Summer Program in Paris/ f.y.i.

[Denis Salter]

 SPACE IS LIMITED!

INSIDE FRENCH THEATRE: MOVEMENT AND ACTING TRAINING AT FRICHES THÉÂTRE
URBAIN
June 10 to July 13, 2002 in Paris, France
Sponsored by The George Washington University
Application due: March 1, 2002

        For the fourth year, the highly successful summer abroad program,
Inside
French Theatre, offers American students the unique opportunity to create a
production with French theatre professionals for a public performance.
American students will join French students to work with Friches Théâtre
Urbain directors Sarah Harper and Pascal Laurent, who studied at Ecole
Jacques
Lecoq before founding the theatre, and with their company of twenty actors.
Friches Théâtre Urbain is a professional theatre company-théâtre de
rue-which
uses text, dance, stilts, aerial acrobatics, pyrotechniques, and flamboyant
costumes to create spectacular and emotionally charged promenade
performances
for the street. The program will take place in Friches' large warehouse
space
at 134, rue de Toqueville in the seventeenth arrondissement in Paris.
Students
will participate in movement, acting, and voice workshops inspired by
techniques of Jacques Lecoq, and they will learn stilt-walking, floor and
aerial acrobatics, and improvisation techniques unique to Friches. The
students and professional actors will develop a promenade performance of
Midsummer Night's Dream-a non-traditional theatrical event combining circus,
installation art, and improvised happening-to be performed on the streets
and
in the parks of Paris during the last week of the program. Last summer,
students performed in front of Notre Dame Cathedral, in the Shakespeare and
Co. Bookshop, and at major parks.
        Students must be ready to take rigorous workshops in acting, voice,
and
movement (dance, floor and aerial acrobatics, and stilts) and to perform
both
in Friches' industrial workspace in Paris and on the streets. The workshops
will be taught in English and French by Friches' directors, Sarah Harper and
Pascal Laurent, and by theatre professionals in movement, floor and aerial
acrobatics, stilts, and dance. Many students will be beginners; some will
have
worked with these techniques before. Knowledge of French is not necessary.
In
addition, the program organizers will arrange weekend trips to a street
theatre festival outside of Paris and to a Friches production performed by
the
professional company. The cost of these excursions is included in the cost
of
the program.
For additional information, you may call Susan Haedicke at (202) 994-2135 or
email: shaedick at gwu.edu or call the Office of Special, Summer, and Study
Abroad Programs at The George Washington University (202) 994-6360.  Visit
the
Inside French Theatre website at www.gwu.edu/~ift. You may apply online
(www.summer.gwu.edu )--just click on "Inside French Theatre" and fill out
the
online application. Estimated program costs are $4702. which include
tuition,
program fees, housing, and in-country transportation.  International airfare
is not included.