Welcome to the official website 
of the Parastudio Association
 

Short story...

The Parastudio Association was founded in 2014 by Tamás Liszkai PhD, theologian, associate professor of Rhetoric and Speech and voice techniques in the Francis Gal University, Szeged, Hungary, performer-trainer, stage manager and Mária Punk, drama- and ritual-pedagogical teacher, stage manager. The primary goal is to develop body- and voice-centred ritual sensitivity from an early age to the 'limit of active ability', and finding general, human ‘performing’ skills in the individual work and in a group, thereby to forming an ‘active culture’ in a social and pedagogical environment. The Association also has a cultural, public education, actor pedagogy and art profile. Its scope of work includes taking workshops and trainings (based on a pedagogy recognized as accredited training for children and young people [Forty-hour accredited in-service teacher training course entitled “Ritual pedagogy - opportunities for the development of ritual competence among children aged 4-12”] according to international pedagogical methods and experience gained in workshops); organizations of professional conferences and lectures; presentations and organizations of artistic productions; publications of studies and translations of publications in foreign languages. Since our establishment in 2014, we have organized several workshops together with cultural, public educational and ecclesiastic institutions. During this time we prepared almost 20 work-presentations and lectures, as well as we organized a national professional conference, we published two pedagogical textbooks (Ritual Pedagogy I-II) and two study volumes. Our trainings and the participation in our performances are absolutely open to everyone, regardless of earlier artistic education. From 2021 onwards, as a non-profit organization, our work aimed at the fundamental development of the cultural sensitivity of the participants in the workshops through active participation and joint action, as well as through interaction, to enrich the perception of the spectators and to get to know more precisely and to integrate the universal, local, sacred and profane-traditional symbols characteristic of the customs and traditions into everyday life, resp. communication.

Mission statement...

During our association work and our trainings we use the pedagogical methods of actors and performers in all ages to test the social and communication sensitivity of the participants, their openness to partner relationships, their ability to use body and voice, and their improvisational and artistic development and shaping factors. Based on the idea of Jerzy Grotowski, a Polish theatre director, performer-educator and theatre-anthropologist, we believe that all people have a basic, yet objective artistic [ritual] receptivity and appreciation/creativity. Thus, as a homo ludens universalis sive ritualis, it becomes able to form and live a collective culture of action that transcends social/ethnic/gender and religious boundaries, organically [i.e. pre-cultural], sincere, open and dynamic in its body and voice. Acceptance of existing physic-vocal defects and which simultaneously develops the technique of self-experience [introspectio] and self-transcendence [transgressio]. Grotowski’s universal workshop-concept (called ‘active culture’), developed with the involvement of the paratheatrical, i.e. all those interested in theatre-play action (performer-spectator, i.e. community), has been declared a Cultural World Heritage by UNESCO. Our goal is also to make these common, organic and objective values universal in interactive trainings, such as in ritual pedagogy and paratheatrical/paraliturgical workshops, acting trainings, pedagogical and adult training courses, as well as to make our pedagogical research more widely known in contemporary domestic and international art and education forums.

PROJECTS...

RITUAL-PEDAGOGICAL training Accredited training for 15 people. Leader of the project: Mária Punk. The accredited Ritual- Pedagogy training in Forty hours is a new, alternative art-pedagogical form of drama pedagogy, what offers an excellent and special way to eliminate behavioural disorders as well as to school learning disorders for interested educators and adults working with children. The method is based on the child's movement and play with the voice. The simplicity of which presupposes that all participants become authentic and organic men in that, and is therefore an ideal method of self-knowledge. It represents the cognitive spheres with the practices and games of multidirectional attention, in addition to the instinctive content with the practices and games of body restraint, and the universal human values with its strong community expression.
RITUAL-PEDAGOGICAL sessions Four-day camps for 4-12 year olds in age-disaggregated shifts (for 4-8 year olds and 9-12 year olds). Leaders of work-sessions: Mária Punk and Zsuzsanna Zsákai. The common playing strengthens the children's expressiveness, the use of body and voice, the improvisation technique, as a person expressing and receiving both plastic and artistic sensitivity, as well as their collective creativity and sense of group togetherness in jointly developed ritual games.
PARATHEATRICAL project Body and speech awareness courses [Via negativa] for 14-18 year olds and 19-36 year olds. [Research for the artistic man as ‘actor’] Leaders of course: Dániel Székhelyi, Bálint Barabás Szigeti, Fruzsina Horváth. The universally available tools of the theatrical profession can be an effective way to ensure that people who come in isolation from the social space can recognize and express their emotions accurately and clearly. The thesis of the workshop is that play is an essential element of the human nature, bringing it to the surface is not only an important part of an individual's everyday life, but it can also strengthen the cohesion, work efficiency and positive outlook on life of social groups.
PARALITURGICAL project Bodyalphabet [Ideograms] for participants over 17 years of age [Research for the ritual man, as ‘performer’]. It is a method of an organic, sincere acceptance of the body and voice, given and expressed in everyone and based on the practice of elementary expressions (ideograms). Leaders of workshop: Tamás Liszkai and Fruzsina Horváth. Through the workshop we explore the ritual, that is, for transcendence-sensitive reality of a person opened through his body and voice, his physical organism, in individual, couple and common work.

Contact:

President: Tamás Liszkai

Vice President: Mária Punk

Honorary President: László Vági

Secretary: Fruzsina Horváth

Artistic directors: Bálint Barabás Szigeti, Dániel Székhelyi, Szabina Horváth

Phone number: +36 30 289 5397

E-mail: parastudio@gmail.hu; parastudioegyesulet@gmail.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/parastudioegyesulet

Address: Parastudio - Paraliturgical and Ritual-Pedagogical Association, Fésű u. 5/A. 1/3. 6726 Szeged, Hungary

Tax number: 18523348-1-06

Account number of our association: IBAN HU82107020406846959951100005