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Monday Sessions: come join our dialogue on Suzuki Method Actor Training, improvisation and co-devising practice. Mondays, 6-9pm, North Melbourne.
Psychophysical Theatre Intensive
Suzuki, Grotowski, Chekhov + Variations
15 18 20 22 24 27 January 2024
North Melbourne Small Hall
Suzuki, Grotowski, Chekhov + Variations
15 18 20 22 24 27 January 2024
North Melbourne Small Hall
Tessa Mari Luminati and Matthew Crosby in Orpheo Machine
Photo: Oscar Socias
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The Thursday Group: Facilitator Matthew Crosby; collaborators: Tessa Marie Luminati, Kathleen Doyle, Damon Branecki.
Associates: Lorna McLeod, Taka Takiguchi, Angelique Zhou.
Past members: Glynis Angell, Rodrigo Calderón, Joshinder Kaur Chaggar, Molly Farquharson Eidann Glover, Alana Hoggart, Nilees Inisahus, Yoka Jones, Elise Pike, Caitlin Lavery, Gareth Trew.
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The Thursday Group was founded in 2009 and has investigated Suzuki Training exericses in concert with other disciplines such as Grotowski, Stanislavski, Chekhov and variations that the group has developed. During the Covid lockdowns in Melbourne in 2020-2021 Thursday Group facilitator Matthew Crosby created a programme of co-devising prompts arising from psychologist Lev Vygotsky's notion that the inner thought is completed in its social expression. What were called 'musing' exercises assisted in developing communication across the new performative online apparatus (Zoom). That practice has led to investigations within the Suzuki Training vocabulary of attending to the intention of verbal and gestural communication. Our group has a history of durational and intense training aimed at crossing into next-level performance-making. In speaking to then new collaborator Tessa Marie Luminati in 2020, Kathleen Doyle said:
The Thursday Group was founded in 2009 and has investigated Suzuki Training exericses in concert with other disciplines such as Grotowski, Stanislavski, Chekhov and variations that the group has developed. During the Covid lockdowns in Melbourne in 2020-2021 Thursday Group facilitator Matthew Crosby created a programme of co-devising prompts arising from psychologist Lev Vygotsky's notion that the inner thought is completed in its social expression. What were called 'musing' exercises assisted in developing communication across the new performative online apparatus (Zoom). That practice has led to investigations within the Suzuki Training vocabulary of attending to the intention of verbal and gestural communication. Our group has a history of durational and intense training aimed at crossing into next-level performance-making. In speaking to then new collaborator Tessa Marie Luminati in 2020, Kathleen Doyle said:
[…] it was very much a led-by-nobody… just actors trying to keep the craft, just trying to keep themselves fit and ready to perform, and it was like that for about three or four years, wouldn't it be Matt? […] It started to morph into more improvised territory […] and I think it was from there that [we tried to] put all of what we're working on into a show, that is specifically wanting to capitalise on these skills that we had from the training. So, then Matt was inspired by an improvisation he saw with myself and another member [Yoka Jones], and went ahead and wrote that play [Silent Forest…]. I think different people came in and out, so the group has been this constantly fluid thing. It’s hard to know how to contain it, except that we've got that great commonality of using the Suzuki Method of training. […] I don't know, I think we're still trying to find our identity.[2]
Currently the group is pursuing a short-form co-devising process in the Monday Sessions. In addition, Crosby will perform a new solo work directed by Tessa Marie Luminati in 2024. Corporare, Evan Task in Outer Space; Horror Genre, which riffs on wunderkind tech billionairs and their grandiosities.
[1] Vygotskiĭ, L. S. Thought and Language. Translated by Eugenia Hanfmann, Gertruda Vakar, and Alex Kozulin. Revised and Expanded edition. The MIT Press, 2012.
[2] 20200325, Transcript Zoom.
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