Donatella Damato, Italy 2017
Donatella Damato is an actress, a director and an acting trainer.
In 1997 she earned a diploma in Acting at Permis de Conduire International Academy of Rome. In 2003 she obtained a degree in Metodologia e Critica dello Spettacolo at La Sapienza University of Rome. She attended, in Italy and abroad, many workshops (Zoomorphism with Shona Morris of the Royal Academy in London, Acting training with Augusto Omolù from the Odin Theatret, Butoh Dance with Masaki Iwana e.g.) and attended the European School of Ananda Yoga® in Assisi where she obtained the diplomas of Instructor of Energization Exercises of Paramhansa Yogananda®, Ananda Yoga and Ananda Yoga during pregnancy
For the last twenty years she has joined different plays as actress and director and she has leaded different acting and drama classes in Italy and abroad both privately with the association Peter Panphili before and with the association Il Kantiere – Arte in Corso d’Opera now, and in public schools through the European funds PON. She oversaw the editing of a book entitled “Dal racconto all’azione scenica” for 2011/12 drama students. Actually she lives in Foggia where she leads Kantiere – Arte in Corso d’Opera, an organization born with the aim of promote the merging of various cultural expressions (drama, cinematography, music, performing and visual arts).
Creating a character through working with Chakra
The class is a physical workout (through Ananda Yoga practice) that leads the performer to metabolize and physically assimilate techniques to take on the staging calmly, even dealing with unexpected or sudden changes.
In addition, using some of the practices of Ananda Yoga (breathing, asanas, statements), the student will be able to implement a work on the Persona, starting from human characteristics ascribed to those energy points known as Chakras.
Through the study of the psychophysical characteristics of each Chakra you can get to know and recognize the archetypes inside the theatrical characters (simplifying to the extreme, it is possible, for example, to attribute to Hamlet an Earth-Water personality - dominant elements of the first and second Chakra).
Each student will play a short text in the second half of the workshop.