i.Q. - Ira's Quantum Theatre: Slapstick to Shakespeare
- universal principles to reinvigorate ones own acting, theatre, teaching, directing practices.
- allows an actor to use any of their previous training and experience.
- presents principles that are at the core of diverse, complex and differing methods such as Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Suzuki, Grotowski, Viewpoints, Lecoq, Practical Aesthetics, Butoh.
Ira has worked in over 100 productions including with Cirque du Soleil, Australian Opera, San Diego Repertory Theater, Bell Shakespeare Company, Belvoir Street Theatre, Eureka Theater of San Francisco. He is a playwright of such works as Artist in Exile...Requiem For Strindberg, A Girl's Guide to Hamlet, The Battler, Harlequin Dreams (see youtube). Ira has an M.A. in Visual and Performing Arts and PhD in Education.
Photo below - Ira after performance Une Filet d'Amour - Paris 2008
Ira's work is deeply inspired by Bauhaus, Eugenio Barba, and artistes such as Kandinsky, Miro, Klee, Chaghall, Agam, Gerard Koch, as well as the inherited theatre lineage from Stanislavsky, Copeau, Zeami and Laban.
Jazz, Klezmer and the musical interpretations of Glenn Gould are other sources of inspiration along with theatre sources Viola Spolin and Dorthy Heathcote, the commedia dell' arte as taught by one of Ira's teachers Carlo Mazzone-Clementi. At the dell'arte school Ira was also taught by Joan Schirle, Joan Lapiner, Avner Eisenberg, Jon Paul Cook.
Since then Ira has been more aligned with the ancient writings of Zeami and recent writings of Eugenio Barba of Odin Teater, and Richard Schechner.
When one looks at the complexities of theatre as presented in books such as Barba's Anthropology of Theatre and Schechner's Performance Studies book,
the template that iQ- Ira's Quantum provides is a direct, practical doorway to the abundance of available information in the performing arts.
You are welcome to write directly to ira@iraseidenstein.com or chaplinseye@yahoo.com.au
Next workshops are:
Brisbane late-July
August/September - Montreal. NYC, Quebec City to be confirmed
Photo - Ira as Mo, in MoMents - 2006
