“Training is a method, it is not only hundreds, thousands of exercises, it is a certain way of looking at the theatre, at the world, at man. The word “exercise” can be understood in different senses and applied in a very broad, comprehensive sense, as well as in a very practical sense. There are exercises for the human being and for the artist. This training programme is for artists. That is – it is for you and me – theatre teachers and our students. In this programme I will cover numerous types of training that are necessary for the various topics. You will get to know over a hundred exercises and learn how to create your own. I want you to have exercises ready for every question your students may ask.

If you ask me – where does training start in a school? My answer is teacher training. Teacher training needs to start before we enter the classroom. So for part of this programme I will be talking about the training that a teacher should do for himself/herself.  However, the hardest thing is to find exercises that turn a person into a creator. The experience of my work helped me to understand one secret – the artist always enters the stage first and then the actor, just as the artist enters the classroom first and then the teacher.

Therefore, it is necessary to educate the artist first. This is the fundamental idea that will be central to the programme.

I think we agree that we live in a non-artistic world that is ultimately alien to us. But how can we create, teach others, develop ourselves without changing in the moment we enter the world of theatre? In our everyday world, we move like deaf and blind people, we are strangers there. And nothing will work for us there. That’s why training for me is first and foremost a transition, indeed an exodus from the world of everyday life into the world of art.

To follow this path, I have developed “Training as Method” and I am sure that this training is not only important for actors, teachers, directors, but also for artists in general – musicians, painters, writers. Training as Method contributes to the liberation of the creative forces of the teacher and his students, the director and his actors. Training is a field of freedom. The exercises of training are aimed at doing what the human actor cannot do – the actor-artist can do very well. Therefore, for me, training is not just about “warming up” or improving individual skills or finding the way to the role by means of various exercises, no, for me it is about moving from the human to the divine. This is how “high” I understand the role of training in school and theatre, and I invite you to share this position and explore the path together.”