Laughter has been explored and studied as one of the biggest mysteries of the human condition, from Aristotle to our times. Humor, the comic, laughter, irony or melancholy happen across cultures, societies, biologies, and therefore require studies that go beyond disciplines in order to more fully examine one of the few human practices, according to Freud, which allows us to confront hostile realities without compromising our emotional or physical health.
From this point of view, we start from the differentiation within the species of laughter, between two modalities that we will call comic and humorous. As we shall see, humor, unlike comedy, laughs at what we fear most: death, physical pain, illness, lack of social acceptance, anguish, loneliness and that is why it plays a crucial role in our childhood, as a form of catharsis or resilience by allowing us to talk about what nobody talks about.
In this seminar we will explore the possibilities of humor (rather than the comic) in the creation of plays for children and young people, both from the point of view of text, acting and staging, since never, or almost never, Humor is just a verbal matter.
This workshop goes from the reflection to action: through trigger exercises, providing the artist with a possible methodology to face the scenic research from scratch.
Production Credits
Micaela Picarelli - Tya Director
Cristian Palacios - Researcher
About the Artists
Micaela Picarelli - Tya Director Micaela Picarelli is a young female director from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Graduated of the National University of Arts. She is also an actress, clown, producer and drama teacher. In a personal journey her career turns to two fundamental axes: TYA, for which she works as an active member of Atina's board (representation ASSITEJ in Argentina). In ASSITEJ she has participated in several workshops, meetings and festivals at an international level, being part of the Next Generation program at Beijin 2018, and the International Director´s Seminar in Berlin 2019. The other axis is her work towards inclusion; working with actors with disabilities since 2009 until today. During the last 14 years sha has been directing and performing on TYA, looking forward to take theater inside the school. Humor has been a constat research in both of her scenic paths. Especially working towards inclusion. Recently she has also devoted herself to investigation.
Cristian Palacios – Resercher Cristian Palacios is writer, actor, playwright performer and theatre director. He has a Linguistic PhD from the University of Buenos Aires with a doctoral thesis about comic and humoristic discourses and is a researcher of CONICET (The National Scientific and Technical Research Council) on the field of Semiotics, Discourse Analysis, Theatre and Art in general. He is also Lecturer in the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), the National University of Art (UNA). He has published several academic books about comic and humor, two novels, two books of poetry, numerous plays, and more than thirty scholarly articles in various books and specialized national and international magazines. He founded the REHC Society [Network of Humor and Comic Studies] and manages the International Conference on Humor and Comic Studies in Buenos Aires.