prompted a lot of thought, which led to a lot of questions and then to a lot more thought. Here are some of those thoughts shared. […]
What is Economy of movement? Why would that be important? I was once having a conversation with a colleague and had just mentioned having finished the section on neutral theatre mask. She asked me how long I had spent with the students on the neutral mask exercises. I replied eight weeks. She was shocked. What […]
This blog post is going be all over the place so be warned. It has been hard to focus my thoughts on any one aspect of what I do given the events in the world at large. I spend my days caught between the world I live in and the world that is being imposed […]
This past summer 15 artists from eight states, Canada and UK gathered in the studio spaces to create new work using theater masks. The theme of the workshop was The Rise and Fall of the Other. The intention was to create story that reflected the cycle that plagues humanity as concerns the ostracizing of those […]
Congratulations to Jordan Moore the third winner of Theater-Masks.com’s Bi-Annual Scholarship. Jordan will be a student at The University of North Carolina School of Arts School of Filmmaking in the fall of 2017. The number of applications for the Theater-Masks.com Scholarship was amazing this time around. After the initial read there were 8 applications that […]
The following is a sequence in which theater masks provide the cornerstone as concerns understanding and integration of physical principles for the actor. Several movement classes are listed and theater masks play a role in some as well as physical classes that are intended as preparation for the mask work. The sequence is designed to […]
