Workshops
Internships, laboratories and research residencies
IFO asbl
The training and research activities of the Belova-Iacobelli Company are organized by IFO asbl.
IFO asbl was created on the initiative of Natacha Belova, director and set designer, and Javier Chavez, producer. The mission of the asbl is the creation of shows by the Belova-Iacobelli company, as well as research and transmission of skills around the art of puppetry and masks. Constituted as an ASBL in 2016 in Brussels, IFO has been active since 2012. Currently, the association has: produced two shows and one in creation, organized 35 workshops and 7 laboratories in 16 countries in Europe, America, Africa and Asia, more than 630 artists of 45 different nationalities have participated in these projects. Other recognized Belgian and foreign artists also lead workshops organized by the association. We can mention Jean-Michel d’Hoop, Michel Villée, Nicole Mossoux, Fabrice Rodriguez and Emmanuelle Mathieu from Belgium, Tita Iacobelli (Chile), Duda Paiva (Netherlands), Eduardo Felix (Brazil)
WORKSHOPS 2024
FONDS 304 The workshops organised by the Belova-Iacobelli / IFO asbl company in 2024 are supported by FONDS 304 which will intervene at the amount indicated on each workshop. FONDS 304 is available to workers in the performing arts sector (joint committee 304) in the Walloon or Brussels region, who are currently in a position covered by CP 304 or who can prove that they have worked for one or more French-speaking CP 304 employers for 30 days over the past 24 months. To obtain support from FONDS 304, participants must submit an application.
Contact workshop@tchaika.art if you would like to apply to the FONDS 304 or have any other questions regarding our workshops.
INTIMATE MODELS
Workshop by Pablo Gershanik
Dates : 3-7 June 2024
Working schedule : 10am – 5pm with a one-hour lunch break.
Address : Zinneke Parade, Pl. Masui 13, 1000 Brussels (Belgium)
Fee : 500 € Materials included
Meals, transport and accommodation not included.
Request for support from FONDS 304 possible up to 450€
Language : french, english, spanish and italian
Number of participants : maximum 15
Profile of the participants : professional puppeteers, actors, dancers, set designers, visual artists, workers in the socio-cultural field.
Objectives : The Intimate Model Laboratory aims to explore « metaphor » as the possibility of transforming a painful experience by symbolizing it in a new way. To provide professional tools to people working in the artistic field of performance and socio-cultural support.
In a process of research and creation, a group of people work with art tools, and from a lived experience, to create a multimedia object intended to create links between personal and social history. This device, created by the Argentinean artist Pablo Gershanik, was born out of an interest in aesthetically addressing traumatic experiences that are emblematic for a person, a family or a community. The process of « mise en page » was proposed as a tool for transposing moments experienced by Argentine society, through the creation of aesthetic mechanisms of mediation and resilience in the face of an experience of suffering in both personal and social history.
Method : The Intimate Models Laboratory directed by Pablo Gershanik is a research creation device for a group of “modellers” (people who have had a traumatic or emblematic personal experience) who will work, during some team sessions, on three aspects:
1. Representation. The team will use tools from the theater of movement (expressive play, object’s theatre) to search for the symbolic and metaphorical universe that makes up each intimate model).
2. Memory. Composition and production of models. Each participant will develop their model work based on their personal experience and their narration of it. Although each creation can be purely individual, the project seeks to generate dialogues and exchanges where each model can be nourished by the work of the other participants. Creation groups bring together artists, people from the therapeutic field, people who want to explore the device, and people who have experienced a traumatic or emblematic event.
3. Social ties. Interaction between participants for reflection, documentation and presentation of the models to the public.
Each participant will engage in the creation of a multimedia or three-dimensional device (a model). This work of theatrical storytelling will be the result of the work of creation and transposition from a personal experience as well as from the interaction with the proposals of the other participants.
To find out more about Pablo Gershanik and his work : maquetasintimas.com / Teaser Maquettes Intimes
To apply please complete the Application Form
Closing date for applications May 2024
CREATING THEATRE MASKS
LABORATORY of CREATION and EXPERIMENTATION led by Loïc Nebreda, assisted by Isis Hauben,
Louis Régnier (sound) and Eugénie Poste (costume) also intervene for three days.
Fabrication techniques, an approach to acting, the creative process and experiments with voice and sound, and the globality of the figure-costume.
Dates : 16-28 September 2024
Working schedule : 9am – 5pm with a one-hour lunch break.The workshop remains open until 7pm.
Address : Zinneke Parade, Pl. Masui 13, 1000 Brussels (Belgium)
Fee : 900 € Mask-making materials included.
Specific supplies requested by the participant (materials other than those proposed, but also costumes, hats, wigs, etc.) are not included. However, a small stock of wigs and costumes is available for the duration of the workshop.
Meals, transport and accommodation not included.
Request for support from FONDS 304 possible up to 550€
Language : french and english
Number of participants : maximum 15
Profile of the participants : artists, technicians, performing arts educators, visual artists, performers…
«I organise these creative workshops to share my experience and, above all, to encourage the emergence of new forms of mask theatre. More than a construction workshop, each participant is invited not only to discover mask-making techniques, but above all to immerse themselves in the entire creative process: defining the project, making the masks, dealing with the body, metamorphosis and acting. The masks ultimately take shape only in the imagination of each spectator during the performance: all the work beforehand consists of preparing the support for these projections, fictions in movement, different for each member of the audience. The masks are not decorative accessories or facial adornments. This year, the workshop is being extended from ten to twelve days. Louis Régnier, sound designer, will be joining us again for the last three days to extend the research (experimentation with sound for actions, voice shifts, etc.) and Eugénie Poste, costume designer, will also be joining us for three days to further develop the globality of the figure.» Loïc Nebreda
Objectives :This 12-day laboratory aims to share the experience acquired over numerous productions (twenty years) and to enable each participant to initiate a new creation. Time will be divided between technical demonstrations, plastic research, improvisations and sound experiments. It is important to grasp what is involved in creating a mask, particularly from the point of view of the actor’s performance, and to develop a global imagination that goes beyond a catalogue of technical recipes. The idea is not so much to arrive at a perfect object as to leave with the keys to moving forward independently.
Method :You will be asked to come up with a project, a vision and a precise set of visual references. Whatever direction your research takes, it should be based on a well-defined work (play, novel, etc.) or theme and on observations made in everyday life (faces, movements, etc.). You will receive a more detailed document to help you prepare your project once your enrolment has been confirmed.
Please note: A twelve-day laboratory is not a substitute for an anatomy course. If your project aims to be realistic and you are a complete beginner, it is essential that you get organised beforehand to acquire a minimum of modelling experience.
To find out more about Loïc Nebreda and his work: loicnebreda.com
To apply please complete the Application Form
Closing date for applications June 2024
LABORATORY PUPPET MANIPULATION
Workshop by Michel Villée and Noémie Vincart
Dates : 14-18 October 2024
Working schedule : 10am – 5pm with a one-hour lunch break.
Address : Quai 41, Rue des Coteaux 41, 1210 Saint-Josse-ten-Noode (Belgium)
Fee : 476 €
Meals, transport and accommodation not included.
Request for support from FONDS 304 possible up to 450€
Language : french and english
Number of participants : maximum 12
Profile of the participants : This workshop is for all actors and other stage artists who wish to discover the practice of puppetry. The course is also open to visual artists, stage designers, builders and musicians.
Objectives : The first objective is to build up a good technical base in terms of manipulating puppets. We will review with the participants the technical points necessary to approach puppet manipulation as practised within the Une Tribu collective.
The second objective will be to look specifically at puppet writing in silent theatre. The study of this language will go alongside research specific to each participant, who will have the opportunity to explore his or her personal relationship to this language and to the puppet, as well as his or her own desire for stage performance.
Content/Programme: We will study realistic and non-realistic modes of manipulation, and we will work specifically on questions of rhythm, look and space. We’ll learn to handle the object, to direct it, but also to follow it. We’ll learn to trust it and discover what it has to say, thanks to us and also in spite of us. Then we’ll look at working in association and dissociation. We’ll also work on the transition from one to the other. We’ll look at the technical elements that make these two forms of manipulation possible. In dissociation, we will also experiment with the interaction of the actor-puppeteer with his own puppet. Those who do not have their own puppet and/or those who wish to change puppets during the course of the work will be able to use the puppets available for the occasion.
To find out more about Michel Villée, Noémie Vincart and their work: www.unetribu.be
To apply please complete the Application Form
ONLINE WORKSHOP
Human-arm puppet creation workshop, by Natacha Belova
Plateform : belova.podia.com
Dates : You have access to all information and videos for one year from the day of registration
Fee : 150€
Language : English and French
Description : Through these 8 video capsules Natacha Belova will guide you through the process of making a human-arm puppet; from the original design to the first stage appearance.
The human-arm puppet is attached to the puppeteer’s waist and their legs and hands become those of the puppet. The bodies of the puppet and puppeteer combine into a single unit.
In these 8 video capsules, Natacha will be making a puppet for a project that she intends to stage. This is not just about sharing the secrets of puppet-making step-by-step, but it also involves serious considerations of meaning and form; which are an essential part of the process of making a puppet.
Fabrication method : the head will be sculpted out of clay and finished in Worbla (thermoplastic resin) and the body will be made from foam. For this first workshop the puppet’s mouth will not be articulated.
The process is divided up into the following steps : preparation (project, visual palette, outline sketches, materials); clay sculpture of the head (pattern, volume, proportions, the character’s personality); the eyes (either sculpted in the clay or made separately and added later); sculpting the hand; finishing the head in thermoplastics (covering with sheets of resin, finishing touches, fitting the eyes, fitting the control rod); making the body (cutting out the torso, the arms, assembly); making the neck, hair, painting; costume; stage testing with the actress/puppeteer Tita Iacobelli.
Past workshops
2023 December : Laboratory Puppet Manipulation, Workshop Michel Villée and Noémie Vincart, Brussels (Belgium)
2023 August : Creating theatre masks, Loïc Nebreda, Brussels (Belgium)
2023 August : Workshop The Other, Natacha Belova and Tita Iacobelli, Brussels (Belgium)
2023 July : Intimate Models, Workshop Pablo Gershanik, Brussels (Belgium)
2022 October : Focus on: creating realistic looks, Workshop Loïc Nebreda, Brussels (Belgium)
2022 October : Creating theatre masks, Loïc Nebreda, Brussels (Belgium)
2022 August : Workshop The Other, Natacha Belova and Tita Iacobelli, Brussels (Belgium)
2022 July : Workshop Michel Villée, Brussels (Belgium)
2020 October : Workshop Natacha Belova, Charleville-Mézières (France)
2020 September : Workshop Natacha Belova, Tournai (Belgium)
2020 September : Workshop Tita Iacobelli, Tournai (Belgium)
2020 September : Workshop Fabrice Rodriguez, Brussels (Belgium) – cancelled
2020 June : Workshop Duda Paiva, Brussels (Belgium)
2019 December : Master Classe Natacha Belova (Tunisia)
2019 December : Workshop Tita Iacobelli, (Tunisia)
2019 November : Workshop Fabrice Rodriguez, Brussels (Belgium)
2019 November : Workshop Natacha Belova, Beijing (China) – cancelled
2019 October : Laboratory Natacha Belova, Milan (Italy)
2019 July : Workshop Natacha Belova, St Petersburg (Russia)
2019 July : Workshop Michel Villée, Brussels (Belgium)
2019 May : Workshop Natacha Belova, Brussels (Belgium)
2018 October : Workshop Natacha Belova, Taipei (Taiwan)
2018 August : Workshop Natacha Belova, Brussels (Belgium)
2018 July : Workshop Natacha Belova, Istanbul (Turkey)
2018 July : Workshop Duda Paiva, Brussels (Belgium)
2018 June : Workshop Michel Villée, Brussels (Belgium)
2018 April : Workshop Emmanuelle Mathieu, Brussels (Belgium)
2018 March : Workshop Natacha Belova, Brussels (Belgium)
2018 January : Workshop Eduardo Felix and Aurora Majnoni, Madrid (Spain)
2017 December : Workshop Natacha Belova, Brussels (Belgium)
2017 September : Workshop Jean Michel d’Hoop and Pierre Jacqumin, Brussels (Belgium)
2017 July : : Laboratory Natacha Belova and Nicole Mossoux, Brussels (Belgium)
2017 April : Workshop Natacha Belova, Geneva (Switzerland)
2017 January : Workshop Eduardo Felix, Brussels (Belgium)
2016 November : Laboratory Natacha Belova, Mirko Mescia and Mariana Elizalde, Buenos Aires (Argentina)
2016 September : Workshop Natacha Belova, Toulouse (France)
2016 September : Workshop Duda Paiva, Brussels (Belgium)
2016 August : Workshop Natacha Belova, Brussels (Belgium)
2016 November : Workshop Duda Paiva and Francesca Lanza, Pinerolo (Italy)
2015 May : Workshop Natacha Belova, Lisbonne (Portugal)
2016 June : Workshop Duda Paiva, Fafe (Portugal)
2016 April : Workshop Natacha Belova, Belo Horizonte (Brazil)
2016 February : Laboratory Natacha Belova, Pinerolo (Italy)
2015 November : Laboratory Natacha Belova, Brussels (Belgium)
2015 August : Workshop Natacha Belova, Mexico (Mexico)
2015 July : Workshop Natacha Belova, Madrid (Spain)
2015 June : Workshop Natacha Belova, Tolosa (Spain)
2015 May : Laboratory Natacha Belova, Santiago (Chile)
2015 May : Laboratory Natacha Belova, Santiago (Chile)
2014 October : Workshop Natacha Belova, Santiago (Chile)
2014 August : Workshop Natacha Belova, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
2014 April : Workshop Natacha Belova, Santiago (Chile)
2013 July : Workshop Natacha Belova, Charleville-Mézières (France)
2013 April : Workshop Natacha Belova, Santiago (Chile)
2012 May : Workshop Natacha Belova, Santiago (Chile)
CONTACT
With
Wallonie-Bruxelles Théâtre Danse