Eòlia CSAD's training includes techniques and working styles that are constantly renewed to help the student to give a solid and professional basis to his artistic vocation, and has a teaching team made up of, mostly, show professionals , active and high level.
EÒLIA CSAD, in the field of acting, has built its identity in constant dialogue with the professional world. Actors, actresses, playwrights, directors, and directors are an active part of the school's life, sharing the classroom as a space for learning, research, and transmission, both from pedagogical practice and from direct contact with the contemporary stage and audiovisual.
EÒLIA's interpretive training is based on an eclectic and open orientation, integrating various techniques, aesthetics and methodologies in continuous evolution. The work is inspired by references such as Declan Donnellan, Michael Chekhov and the Daulte Training, and understands interpretation as a living process that articulates body, imagination, action and relationship with the other. This plurality does not seek the accumulation of resources, but the conscious expansion of the interpretive register of each student.
The interpretive work covers both the stage and the camera, taking into account the specificities of theater, cinema and television. The school defends an interpretation committed to presence, listening and truth, capable of adapting to different languages without losing authenticity. Accompanying students involves helping them to recognize their uniqueness, to take risks and to build their own voice as performers and creators, prepared to communicate, excite and dialogue with their time and with the audience.
Josep Galindo, Head of the Interpretation Department.
Dramaturgy and direction: invisible architecture
Dramaturgy and stage direction are the two disciplines that allow us to devise (dramaturgy) and to concretize and orchestrate (direction) the complex intertwining of codes –linguistic, non-verbal, spatial, visual, auditory…– that converge in the stage act. Their objective is to individually provoke in each spectator –who has the particularity of manifesting themselves collectively as the audience of an ephemeral event– an intellectual and aesthetic experience with a significance that is both personal and social.
More specifically, dramaturgy is the process of thinking, conceiving, inventing, conceptualizing, symbolizing, and metaphorizing all of the scenic elements. A process that is developed in each of the phases of creation and in which each and every one of the creators participates: author, playwright, director, set designer, lighting designer, costume designer, composer, performers... In short, total dramaturgy would be the set of strategies used by all the creators gathered around a scenic event that is, in essence, a collective creation.
For its part, direction is the process of provoking, coordinating and harmoniously bringing together the contributions of all the creators integrated in the construction of the scenic event. A good knowledge of the diversity of codes is especially relevant in the case of the stage director. The focus on provoking a specific aesthetic and ideological response in the audience is, ultimately, their responsibility and main objective.
In both the field of dramaturgy and direction, the Eòlia school understands theatrical pedagogy as the process through which a series of theoretical and practical tools are internalized, mastery of the techniques of the trade is achieved and a range of mental habits are developed that allow the scenic intuition of the creator integrated into the creative team to flow. The ultimate goal is to acquire the necessary skills in order to achieve –both individually and collectively in the table work and in the rehearsal room– the best results on stage.
Within the dramaturgy and direction curriculum, theoretical subjects (which are oriented towards both dramaturgy –creative reflection– and direction –staging strategies–) are complemented by theoretical-practical subjects specifically oriented towards dramaturgy (understood, here, as the development of the dramatic and/or stage text) or towards direction (understood, now, as the planning of the staging and direction of actors). However, the core of the degree is eminently practical and is structured around the semester internships (understood as a space for the student's creative freedom and which function as a tutored subject, but without a teacher) where the learning achieved semester by semester is poured out and experienced with total independence with the aim of achieving a personal aesthetic language and ideological point of view on the part of the student.
Pablo Ley, Head of the Department of Scenic Direction and Dramaturgy.
Bodywork is one of the foundations of the performer's training. The path of the Department of Body and Dance of Eòlia seeks to develop an available, conscious and expressive body, capable of articulating actions, emotions and imagination with precision and freedom. Learning is organized in four progressive courses that combine technique, perception and stage presence. The foundations of movement are established based on body awareness, breathing, release and floorwork. The student explores the economy of effort, the relationship with the floor, musicality and listening to the space and the group. The course culminates with a creative work that integrates analysis, composition and physical interpretation.
The rigor of the training is deepened and technical languages are incorporated that expand physical and expressive capacity. The Horton technique provides strength and alignment, while stretches derived from yoga and Gyrotonic principles reinforce mobility and proprioception. Barre and center, isolations, choreographic sequences, phrasing and diagonals are worked on from a functional and expressive perspective. Technical complexity and expressive depth are consolidated.
The student expands the repertoire with contemporary dance and modern jazz, consolidates floorwork and develops more specific movement qualities, as well as long and demanding sequences that integrate presence, musicality and dramaturgical intention. The journey culminates with the integration of the body as a professional instrument, in an integrated work with the TF with a mature, available and versatile body.
The Department of Body and Dance trains performers capable of listening, imagining and creating: a thinking body, prepared for the contemporary professional context.
Nuria Legarda, Head of the Body and Dance Department.
Voice and diction work is fundamental for the development of the performer's expressiveness on stage. In the various subjects that make up the oral expression course, the work is not focused solely on technical improvement but rather on allowing the student to explore all of their expressive skills, which will lead them to have their own artistic personality.
In the first year, the work focuses on body and vocal awareness through a set of voice techniques, among which Fitzmaurice Voicework ® stands out. This methodology emphasizes breathing, vibration and the release of physical and emotional tensions that block the voice. Through exercises of tremor, deep breathing and internal listening, students discover a more organic voice, connected to the body and the expressive impulse. This first contact is key to establishing solid foundations that allow a free and available vocal emission for interpretative work.
In the second year, the training incorporates the Roy Hart technique, which expands the traditional conception of the voice and explores its full expressive potential. Based on the foundations developed in the first year, this discipline invites the performer to investigate unconventional vocal registers, to work with the voice as a vehicle for extreme emotions and to break personal and sonic boundaries. Working with Roy Hart fosters a courageous, creative voice that is deeply linked to the emotional experience of the performer, thus enriching their stage presence.
In addition to vocal work, throughout the degree, Catalan and Spanish diction play a central role. A thorough command of both languages guarantees clarity of speech, respect for the text and the ability to communicate with precision and nuance. The work on the phonetics, articulation, accentuation and musicality of each language allows the student to adapt to different professional contexts and dramaturgical styles.
Finally, the importance of all these disciplines lies in their complementarity. The work of voice, body and diction cannot be understood in a fragmented way, but as an integrated whole that supports the interpretation. Thanks to this four-year journey, the interpreter acquires technical and expressive tools that allow him to communicate with authenticity, awareness and power on stage.
Mariona Esplugues, Head of the Voice and Oral Expression Department.
For us, musical theater is a complete discipline, which combines technical rigor with scenic truth.
The Musical Theatre route of Eòlia is potentially deployed from the second year onwards, although in the first year all students of the Degree in Interpretation work on the singing voice and musical theory in subjects such as Singing Laboratory, Musical Language 1 and, at a particular level, in Stage Singing 1.
The development of the course is articulated following the historical evolution of the genre. The repertoire used in the first year is basically that which trains and exercises a type of sound closer to the lyrical (called legitimate voice): Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin, Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Weill. In the second year, the acting tools are trained to face the interpretation of songs and the repertoire of the Golden Era (Broadway sound) is used: Kander, Herman, Sondheim, Coleman. In the third year, the focus is on modern sound and the repertoire that is worked on in all the subjects of the course is that which uses the microphone and all its aesthetic and technical possibilities: Jason Robert Brown, Andrew Lippa, Lloyd Webber, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jeanine Teasori, Anaïs Mitchell, Sarah Bareilles. In the fourth year, the performer consolidates his artistic autonomy, prepares the TFG and tests all his skills in integrated projects. The course culminates with a complete, versatile artist prepared for the professional context.
Our teaching experience has shown us that before the actor has absolute mastery of his vocal instrument, he must first expand and broaden it and find the playful component that makes him enjoy it without fear. In this regard, the first year of training at the school seeks this: to get the performer out of his head and find his most intuitive self and a broad and healthy voice. From the second year, the demand grows (there is a level test to access the musical theater mention) and here we ask our students for a professional attitude. In the third year, with the modern sound, we begin to work technically on the virtuosity of the voice. From the fourth year onwards, we understand that the performer already has a full awareness of his instrument and here what we want is for him to take responsibility for his artistic path and seek his voice with rigorous accompaniment.
The Eòlia Superior Center for Dramatic Art emerged at the height of the Dagoll Dagom company, and in fact this company, together with Tricicle, were the founders of the school in 2000. That is why newly created musical theater in Catalan is one of the center's commitments, which can be seen reflected in the Final Degree Projects of the students on this path and in all the teaching material and resources that the school makes available.
Nuria Sánchez and David Pintó, Heads of the Musical Theater Department.
The interpretation in front of the camera has a special specificity and different from other types of interpretations. Knowing the various interpretive schools, the different ways of approaching a script, the genres and sub-genres that come together in any audiovisual product is the first of the objectives of this training branch.
From cinema, television, entertainment programs, sketches, video clips, short films, etc. we will find out how to improve, refine and polish students ’tools and techniques.
We base our pedagogical brand on the analysis and viewing of the great interpretations of the history of cinema.
The exhaustive knowledge of the great engines of change that have meant for the seventh art a before and an after in the world of interpretation.
We will acquire the necessary knowledge to face the reading and the challenge of a paper, the own mechanisms of a cinematographic and / or television shooting and above all, we will realize practices so that the student learns in first person the necessary technical resources to form be like an actor in front of the camera.
The Daulte Procedure is an acting training process that is included as a block in the Aeolian acting subjects, both in the higher studies and in the own degrees.
From improvisations, the classroom becomes a safe space to explore interpretive freedom and to invent fiction and emotion.
The imagination to give rise to what is not there yet, the commitment to the game and the respect for its coordinates, the trust and complicity towards what the otherness proposes to us, become the guide to enjoy an eminently playful and practical acting training that allows us to recognize the acting skills of actresses and actors, explore them and enhance them.
Training is a collective process that allows identifying unique aspects of the interpretation of each of its members. It is a process through which each actress or actor expands their emotional range and acquires more tools for acting.
The subjects where the Daulte Procedure is included are: Interpretation Systems 5, 6 and 7 (Higher Studies) and Interpretation 2 and 3 (FPA).
Carmen Poll, Daulte Training Coordinator.