04/04/11: Group Training - Grotowski Workcenter

This week I have the pleasure of participating in three days of training with Mario Biagini of the Grotowski Workcenter in Pontedera, Italy.

Today there were approximately 16 of us in the group, plus Mario and one of the students from the Open Program.

The training consisted of three hours of singing traditional vibratory songs of the Afro-Caribbean tradition and about thirty minutes of question/answer.

The work was challenging and involved very little verbal instruction. Even Mario’s answers to questions respected the experiential, cumulative, personal nature of the work; he cannot and thus will not attempt to explain it all in words. I appreciate the emphasis on non-discursive knowledge-production as well as the sheer difficulty of the songs themselves.