Sotiris Karamesinis

Sotiris Karamesinis is a theatre director and acting coach, known for his  method ‘’MUSA’’ (musical system of acting), a unique system based on ancient Greek theatre research which introduces music as the fundamental element in an actor’s education, daily training, and role composition. Since 2008 he lives in Rio de Janeiro. He directs plays, teaches in drama schools, universities, leads workshops and master classes, and prepares actors for films.He is a research associate in the laboratory, “Forms and Effects, Frontiers and Passages of the Theatrical Language,” founded by professors of the course of Aesthetics and Theatre Theory of the Centre of Letters and Arts of UNIRIO University, Rio de Janeiro.

He is also a research associate specialized in Cultural Diplomacy and Performing Arts at the Strategic Communication and News Media Laboratory in the International and European Department of University of Piraeus.

He studied Theology at Aristotle University, filmmaking at Stavrakos film school and music (saxophone, percussion and Theory and Harmony) at Athens Conservatory and Iambic Conservatory and Studio Latin in Paris, France.

In 2009 he directed the tragedy Bacchae with the award-winning cast of the film City of God “Nós Do Morro”. He has directed plays of Euripides, Jean Paul Sartre, Oscar Wilde, Eugenio Ionesco, Graham Greene, and Harold Pinter among many others, in Greece, Cyprus and Brazil. As an artistic director, he staged several big events in cooperation with organizations and institutions such as the European Parliament, the University of Athens, the Athens Concert Hall, the City of Athens, the International Theatre Institute, the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian Ministry of Culture etc.

In 2013 he formed the Brazilian theatre group “Musa cia Teatral,” with which he has formed a “Theatre in education” programme for hundreds of children and adolescents in the school “Solar meninos de Luz”, located in the favelas of Cantagalo hill in Rio de Janeiro.

http://www.apebfr.org/passagesdeparis/editione2016-vol1/entrevista.html

Workshop

Introducing the “MUSA” (Musical System of Acting) 

“The secret of Music and the experience of trance in the art of acting”

The MUSA workshop is created for a large group of actors. We will work both as individual performers and together, as part of a huge chorus of tragedy. The workshop is based on the “Musical system of acting” a method of work inspired by ancient Greek theatre, that will give the taste of ecstasy and trance, of a Dionysian experience, to everyone practicing it. It is a physical and mental method of exercise, training and preparation of the actors, using Music as a driving power and a catalyst of the acting process. It is an autonomous and holistic method, leading in an organic creation and presence, enriching actors’ expressive means and facilitating the acquisition of psychosomatic conditions and emotional readiness.

The creation of MUSA is the result of years of research, a project of theatre “archeology” studying the Greek Tragedy and the process of directing and acting and its relation with music. It emerged in rehearsal but is inspired by the ancient “Theory of Ethos of Music,” the central concept of power and function of music in ancient Greece.

The whole system is well-supported by a plethora of theoretical and practical sources of acting techniques. It is in dialogue with the great masters of theatre and music, and experts from the fields of music therapy, drama therapy, theatre anthropology, neuroscience and research about music and how it affects the human brain.

Maria Augusta Montera (assistant to Mr. Karamesinis)

The actress Maria Augusta Montera holds a Bachelor of Arts in acting from the Faculty of Performing Arts of the Casa de Artes das Laranjeiras (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2015). Her undergraduate thesis was on the acting method MUSA (Musical System of Acting), developed by director Sotiris Karamesinis, and its applications in new actors’ work. For the last two years, she has been a member of Musa cia teatral, a theatre company founded and directed by Karamesinis. The company is dedicated to the research of MUSA method and its applications in a variety of fields, such as contemporary performance, ancient drama and Greek tragedy, as well as theatre-based educational and social projects with the participation of children and adolescents. Since 2015, Montera teaches drama in MUSA’s educational programme. She is part of the programme’s community outreach, doing work with the non-governmental organization Solar Meninos de Luz, a school for the Cantagalo favela children. The project has been captured in the documentary Happy Princes by director Panos Deligiannis and the production company Oxymoron Films, run by award-winning filmmaker Argyris Papadimitropoulos. In 2016, Montera worked as assistant director, producer, and actress in the play O Último Besteirol. Also in 2016, she directed the personal project Ex-Posição, which deals with female experience. She recently directed the web series Suspiros Tagarelas, expected to be released in 2017.