Academy of the Impossible: Additional Information
An additional Academy of the Impossible offering is one that you couldn’t sign up for in conventional fashion. This workshop staged in conjunction with the 12th Summer Academy was strictly for gifted students in their final year of study at academic and vocational high schools in the Province of Upper Austria. This Summer Academy was staged under the auspices of the Stiftung Talente foundation in cooperation with the province’s School Board and Pedagogical Academy July 1-10, 2008 in Bad Leonfelden.Here, Angelika Kisser-Maayan and Walter Mathes jointly taught a course entitled “My Story on Stage” for “young people looking to take an artistic approach to their own biographical material and to be able experience this independent creative process themselves and together with others.”
Angelika Kisser-Maayan is a theater artist, dramaturge and drama therapist. She received her training in Austria and Israel. She has worked on numerous theater productions as an actress and dramaturge, and is also a drama therapist for children and adults.
Walter Mathes is a graphic novelist, actor, director and author. He is currently studying multimedia art therapy at the college level. He has extensive drama therapy experience working with elementary school pupils as well as addicts and people under psychiatric care.
On July 31, 2008, Ida Kelarova will conduct a very special singing workshop for inmates at the Asten Penitentiary near Linz.
This is meant to be an initial effort to stage a Capital of Culture production at a highly unusual location and to reach an audience not normally privileged to such offerings. Ida Kelarova is planning other initiatives of this sort for 2009 in cooperation with artist Willi Dorner.
Czech singer Ida Kelarova’s father, a musician descended from a Rumanian-Hungarian Romany family, left a deep impression on his daughter. She studied music and acting at the Janacek Conservatory, and is now a singing instructor and solo vocalist. Ida Kelarova and her band have made guest appearances worldwide. Together with her partner Desiderius Duzda, she teaches interested students to find an authentic, personal approach to their own voice.
Willi Dorner is a dancer, choreographer and teacher of the Alexander technique. He has presented his productions at top-name international festivals such as the ImPulsTanz Festival in Vienna and at theatrical venues throughout Austria and around the world.
Angelika Kisser-Maayan and Walter Mathes are also planning a fall 2008 project designed for children attending the training kindergarten at the Teachers College for Kindergarten Pedagogy in Linz.
And David Maayan is looking forward to working intensively with a group of acting students from Linz’s Anton Bruckner University who will be taking courses at the Academy this summer. He’ll be teaching a course at the university during the upcoming 2008-09 school year and getting the group involved in his Linz09 theater production “Purimspil.” Collaboration with the Anton Bruckner University will culminate during the summer of 2009 in an International Gathering of Performing Art Schools.
