Poetry Workshop

"Poetry is the echo of the melody of the universe in the heart of humans," once wrote Rabindranath Tagore. Poetry is freedom, rebellion, provocation, invitation, images come to life and a great source for creativity. That´s why we have begun a workshop on dramatizing poety! Come join us! We meet every Saturday from 2:30 to 5pm at the cozy El Damero theater located near the Spanish hopital in Buenos Aires at 506 Dean Funes street. Bring your own poems, or those by poets you love. You can also check the poems we include in this blog.

The workshop, with the coaching of Alfred Hopkins, is open to anyone over 13 years of age with at least an intermediate knowledge of English. The monthly fee is just $500 pesos. Contact us at hopalfred@gmail.com.

Poetry is an ancient yet fabulous means of expression: the oldest poems go back to more than two thousand five hundred years before Christ! Unfortunately, it has gotten a bit out of fashion. Perhaps when your mother and father fell in love they wrote each other poems, or read verses to each other! In theater the world´s great dramatists, such as Shakespeare and Cervantes, wrote poetry and even used poetic expression in their plays. Wouldn´t it be great to go back to that tradition?

Poetry is perhaps the most free form of literary expression, although it may also be very structured. It is about breaking the rules. Breaking them in order to find new rules. Playing with the enormous potential of language. Expressing deep emotion with few words. Discovering the incredible sensory significance of imagery.

We want to deal with poetry from a theatrical perspective. Therefore, we will be working on breathing, the voice, diction, improvisation, poetry games, role play; how to read, recite or dramatize poems; how to work on the expression of the whole body in dealing with a poem. Although participants will work on the poems they choose, we will also be dividing up into pairs or teams. There will be time for elaborating our own poems and for staging skits based on poetry. The possibilities are vast.

Work with poetry can be an extremely valuable experience in language learning. It can also provide great insight into the unending conflicts inherent in the human condition. Come join the fun!