Shaarayim – Foundations of Plastic Arts

In this introductory course to Plastic Arts, we shall practice together a wide variety of work methods: we shall learn how to approach creative work, how to observe what we have created, how to plan in detail, how to let the body take the lead, how to discuss an art object, to which contexts the work belongs and what it adds or subtracts from the sequence of time and the existing history. The course includes classroom experience, homework, and personal presentations.

Making a Film – Project

A year-long project of producing one film in common. We shall start by developing a script, continue with directing and planning the shooting, and move on to shooting days, editing and post-production. Participants will be assigned a specific role and will work in coordination with other team members. Due to the different between roles, the project has no fixed hours, and requires a willingness to work independently according to production needs.

Dates:

Introductory meeting - project presentation:

Tuesday, October 25, 2022, on the 12:00-12:30 break

First meeting:

Monday, October 31, 2022, between 19:30 and 21:30

Second meeting:

Monday, November 21, 2022, between 19:30 and 21:30

Third meeting:

Monday, December 19, 2022, between 19:30 and 21:30

Fourth meeting:

Monday, January 23, 2023, between 19:30 and 21:30

** In the 2^nd semester, the class will be held on Tuesdays between 12:30 and 15:30.

A Different Place

In this course we shall create one film in a different place.

Each student will choose an actual place in the real world and use it as an inspiration for a short film.

Building on 1^st year experience, the use of diverse techniques will be encouraged as a means of creating interesting connections. We shall practice photography and editing and emphasize work and production processes. In class, we shall watch and discuss interesting movies and support each other's work process.

The class will be held once every two weeks.

From 3.11.22

Research-Imagination: Using Art to Create Bodies of Knowledge

Art creates new bodies of knowledge and expands human consciousness through the imagination. The course will address the shift in the research of culture and arts in the last twenty years, towards a perception of artists as researchers. We shall discuss the difference between information and knowledge, and the ability of artistic research to thrive where information reaches a dead end. Throughout the course we will get acquainted with various artists, collectives and projects which have proposed new systems of knowledge and used them to create radical and ground-breaking artistic actions.

Each student will choose a field of knowledge / historical event / site / current affair etc., in which they would like to focus. They will use this project to practice the construction of bodies of knowledge and a personal research practice, and subsequently use them to create a new work.

Materials and Objects – 3D Foundations

In this course, we shall learn how to work with different materials and a variety of plastic art techniques, including practical training in the school's workshops.

Students will engage in an in-depth learning of the workshops' tools and machines, get familiar with the characteristics of changing materials, and reflect about their theatrical presence.

With the help of practical projects and physical actions in the workshop, we shall learn to create a dialogue with a wide and changing variety of materials, which will be culminate in the creation of a functioning object.

Balanced listening

Among all the things we don't do enough of, there is also this moment when we are sitting on a sofa in that imaginary living room - in front of us a turntable is playing into a super hi-fi stereo sound system connected to two huge beautiful loudspeakers.

And this is now the most beautiful thing in the world.

And we think, why don't I do this every day?

All in all, it's only a matter of attention. (But it's always like that though, isn't it?)

“Balanced listening” is a series of meetings whose purpose is to clear and clean some space and time and then embed the possibility of listening to music in the purest way. Sound and thoughts. The works curatorship takes advantage of the hearing spaces and the sound systems that the school has to offer, and prefers works that benefit greatly from high volume and a quiet room.

Sound and metaphysical speculations

“Two monks arrived at Zen teacher Jōshū's place. Jōshū asked the one: Have you ever been here before? The monk replied: I was not. Jōshū said: Go drink a cup of tea. Then he asked the other: Have you ever been here before? The monk replied: I was. Jōshū said: Go drink a cup of tea. The head monk said to Jōshū: You sent the monk who had not been here before to drink a cup of tea. I would say nothing about that. But why did you send the monk who was already here to drink a cup of tea? Jōshū called out: The head monk! The head monk replied: Yes! Jōshū said: Go drink a cup of tea.”

In our meetings: gathering, listening, reading, practicing and observing.

The Reflexive Performance

The reflexive performance is a concept referring to art’s observation of its own means – art that in various ways reflects and appears itself, speaks for itself, and through this circular movement also examines the subject's place in the world and the political and social world. There are distinct manifestations of reflexivity, such as painters who paint themselves painting, theatre-within-theatre, and a performance that reveals its mechanisms. However, reflexive performance is first and foremost a central dimension of thinking and action that is present in every work. The workshop will be devoted to a tangible preoccupation with the discourse and key questions raised by the reflexive performance, in the form of a shared immersion into a discursive seminar, discussion, reading and practical work.

Cinema and reality through the eyes of outstanding directors

"The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity." (Alberto Giacometti). The full-length films that we will watch together express different perceptions of reality. They were created by several directors that helped shaping the world of Cinema as we know it today. We will discuss Cinema’s ability to arouse emotion, communicate moral, social and intellectual ideas, and shape reality.  

Applied Poetics

The creator and the creative act are like words in a poem existing within each other. We will observe how every such interaction is as poetic as it is an action.

In this performance art course, we will observe ourselves as a “human document” and allow the idea that “everything is already here” to act on us as a mechanism for creation and as a stage direction.  We will use words, practical work, conversation, and presentation of exercises.

Pursuing the history of dance

The visual object of dance appears and disappears.

One moment we raised a hand and a moment later it was no longer there.

The dance leaves behind remnants: moving or still photographs, texts of various kinds, movement notations, music, posters, open calls, costumes, scenery and more.

In this course, we will pursue and learn. Tracing the frequent changes that have taken place in the body itself, in the body's perceptions and in its representations over the years. We will become acquainted with different choreographic approaches and cultural theories that feed them.

We will get to know a wide range of dance works from the court dances in the Renaissance period to the contemporary conceptual dance.

We will examine how the local dance field, relatively young but fertile, responded to these changes.

Body practices

Introduction to release and improvisational techniques.

During class we will play and research the body with ideas coming from release technique, Katzugen technique, authentic movement , Yoga and more. The class will engage floor work, elignment, moving in space, studying movement phrases, and also some partnering work.

Reading Orientalism

The seminar wishes to get entangled with texts, dwell on the intimate action of reading, and learn something about coexistence through the experience of reading together and proliferating interpretations.

In his book “Orientalism”, the researcher Edward Said shows how the body of knowledge about the East was formed so it marks, for the West, the submissive, exotic, feminine, ultimate Other. In our sessions we will maintain a reading group that will deal with texts from the book. We will attempt to deconstruct the power relations maintained in every learning process, formulate exercises for reading with the body, mix knowledge with memory and experience, and examine the performative aspects which one might extract from the book's content – for the stage as well as the political reality here and now.

The texts will be available in Hebrew, Arabic or and English.

Defining Moments in the History of Humankind II (Against)

Alongside its spectacular disasters and achievements, the twentieth century brought about a fundamental change in theater, as art made of human beings. The course will focus on the Performative Turn in art and the political structures in which it operates and will present various proposals from the past hundred years: works, texts, and ideologies that have shaped Theater and Performance Art to this day. The course will include theoretical and practical assignments.

What now

In this course, we will discuss and experience contemporary performative practices, while exploring our own artistic language and personal research. We will get to know new dramaturgies, coded structures and mechanisms, and different types of human presence in the Now. Together, we will try to dismantle the performative moment into its components, and rephrase it as a whole sentence. The course will include individual and group assignments.

Faith, Fact, Fiction

In this course we will explore the work of the artist as an act of world-building. We’ll observe the creation process as a risky and exciting adventure, carry the responsibility of representation and toil in the labour of interpretation. We will learn to work with what we know, what we believe, what we invent – and how to put them all to use. Through introduction to artists and texts we will acquire tools for research and developing ideas, and create our own rituals. The course will include practical exercises and discourse.

Just Say Yes !

In this choreographic class we will stimulate the physical body in practicing the imagination and imagery making. we will work inside the vast range between physical forces, and private forces who may lead to a work of art. we will say yes to actions, images,  desires and aspirations, big and small. the class will consists out of physical work during the class and presentations of exercises throughout the year. 

The sound and light show

The sound and light show is a well-known theatrical medium and touristic attraction. In this course, we shall try to analyse and examine its components and strengths and map its development – from the Tower of David and Masada, through the pyramids and the Phantasmagoria shows of the 18th-19th centuries, to its use in contemporary theatre and opera. We shall see how the sound and light show is used as a tool for attributing meaning to archaeological, natural, or theatrical objects, and examine how the combination of light and sound can be used as an effective tool. Exercises and classwork will focus on experimentation with light and sound practices and their potential uses in contemporary theatre and shows.

Body Awareness

The course will explore the complexity and pleasure of the creative process through the prism of the world of movement. The course combines physical studio work with exercises and assignment critiques on a weekly basis.

Materials and Spaces

The course examines basic terms related to the sculptural object and installation. We will get to know issues and approaches of installation, we will learn about artists, their works and the relationships they produce with the viewer, who is their partner in time and witness to the event. At the same time, we will examine types of environments outside the artistic space and analyze how they are designed and define themselves. We will refine our view of everyday life, we will look at the world around us, as a source of ideas, thoughts, forms and images.

Through individual and group exercises we will experience an understanding of materials, connections, placement vr. installation, the role of the individual object (sculpture, painting, action) - our relationship to him and his relationship to himself and his environment.

Psychosophy

Psychosophy - The Philosophical Tarot of the Order Workshop

Psychosophy presupposes that we humans are not the only ones that think. Actually, it is nature itself that thinks all the time! Humans are the ones who are able to bring forth into expression the universe’s thought. Psychosophy deals with this unmitigated relation between thinking and the universe’s fleeting, ever-changing, wisdom.

In this workshop we will use the Philosophical Tarot of the Order so as to transform thinking into a space of conscience occurrences. To further develop the wisdom-of-the-psyche in order to meet the wisdom-of-things. The workshop activates thinking in its most broad sense - as the ground of existence - from a personal and specific perspective, interest, and motivation. The visual and the conceptual, the practical and the theoretical, the known and the unknown, the body and the mind, man and world, the personal and the public, are all possible ingredients of the psychopilosophical act. 

The Journeys to Immediate Surroundings

Seminar with Salamanca group, artists, and guest lecturers.

 In the seminar, we will get to know artists, groups, and figures who develop artistic projects outside of the conventional art venues. We will go out into the public sphere, intervene in it, act in it, try to push the boundaries of ourselves, of SVT, and of our discipline. At the same time, we will read texts, meet artists and figures who will shed a different light on the topics explored in the course, and try to challenge ourselves in the different exercises by addressing social, political, economic, or spatial realities in which they take place. A journey in the city in which we live and work.

Physical Studio

The course allows comprehensive studio work for students who wish to dive into the connections between physical body and mind. Body based work that addresses creative and performative processes. In the second semester, the sessions will open for presentation of individual project that will be the focus of sessions.

The course is open only to students who have completed the fundamental course with Levi.

Symposium “What For?” Four Questions About the Creative Act

The paradox of the creative act: art as perspective/self-expression (creativity) has taken over reality, and in reality where everyone is an artist (personal) and everything is art (private), the “common world” no longer exists. We will find that art, which in essence works towards reality and the other, leads to its own cancellation.

In the course, we will discuss four fundamental issues surrounding various texts that address the “problematics” of the creative act in general and in the contemporary context in particular.

• Snapshot – the aesthetic age

(Benjamin, Experience and Poverty; Bruno Latour – We Have Never Been Modern)

• The role of art – to be human, to be contemporary, to be political

 (Courbet’s Realist Manifesto; Kant, Critique of Judgment)

• The artistic product – imitation, indifference, theatricality, autonomy (Schelling, The System of Transcendental Idealism; Graham Harman, Object and Art)
• Action beyond human: for the strange and terrifying

(Graham Harman, On the Horror of Phenomenology; Iain Hamilton Grant, Being and Slime: The Mathematics of Protoplasm in Lorenz Oken’s ‘Physio-Philosophy’)

Advanced Philosophy: Origin of Thought

Deleuze said the philosophy begins with a scream. Sometimes it is a quiet, small scream. For example, Leibniz’s scream: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” And from the open mouths that seem to try and suck the entire world in, concepts and methods emanate and formulate. In the course, we will try to listen to some of these screams, and look at some ideas about the origin of (creative) thought, and probably scream at each other for a bit.

What is Philosophy? About thought, love, and friendship

Beyond-experience (Metaphysics) – Plato: The Divided Line Parable; Aristotle, ethics.

Presence and representation – Heidegger, The Age of the World Picture.

Human sciences (Psychology): Consciousness and Mind – Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature.

The relationship between thought and reality: Transcendental Idealism - Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason.

Existence and Reality (Aesthetics-Phenomenology-Existentialism) – Kant, Critique of Judgment.

4th year -Guest Workshops

Variations: Introduction to creation with sound in Ableton Live

Variations: Introduction to creation with sound. This course is intended to impart the basic skills of audio recording and editing alongside experimenting with compositions using recorded materials. The main software we will be working on in this course is Ableton Live, which will allow us a flexible and creative approach to sound editing and processing. The course will begin with a sine wave drawing on a whiteboard alongside the question "What is a sound wave?" And we will end with the deep and beautiful audio works you will create. In between, we will learn about digital audio and become familiar with the digital versions of the basic and central sound processing devices. The course will take a look at the history of recording-based music and reflect on the theory behind such compositions.

Morning Space- Yoga

Two weekly "morning spaces" will be held throughout the academic year

Mondays between 09:00 and 09:50

Tuesdays between 19:30 and 20:30

Moderator: Michal Harada

1 credit for participation in each space.

Elective for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th year students

Movement – Action

The texts of movement, which are familiar to our bodies, ready to be retrieved, hold the most foundations of our movement development. How we learned to walk, how we learned to desire and approach, to approach the object of desire.
The class wishes to awaken the attention to what is assimilated in the body and exists in and it every day, to what is assimilated as a forgotten possibility and from this to where movement can continue to expand. In this process, the students are directed to pay attention to the place, the different relationships in the space, and other variables.

Environment, Action and Light

In this course we shall analyse the concept of environment and see how we can use it as a template for actions and experimentation in creating a theatrical and public environment. We shall learn about the importance of light in designing an environment, with its dramatic and stenographic qualities, time, and space. We shall experiment with lighting design and the use of light and darkness, and get acquainted with the properties of light: quality, colour, angle, and variation. We shall mould, fix, and untangle it, and use it to create the theatrical space or parts of it in various places.

Drawing

Drawing and painting class. The course will be based on drawing from observation with excursions to the language of abstract drawing. Alongside the universal formal rules of 2D art, the course will also focus on the student’s individual development.
Thematic framework: portrait-figure, figure in space, live model, landscape, etc.
Techniques: charcoal, pencil, pastels, ink, watercolor, tempera and experimental techniques.
The students will present their work as part of the course throughout the school.

Voice – Advanced

Group work building on the previous year at the beginners’ Voice Course.

Voice – Beginners

How does the voice formulate stage language through song, text, and space?
Learning the basics of voice training. The physical body as an instrument that has frequency and the ability to be aware of voice frequencies in the body. Enriching and expanding the correlation between the body and its voice frequencies. Developing awareness of the structure of the body and its effect on voice. Getting to know the phenomenon of echo and resonance. Body and space, how the voice lives and feels the space, the voice as a means to sculpt a space. The link between the voice and the world of feelings, emotion, and image. Expanding the range of voice expression. Developing the connection between listening and voice. Voice and performer. Language as the definition of space, learning language as living frequencies that move through body and space. Learning through gibberish. Text as a stage voice experience. Creating through singing.

Stills Photography – Photographic Frame as a Means of Expression

In the course, we will gain an in-depth understanding of the camera and the various ways to use it and the genre of photography as a means of expression. The course will include practical work and critique. Comprehensive familiarity with the genre through still photographers and filmmakers, artist’s talks, and visits to exhibitions and print houses. The course’s objective is to provide an additional means of expression.

Acting Class – Advanced

The class expands on the subjects that we addressed in the first year, in the desire to further develop and hon the actor's craft: training in techniques of emotional expression, understanding texts, and relating to different types of actions and character work.
The advanced class will include work on texts and acting for the camera exercises. The camera requires a different kind of concentration than the stage – one that is more minimalist and internal. The class will focus mainly on acting for the stage, while the exercises for the camera will provide a glimpse into a slightly different type of acting and look at the difference between stage acting and screen acting.

Acting

An acting class that offers improvisation techniques aimed at expanding the actor’s physical and emotional toolbox. The class focuses on three aspects: 1. Examining the dynamics between partners on stage. Working on listening, initiating, and responding in real time to create dramatic tension and relationships. 2. Expanding the actor’s inner world. Exercises aimed at elaborating personal means of expression and searching for different sides in the actor. 3. Looking at the subject of space as an element in space work. How does space influence the actor and how can the actor use it in order to hone his acting and stage presence? By examining these aspects we will explore basic concepts of action, emotion and intention, while trying to produce spontaneous and individual expression ability

Modernity, Modernism and Contemporary art

In the course we will examine the ideological and aesthetic textures of the "modern age" and the characteristics of Modernism. It will focus on schools and styles that have crystallized on the range between the intensity of visibility and the aspiration towards the sublime, with references to 20th century avant-garde and Postmodernists.

Towards the Finale

A weekly session in which we will get to know each student's individual work processes and the interpersonal processes that will allow the Finale to take place as the concluding event of the learning process at SVT.
Teachers and guests will join the sessions occasionally and give presentations aimed at expanding the dialogue.

Writing

Objective: imparting writing skills; developing the ability to understand text on its various layers; developing tools for writing for theatre; practicing various types of writing.
What is said and what is not said
Text and rhythm
The metaphysical power of phonetics
Text as action
The magical word
Epic poetry
Lyric poetry
Figure and speech
Drama writing

Voice and Choir Class

The course will include vocal work, individual and in a group, on several levels:

Unique practice based on the path of uncovering the voice, attention and awareness to sound.

Exploring singing styles from different traditions, languages, and voice production techniques.

Voice and movement improvisation, and working on repertoire in different interpretations in solo singing and choir work.

Orbits: On Place & Journey

Discourse and action workshop

 “Journey Performance” is a term used to describe an expression of physical movement in space, organized along a route and involving modes of action and mental shifts. In the discourse and action workshop, we will focus primarily on the practical, spatial, and conceptual aspects of site-specific journey performances, created in an artistic performative context. Artistic journey performances are positioned within the wide range between daily and functional movement, cultural expressions such as pilgrimage and procession, immigration, nomadism, hiking, wandering and activism. Exploring these diverse manifestations, we will ask how the journey performance responds to the urban environment and the borders it involves; what is the (historical, social, or geopolitical) story that the journey recounts about the place; and in what way does the journey have the power to transform the perception of the place. The route will unfold between spaces, texts, conversations, and actions, and will probably also involve an expedition to discoveries in the near east.

Film as Material – Cinematic Thinking and the Fundamentals of Editing

In the course we will learn to work with the materials that films are made of. We will play and experiment with different approaches and techniques to achieve meaningful sequences. We will watch examples from various types of films, shoot and record raw footage of our own, and use existing raw footage (after all the world is full of it, it’ll be a waste not to). Premier editing software, which we will learn, will serve as our laboratory for exploring the endless possibilities of the screen based medium.
Throughout the course, we will experience how the editing process can surprise us and lead us to find new ideas.

Defining Moments in the History of Humankind (Theater)

The course will focus on the central stylistic trends in the art of performance from the late 19th century to the present and their historical-cultural context. Among others, we will discuss some of the key questions that performance art explored on a conceptual and practical level, in the modern and postmodern era. Throughout the academic year, the students will be asked to complete theoretical and practical tasks. Assignments and full attendance are prerequisites for completing the course.

Way of Representation and Modes of Reading

 The representation of the human figure will serve as the key to understanding visual syntax in its cultural, conceptual, and formal contexts. Drawing on the fundamental duality in visual art between recognition and vision, we will examine ways of seeing in the history of art as an organized observation that is part of a general world view and a device for shaping consciousness. In the course we will focus, among other things, on body, text and space in the art of the mythopoeic world and the Classical world, on the iterations of motifs and Classical themes in the Christian world until the Baroque, while addressing contemporary contexts.

Stage

Course objective: developing a profound understanding of the elements of the stage action
Space (real; imagined)
Time (plot time – performance present – Ideaic eternity)
Action (stage action, ritualistic action)
Stage (audience-actor relationship, the stage as a temple, as an evolutionary cell)
Intention (the performer as a relay station for the audience)
Performer (actor; character; shaman; ambassador)
Text (with an emphasis on text as a stage action)
Drama (and its translation into stage language)
The multi-sensory experience (about synesthetic theatre)
The functions of theatre (mental catharsis/ social repair/ metaphysical affinity).

Practical Performance Directing

Throughout the year, we will explore in practice various performance models, with an emphasis on the examination of the architecture of performance and the elements that allow the performer to move steadily within the piece. We will explore the effect of the stage action and the type of relation formed between it and the audience via different directing practices, carry out the translation of abstract elements into concrete images, and apply work practices with a group of performers.

The story of reality

What is the difference between the story the theater tells us, and the story that life tells us.
Why do we tend to believe to the second one more than the first? And how one can distort, process and work with this tendency.
In this lesson, we will detach into their elements such human tendencies, giving each factor its new place, on the way to artistic achievement.

Contemporary Directing

Throughout the course we will try to examine the range of action in non-dramatic theatre events: what is the range of action of the performer and the viewer and what is the range of the stage action. We will read texts, learn of various artists, view works, and mostly – experience different practices to construct a theatre event that is not based on a play.
We will do all this by getting to know the various ways in which performance, in its fluid definition that eludes conceptual permanence, permeated the various arts in the 20th century and transformed them. We will focus on theatre but also look at dance, music, cinema, visual art, and literature, as well as diverse theories, and try to understand their relevance to creating performance today.

Contemporary Art and a Look Back

The course will focus on trends and processes in art since the late 20th century, prominent exhibitions and contemporary art events.
The selection of artists, works, etc. will take into account questions and issues introduced by the students. The course will shift between class presentations by the students to opening windows to chapters in the history of art.