Cycle: Triptych of Masks and Archetypal Figures

Charlatans — Jesters — The Red Nose

This series offers a journey through three archetypal figures that permeate the history of theater, myth, and the human imagination. Three distinct ways to activate creativity, expand presence, and engage with deeper layers of our psyche through the body, imagery, and ritual play.

Over three separate—but interconnected—weekends we will explore the Swindlers, the Jesters and the Red Nose, understood not as stage characters, but as vital forcesinternal images and poetic structures that can transform the way we create, look, and move in the world.

Each module opens a different territory:

Swindlers — The art of twisting the path

The Trickster appears when the established order becomes rigid. It is the force that disrupts, that alters, that reveals cracks and contradictions. Its energy invites us to break patterns, to play on the edge, and to open spaces where something new can emerge.
We will work from myth, physical presence, masks, and play to activate that creative dimension that questions, displaces, and renews.

Jesters — The ferocious laughter and lucidity of the margins

The Jester not only exposes the shadows of the community: he also points out our own. With his unsettling humor and distorted perspective, he reveals what we prefer not to see—both outside and within.
In this module we will explore deformation, parody and grotesque physicality as tools to unleash creativity, deactivate rigidities and recognize shadow areas that ask to be transformed.

The Red Nose — Vulnerability, presence, and revelation

The world's smallest mask opens up the largest space: that of naked humanity. The red nose is not a character, but a mirror that amplifies our vulnerability, our absurdity, and our tenderness.
Here we will work on listening, being in the present, luminous failure, and the poetics of honest play.

Methodology and approach

The cycle combines bodily, imaginal, and performative practices:

• I work with a mask

• physical improvisation

• exploration of myth and symbolic narrative

• exercises in presence, perception and play

• writing, drawing, or intuitive materials to expand internal images

• individual, duo and group work

All of this stems from a pedagogy that draws from mask and physical theatre, depth psychology and the approach of Integral Embodiment and Performance Practice (IEPP) from the Thomas Prattki Center.

We are not looking for stage results or closed techniques, but living creative processes: to open new territories, to make patterns more flexible, to delve deeper into the imagination and to expand our expressive capacity.

Who is it aimed at?

The lab is open to creators from various artistic disciplines—theater, dance, visual arts, writing, music—as well as anyone interested in exploring imagination through the body, myth, and creative practice.
No prior experience in theater or bodywork is necessary: the proposal is an accessible space for research for those who want to open a dialogue with their own internal images, expand their expressive resources, or nourish their artistic practice from a deeper and more poetic place.

Note on the approach

This laboratory is nourished by the tradition of physical and mask theatre developed around the pedagogy of Jacques Lecoqwhich understands the body as a source of play, imagination, and profound knowledge. It is also inspired by the contributions of depth psychologywhere myth and symbol are recognized as expressions of human experience beyond the individual. In dialogue with these currents, the work draws inspiration from the methodologies of Thomas Prattki Center, which proposes a path of creative exploration through the body, the mask and poetic imagination.

Days and times

January 10th and 11th: Swindlers

January 17th and 18th: Jesters

January 24th and 25th: The Red Nose

From 10:00 to 19:00 hours

Laboratory cost

1 Module: 100 Euros

2 Modules: 180 Euros

3 Modules: 240 Euros

Early bird (until December 20): -10% in any modality

Note on the cycle

The modules must be done in order, since each one
prepare the ground for the next one.

Registration:

Write to salalacuadra@gmail.com

Requirements: comfortable clothing for movement, paper and pen.