Improvizza! Malta Improv Festival
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Improvizza! Malta Improv Festival
Dates
Thursday 15th – Sunday 18th September 2022
Workshops | from 10am – 4:30pm
Shows | from 7:30pm – 10:30pm
Improvizza! is Malta’s first ever improvisation festival! Aimed at local and international performers and improvisers, Improvizza! will be offering a number of two-day and three-hour workshops during the day, followed by performances and other events in the evenings.
Participants will have a number of ways of being a part of this festival, from workshops to jams to showcase performances. The Festival will bring a number of international improv teachers and performers to Malta to teach workshops and perform in shows that will be open to all. The workshops cover a variety of skills and the performances will showcase different improv styles. This is a great opportunity for local and international theatre practitioners, improvisers and beyond to experience the world of improv in a wonderful setting that is Spazju Kreattiv in Malta’s capital city, Valletta.
Creative Team
Patti Stiles – Teacher/Performer
Pierpaolo Buzza – Teacher/Performer
Javier Pastor – Teacher/Performer
Alessio Granato – Teacher/Musician
Jurgi Erquicia – Teacher/Performer
Dani Picó – Teacher/Performer
Simone Ellul – Teacher/Performer
Dorian Mallia – Teacher
Informazzjoni fuq il-Biljetti
Shows
Thursday 15th September at 19:30
Maestro™ – A group of improvisers will challenge each other for the title of “Maestro”. This is a show that combines theatre and sport in an evening of fun-filled madness, where you, the audience, decides who is the best performer! Think of a competitive reality show that happens before your eyes and with your input! Vote for your favourite improviser and eliminate the ones you don’t like until only one improviser is left! Their destiny is in your hands!
Friday 16th September at 19:30
Improv Show – TBC – Get ready to see songs and dances created out of thin air! You are guaranteed to leave this student showcase singing songs that were created just for you.
Mythic – Let us tell you the tale about… Myths are a symbolic narrative that explains the existence of the world, some natural phenomena or are created just for pleasure, to intrigue the imagination of the audience.
A duo show with Patti Stiles and Pierpaolo Buzza.
The Extra – Our extra is nearing the end of their film career and has given an interview in which we will review all their minimal interventions in their filmography. A walk through their contributions to the industry in the form of small artistic pearls.
Directed by Javier Pastor.
Saturday 17th September at 19:30
What If? – How can a small change affect different people? Inspired by Sergi Belbel’s play “Morir”, What If… shows us a series of independent scenes that share a common pattern, but are more connected than we think. (Student Showcase Javier)
Eight Worlds – “Eight Worlds” draws from actors’ and audience’s personal real-life stories, mixing to create pure magic on stage. We will share laughs, emotions, surreal characters and we will transition from one world to another with multiple, invisible threads connecting them. Are you ready to go exploring with us?
Directed by Pierpaolo Buzza.
Sunday 18th September at 19:30
Genesis – In this long form, we will see how stories are created. There will be many possible beginnings, many possibilities in the multiverse, then one will take shape and will be explored in all its sides. Maybe we will laugh, maybe we will get emotional, maybe something else… we won’t know until the Genesis has taken place. (Student Showcase Pierpaolo Buzza)
Amelia – Amelia is the protagonist of our story. But we never see her. We only know her through the stories of those closest to her. And yet, after this hour it is as if it had always been a part of our lives.
An Improvised One-Act Play – Based on an audience inspiration we will create and bring to life a one-act play. Perhaps a thought-provoking drama, a witty comedy, something bold and challenging or a combination of all of the above.
Directed by Patti Stiles.
Workshops
2-day Workshops
Price: €150 per workshop
Javier Pastor
Physics, Magic And Points Of View
In this workshop we’ll work with different structures inspired by laws of physics (such as: causality, simultaneity, the butterfly effect, parallel universes) and points of view (such as: subjectivity, repetitions, angles). We will also create scene codes that will allow us to improvise superpowers (such as: mind control, mind reading, teleportation, invisibility) With the help of these magical and scientific devices, we will then perform in a show that will amaze our audiences and make us look like we have improv superpowers.
Will this workshop offer a student showcase at the end? Yes.
The ideal experience level for participants of the workshop: Intermediate and Advanced
Maximum number of participants: 16
Dates of Workshop: Thursday 15th and Friday 16th September
Timings: 10:00 – 13:00, 14:00 – 16:30
Link: http://ticketenginex.kreattivita.org?eventname=Javier+Pastor+2+day+Workshop
Sell until has been set to 3pm on the 15th Sept. – after this no further tickets can be sold for this workshop.
Pierpaolo Buzza
Dramedy
Just like reality can make us laugh and cry at the same time, so can our improv shows. The way to do this is to play neither for the tears nor for the laughs, but for the truth instead. In this workshop, we will play with grounded scenes and multi-layered characters, working on discovery as opposed to invention, and we will see how all the emotions we need are already all there: we just need to explore them.
Will this workshop offer a student showcase at the end? Yes.
The ideal experience level for participants of the workshop: At least one year of improvisation experience
Maximum number of participants: 12
Dates of Workshop: Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th September
Timings: 10:00 – 13:00, 14:00 – 16:30
Link: http://ticketenginex.kreattivita.org?eventname=Pierpaolo+Buzza+2+Day+Workshop
Sell until has been set to 3pm on the 17th Sept. – after this no further tickets can be sold for this workshop.
Patti Stiles
The Impro Playground
Each time we walk on stage the audience wonders what will happen. They instinctively search for clues in what we are doing to answer that curiosity. Many improvisors have lost this innocence, wonder, instinct and curiosity. They no longer improvise to explore what might happen. They play within strategic patterns to control what will happen.
This workshop is about exploration, connection, the obvious, the unknown and what we can unleash when we step into improvisation without expectation but with vulnerability and openness.
This workshop is for experienced improvisors who love discovery and who can leave their bag of impro tricks in their room. 😉
Will this workshop offer a student showcase at the end? No.
The ideal experience level for participants of the workshop: Advanced
Maximum number of participants: 12
Dates of Workshop: Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th September
Timings: 10:00 – 13:00, 14:00 – 16:30
Link:http://ticketenginex.kreattivita.org?eventname=Patti+Stiles+2+Day+Workshop
Sell until has been set to 3pm on the 17th Sept. – after this no further tickets can be sold for this workshop.
Three-Hour Workshops
Morning Session: 10:00 – 13:00
Afternoon Session: 14:00 – 17:00
Price: €40 per workshop, €150 if booking four workshops at the same time.
Thursday 15th September Morning Session:
Patti Stiles
Classic games!
Many classic impro games are actually exercises that build improvisation skill and technique. Plus, they are great fun to play. Come have an impro workout with a heck of a lot of laughs!
Experience Level: All Levels
Max. No. of Participants: 20
Link: http://ticketenginex.kreattivita.org?eventname=Patti+Stiles+3+Hour+Workshop
Thursday 15th September Afternoon Session:
Simone Ellul
Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Touch Me!
Let’s learn to make physical contact again! Following two years of pandemic we now no longer know how or whether to touch our scene partners. In this workshop we will explore how to regain some of the trust we have lost and gently allow physical contact to happen, always respecting people’s consent and boundaries.
Experience Level: All Levels
Max. No. of Participants: 20
Friday 16th September Morning Session:
Link: http://ticketenginex.kreattivita.org?eventname=Simone+Ellul+3+Hour+Workshop
Pierpaolo Buzza
Game of the Scene
Want to spice up your scenes with some comedy? One of my favourite ways of doing it is finding, and playing, the game of the scene. In this workshop we will sharpen our senses to recognize what is going on in our scene, and then learn how to have fun with it by escalating, and breaking the glass ceiling between realistic and paradoxical.
Experience Level: At least one year improv experience
Max. No. of Participants: 12
Link: http://ticketenginex.kreattivita.org?eventname=Pierpaolo+Buzza+3+Hour+Workshop
Saturday 17th September Morning Session:
Javier Pastor
How to Survive an Improv Apocalypse
We work on more than twenty scenarios where one improviser will be programmed as an “Anti-Improv Robot” trying to boycott the scene while their partner will try to save the story. The first step is how to be conscious of those elements that kill a story and then we will develop tools to fight them.
Experience Level: All Levels
Max. No. of Participants: 16
Link: http://ticketenginex.kreattivita.org?eventname=Javier+Pastor+3+Hour+Workshop
Saturday 17th September Afternoon Session:
Alessio Granato
ATTITUDE
Sound, music and attitude as trigger elements of the creative phase of improvisation.
Music makes us cry, it moves us, it makes us laugh, sometimes shout, jump or dance. Music encourages us and (re)charges us. It often makes us fall in love. Music is therefore a collection of emotions to be lived and discovered. And emotions are an essential element when building an improvisation scene.
No musical knowledge is necessary to take this workshop. In fact, we will discover how certain ‘talents’ are innate and have always been a part of us. We will also learn the importance of silence, of pauses, of rhythm and listening – essential elements for an improvisation actor’s creative phase, both on a personal and group level, following the emotional flow that is induced by music.
Three different approaches will be analysed:
- CREATIVE: where the improviser creates situations and sequences by allowing themselves to be transported by the emotions that the music provokes;
- ACTIVE: music captures the attention and amplifies mutual listening, emphasising the balance of the different parts; it makes us be actively involved and directly engaged, music directs internal experiences towards the outside;
- Music as AMPLIFYER OF EMOTIONS: through sounds, the voice (but not words), noises, body language and attitude.
Music will therefore be an integral and active part of the workshop, including through the use of rhythm and a physical-emotive involvement, in order to be able to improvise by allowing oneself to be transported by the energy that notes give us.
[“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.” – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]
Experience Level: All Levels
Max. No. of Participants: 12
Link: http://ticketenginex.kreattivita.org?eventname=Alessio+Granato+3+Hour+Workshop
Sunday 18th September Morning Session:
Dorian Mallia
The Narrative of the Body
Dance is fueled by emotions. It is a process of feeling, and then allows us to move through that feeling. It has a combination of elements that help us become more intune with our emotions and how we express them. Through a number of dance improvisation exercises we will discover how the body in movement can express a thousand words and we can then apply this movement to our scene work as improvisers.
Experience Level: All Levels
Max. No. of Participants: 15
Link: http://ticketenginex.kreattivita.org?eventname=Dorian+Mallia+3+Hour+Workshop
Sunday 18th September Afternoon Session:
Jurgi Erquicia
The Stories You’re Not Telling
Do you share your gender identity, gender expression and affective-sexual orientation with the 99% of your characters? What keeps you from exploring and increasing the other 1%?
In the workshop ‘The stories you’re not telling’, you will learn about affective-sexual diversity and gender identities through improv. You will become aware of your own prejudices and get the tools to leave them behind on and off stage.
Experience Level: Intermediate and Advanced.
Max. No. of Participants: 20
Link: http://ticketenginex.kreattivita.org?eventname=Jurgi+Erquicia+3+Hour+Workshop
Teachers
Two-Day Workshops
Pierpaolo Buzza
Pierpaolo Buzza is a professional improviser, director, author and actor from Italy, currently based in Belgium, where he is the Artistic Director of Impro Brussels. He teaches and directs scripted and unscripted theatre at levels. He has been doing this job since 2006, creating and playing formats of all kinds: from short form games to dramatic long form… and everything in between. Other than theatre, his biggest passion is writing, as they’re both beautiful means for telling stories. When he’s not in Belgium, he’s teaching and performing Improv around the world: across Europe, Asia, North America, and South America.
He makes the best carbonara on the planet and has a portrait in the attic that gets old in his place.
Javier Pastor
Javier Pastor has a degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and a higher degree in Stage Direction and Dramaturgy from the Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático. He is currently reading for a degree in History and Geography. He has been doing improvisation for the past twenty years, fourteen of which as a teacher. He is the founder and director of his own school, El Club de la Impro, since 2009. He has created and directed over fifty different shows, including Artylógico, Imprópolis, Click!, Mr. Bailey, No Form, 9.58 Seconds, and What/If. He has also collaborated with various improv troupes by performing in and directing numerous shows. He has participated in numerous festival both at a national and international level and has travelled internationally to train students and direct shows. He is also a corporate trainer, where he works on the development of social skills using improvisation as a point of departure. From 2012 to 2019 he was a theatre teacher at the Colegio Estilo at primary level. In 2011 he won the prestigious Antonio Buero Vallejo prize with his play Brut.
Patti Stiles
Patti Stiles is an actor, director, author, playwright and teacher who specialises in improvisational theatre. Patti is an alumnus of The Loose Moose Theatre Co. (Canada), Rapid Fire Theatre (Canada) and is a core member of the award winning “Die Nasty”. Patti is the first woman to have improvised for 53 hours straight during the Die Nasty Soap-a Thon! The press has dubbed her “Impro Doyen” and “Queen of Improvisation.”
Patti received her impro training first hand by the ground-breaking “Impro” teacher, Keith Johnstone, at the legendary Loose Moose Theatre Company in Canada. She has taught and performed on five continents in different genres, styles and media.
Patti has been featured in the impro magazine Status, is a contributor to the book Art of Mistakes, was interviewed for the books Something Like A Drug and The Improv Handbook (which is dedicated to Patti in recognition of her mentorship.)
In 2021 she released her first book Improvise Freely, which has also been translated into Italian.
Alessio Granato
His passion for music started when he was a child. In 2007 he started his improv adventure with the improvisation school Compagnia Maia in Latina, and while there performed in numerous shows that ranged from short to long form. He started working as an improv musician in improv matches, both at an amateur and professional level and he also started to accompany shows all over Italy.
Alessio has been working with the improvisation company “Appiccicaticci” as actor and musician in various improvisational theatre shows, and has also performed in street art festivals in various parts of Italy.
He also collaborates with the company “i Bugiardini” as deputy Musical Director and actor in “B.L.U.E. Il Musical Completamente Improvvisato” and as a musician in “Shhh! An Improvised Silent Movie”, taking the show to the 2016 and 2018 editions of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
As of 2016 he is also the musician for the “Welcome! Improvisation Festival” in Rome. He also collaborates with a number of other improvisational theatre companies as a musician. These include: ImproTeatro, M.I..Ro, Roma Improv, Verbavolant, Teatro a Molla and Coffee Brecht.
Short Workshops:
Simone Ellul
Simone has experience in acting, directing and scriptwriting. She has MFA in Staging Shakespeare from the University of Exeter and is also a qualified Intimacy Director. She has extensive improvisation experience and is a member of several improv troupes. She has performed both online and in person with international teams, participating in numerous international improvisation festivals. She has taught at the Dramatic Improv Festival in Chicago and Agorapp in Italy. Her focus is mainly on grounded improv and intimacy. She recently directed Etikette, a fully improvised theatre-dance show for Teatru Malta. Recent acting credits include Emilia in Othello, Dr. Martha Livingstone in Agnes of God and Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible. Her play The Garden won the Best Script award at the MADC’s One-Act Play Festival in 2019.
Jurgi Erquicia
Jurgi Erquicia studied scriptwriting for cinema and TV at Carlos III University, acting with Juan Codina and doing improvisation since he discovered it back in 2012. He has performed in English for many improv events and won the international Spanish-speaking Catch tournament ‘Impro Valetodo’ in 2020. Currently, he is a member of the Spanish improv theater company El Club de La Impro and a Cogam activist for LGTBIAQ+ rights in Madrid.
Dorian Mallia
Dorian Mallia, is the founder and Artistic Director of Moveo Dance Company and is a dance practitioner/scholar. He graduated from Central School of Ballet (London), where he obtained a degree in Professional Dance and Performance, and pursued a Master’s degree in Performing Studies (Dance) at the University of Malta. He has performed at top international venues with companies including European Ballet in the UK, RBR Dance Company in Verona (Italy), LaMov Compania de Danza (Spain), Paganini Dance Company in Rome and Mavinkhoodance (Singapore) to mention a few. In 2008 he set up Moveo Dance Company, whose repertoire has been performed locally as well as internationally. Dorian has given company classes at the RBR Dance Company in Verona, Random Dance Company and ZfinMalta. He has also given a number of Masterclasses and other lectures.
As a choreographer, educator, researcher, and performer he constantly seeks new ways to develop different narratives and movement in contemporary dance, taking advantage of the way the boundaries between artistic disciplines continue to blur.
Dani Picó
Daniel began his improv training in 2002. He started teaching improv in 2005. In 2010 he became part of El Club de la Impro. Together wiith Javier Pastor, he won the first two editions of the Madrid Catch Championship and, performing as part of the company El Club de la Impro, won the Best Improvisation Show award at the Finnish Improvisation Festival in 2014. Currently, in addition to teaching at the Club, he acts in and directs various improv formats in different theatres in Madrid.