Apokries is the best opportunity to play, escape from the everyday routine and enter a world of fantasy and transformation! Let’s discover the world of the expressive theater mask! Katheti is organizing a three-day mask creation and theater animation workshop workshop with Irini Aboumogli at Katheti’s space from February 17th to 19th, which will last a total of 14 hours. The participation fee is 30 euros for Katheti’s members, 60 euros for non-members and 40 euros for early birds (until February 5th). After getting familiar with the ways we can bring masks to life and play with them, creating original characters, we will then make our very own mask. Our goal is to create our own unique character and be able to play with it!  

Playing with the expressive theater mask

Face and voice are the main expressive tools for most people. But what if the face is covered by a rigid form? How does this form come to life, become a personality with varied emotions? By covering the face, the mask “reveals” our expressiveness. It helps us to become more aware of the body’s interpretive and narrative power, to become more precise and more expressive on stage. The expressive masks are roles waiting to be brought to life, which with their own expressiveness “suggest” a different body, a different behavior and a different way of speaking. The mask creation and theater animation workshop aims, through exercises, observation and games, for the participants to discover the mask as a living element, that invites us to overcome ourselves and create new, interesting and unusual characters. The masks that will be used are expressive masks, made by Irini Aboumogli and set designer Martha Fokas. The workshop will start on Friday, February 17th at 4 pm and will last 5 hours. Out of these 5 hours, one hour will be devoted to the construction of a mask out of plaster of paris. Comfortable clothes and socks or comfortable shoes are necessary, because we will be doing physical activities and will need to lie on the floor.  

Mask making

On Saturday, February 18th and Sunday, February 19th the workshop will start at 11 am and will last 6 and 3 hours respectively. In this intensive mask creation and theater animation workshop we will use plaster of paris, clay and then papier-mâché to make our very own mask so that at the end we can bring it to life and play with it!  

The collaboration

Irini Aboumogli is an actress and director. She is a graduate of the School of Drama of the School of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and holds a Master’s Degree in Directing from the same University. She developed and enriched her knowledge of physical theater in Brussels, at the Lassâad Ecole Internationale de Théâtre, where, based on Jacques Lecoq’s pedagogical approach, she was trained in many types of theater (pantomime, mask, clown, Commedia dell’arte, buffoons). She has closely followed the methods of famous theaters in Europe: Odin Teatret in Denmark, Jerzy Grotowski in Poland, Meyerhold Theater Mechanics by Gennadi Bogdanov in Italy, Familie Floez in Germany. She works as an actor and director and has taught mask and pantomime in Athens, Thessaloniki and Crete. Katheti promotes culture and the arts in all their forms. This is also the reason why the actions are linked to education and artistic expression! In the past Katheti has organized the music workshop «Synthesis & Anasynthesis» as well as the theater workshop “Theater documentation of Poros and Troizinia-Methana”, which led to the successful performance “Passage”. In the summer, Katheti also organized the three-day theatrical seminar “From the tribes of the world to our ‘tribe’” and brought the play “Ιστορία ενός σκύλου που τον έλεγαν πιστό” (The story of a dog called faithful) to our area. The Choral Workshop “Fairy tale without a name” is currently in progress. Now we invite you to something different! Participate to the mask creation and theater animation workshop to play and express yourselves in the realm of imagination. Join Katheti’s work!