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From 27th to 29th June 2014, the UTE Decentralized Academy settled itself in Porto for a new master-class directed by Hungarian stage director Viktor Bodó.

Organized in collaboration with the Teatro Nacional São João, the master class brought together 16 participants from Portugal, Greece, Bulgaria, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, Serbia and Romania, including eleven actors, one dramaturge, one playwright, one choreographer and one stage director.

 

Six UTE member theatres collaborated in the event by appointing an artist to attend the master-class: Romanian actor Andras Buzasi was sent by the Hungarian Theatre of Cluj, Greek actress Egli Katsiki was sent by the National Theatre of Northern Greece, Austrian actor Thomas Frank was sent by the Schauspielhaus Graz, Italian playwright Paola Ponti was sent by the Teatro di Roma, Czech dramaturge Jan Tošovský was sent by the National Theatre Prague and Serbian stage director Igor Vuk Torbica was sent by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre Belgrade.

 

During 3 days, participants had the chance to enter into Viktor Bodó’s creative process by experimenting a series of acting exercises that he has developed throughout his career. Based on many different materials, techniques and artistic fields, Viktor Bodó’s exercises focused on rhythm, movement, concentration, team energy and group awareness, in order to trigger the conditions for a common creative work. Participants also approached the process of building fictional characters and each of them drew the outlines of a character which they were suggested to develop through further exercises.

 

Viktor Bodó
 

Viktor Bodó was born in 1978 in Budapest. After finishing his studies of acting and directing he worked for three years as an actor at Árpád Schilling’s Krétakör Theatre in Budapest. His big break as a director was when he worked as a permanent director at the Katona József Theatre in Budapest, amongst others through his adaptation of Kafka’s “The Trial”. Since 2006 he has regular productions at the Schauspielhaus Graz, where he started with Kafka’s “The Castle” and Lewis Carroll’s “Alice”. The latter was invited for various guest performances, amongst others to the Salzburger Festspiele in 2009, and the Radikal jung Festival in Munich in 2008, and won the Austrian Nestroy Theatre Prize for ‘best décor’ in 2008.

In 2008 Bodó founded his own theatre company Szputnyik Shipping Company in Budapest. His most important productions with the Szputnyik in Budapest were “Mietshausgeschichten” and “The Dice Man”. Together with his own group, he developed co-productions with the Schauspiel Köln (“Transit” by István Tasnádi, and “Der Mann am Tisch 2” by András Vinnai) as well as the Staatstheater Mainz / Theater Winterthur (“Death on the Orient Express”.

In the past couple of years, he developed highly acclaimed productions at the Schauspielhaus Graz with actors from the Szputnyik Shipping Company and the ensemble of Graz. In the season of 2008/09, Bodó directed Peter Handke’s “The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other”. This production was invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen in 2010, and awarded the Golden Mask in the category “Best Foreign Performance” in Moscow. Furthermore, Bodó was awarded the Austrian Nestroy Theatre Prize in 2009 in the category “Best Director”. In the season of 2009/10 he directed “Liliom” by Ferenc Molnár in Graz, and in the following season “The Master and Margarita” after Michail Bulgakow, for which he was again nominated for the Nestroy Theatre Prize in 2011.