Stamatis Efstathiou will be conducting a workshop ‘Theatre of Connection’ till January 29 at Shoonya. Stamatis Efstathiou, Atropos artistic director, is practising theatre as a director and researcher, performer’s trainer, performer and writer.

The Theatre of Connection — Atropos Laboratory theatre group’s philosophy of work — is a process of physical theatre; a style or tradition of theatre that places the body (and not a written script) at the centre of creation. It is thus experiential, and not intellectual.

This kind of theatre is not ‘realistic’. It is not a copy of everyday behaviour, dress, manners, relationships and social problems like in cinema, but through ‘non-realistic’ or heightened expressions, it dives into the deep, hidden aspect of our nature, our sub-conscious, from where the mythical, poetic and fantastic dimensions of our beings are brought out.

It is thus a process of self-discovery through the tools of theatre — gesture, movement, song, chant and text. This kind of theatre practice has as much to do with anthropology (studies of aesthetic and ritual traditions), as it does with Freudian notions of the Id and the Jungian constructs of a ‘universal unconscious’ and archetypes. Without being political, it becomes a process of self-reflection and transformation.

Stamatis especially works with the juxtaposition of actions that can be considered 'sacred' (holy songs, ritual actions) with those that can be termed ‘silly’ (the act of clowns, buffoons, etc.). From this opposition, he constructs a poetic ‘language’ of performance.

 Stamatis has wandered around Europe following masters in Poland, in France, in Germany and in Serbia. He founded Atropos Laboratory Theatre Ensemble in 2004 and since then, has been participating as director, performer and writer in various theatre projects in Greece, India, Poland, Iran, Germany, Armenia, Bulgaria,  Denmark and South Korea.

The venue of the workshop is Shoonya – Centre for Art and Somatic Practices, 4th Floor, Rear Wing, Brahmananda Court, 37 Lal Bagh Road. The timing of the workshop is from 10 am to 2 pm.