Daniel Arbaczewski, Poland 2023
Daniel Arbaczewski - actor, director, theater educator. He graduated from the acting department of the State Higher School of Theater in Wrocław. For many years he was an actor of the Teatr im. Hans Christian Andersen in Lublin. He directs, conducts projects and conducts workshop sessions in theaters and cultural centers in Poland and abroad. He collaborates with theaters from Belgium, Greece, Norway, Mexico, Indonesia and Egypt.
He curated a project involving Orfeo and Majnun, which was carried out in seven European countries. At the invitation of the Ministry of Culture of Kuwait and Egypt, he conducted original workshop programs during international festivals in Kuwait and Cairo. He currently works at the National Old Theater in Krakow, Poland, where he is responsible for creating educational and creative programs.
The Grotowski method
Acting workshop consisting of exercises based on the working method of the Polish artist Jerzy Grotowski. Grotowski abandoned theater in favor of research that should be placed on the borderline of such fields as anthropology, psychology, religious studies and theater studies. His exercises were a kind of psychotherapy for the participants, while remaining artistic space. The most important issue was interpersonal communication, real, sincere contact, which is possible only through working with the body. Today, Grotowski's techniques are a basic element of the work of actors in Poland and around the world, and they are constantly being researched and developed. In practice, it is important to find the actor's natural emotions based on his experiences, memory, meditation and physical training.
Actors create an individual collection of characters that they play on a daily basis in private life and which can be the basis for creating characters on stage. Creating characters and smooth transitions from one emotion to another becomes the basis for creating stage situations and scenes with other actors. The workshop is a form of intensive training and meditation, in which the extreme emotions recalled make the actor aware of how his body, breath and voice work.