Tiit Ojasoo
Rehearsal practices
In this short workshop I would like to approach the reality of rehearsing with new group of actors. What is the attention, from where starts the forming the ensemble and what are the key issues for common culture in rehearsing. Having worked with various theatre cultures all over Europe, I’ve found several useful ways to deal with the reality of rehearsing, also noted several flaws and misbehaviours easily destroying the creative atmosphere.
Workshop will be practical and a bit physical also, moderate sweating is probable.
Tiit Ojasoo is by far the most internationally prominent theatre maker from Estonia. Together with Ene-Liis Semper he created a serial art project called Theatre NO99 at 2005, becoming soon warmly welcomed on stages all over Europe and beyond. Beside that he has been working as director on many acclaimed theatres across Europe: Burgtheater Vienna, Thalia Hamburg, Big Drama Theater (BDT) St Peterburg, to name a few.
Over the years he has won numerous theatre and art prizes in Estonia, but also Nestroy Prize Austria, European Theatre Award and Golden Triga from Prague Quadrennial.
Currently he is an freelance director and professor for performing arts in Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.
Theatre NO99, founded 2005 in Tallinn, Estonia was a platform for different types of works of art, which during its lifespan over more than 14 years received considerable acclaim across Europe. Theatre NO99 was a serial work of contemporary art. At the beginning of it was an idea that considering the inherently finite nature of time and its finality, time should instead be measured backwards. This served as the impetus for Theater NO99 idea for a theatre where only 99 stage productions should open and which thus moves along sequential numbers to zero, towards oblivion.
In 2015 Theatre NO99 won Grand Prix Golden Triga in Praque Quedrennial for their greatly prised project “NO75 Unified Estonia”, in 2017 Theatre NO99 was awarded with European theatre prize New Theatrical Realities.
Not naming endless performances on most presigues stages and festivals all over Europe and beyond: Festival d’Avignon (France), Wiener Festwochen (Austria), Theaterformen (Germany), NET – New European Theatre (Moscow), Golden Mask (Moscow), Holland Festival (Netherlands), Venice Theatre Biennale (Italy) and venues throughout Europe such as Théâtre de l’ Odéon in Paris, HAU in Berlin, KVS in Brussels and Thalia Theater in Hamburg.
Ojasoo works in various formats, from doing interactive productions that are presented in offices or other non-stage situations, to work presented in television, to film, to big scale stage productions for thousands of spectators at a time. Their works often combine visually expressive staging with fearlessly addressing the most complex societal issues. Over the years you can reconise their productions by strong embodyment of characters, often they work in the field of drama theatre without spoken words on th estage. Last years music takes stronger and stronger role in their productions, working together with Till Lindemann from Rammstein or Estonian National Symphonic Orchestra.
Tiit Ojasoo (1977) studied directing at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, graduating in 2000 and has since been considered by many to be the most renowned theatre director in Estonia. He often devises productions from scratch together with Semper, but he also works with plays, having staged Shakespeare, Stoppard, MacDonagh, Albee, Koltés, Sophokles, Euripides, Shaw and Jarry. Ojasoo latest works include also theatrical versions of novels by Sologub, Bulgakov and Dostojevski.
Currently he is a professor of Dramatic Arts in Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.
It has been noted by many that a very central trait of Ojasoo’s work as a director is the high level of scenic energy of their actors. Physical presence, improvising as a method for developing a production, extending boundaries of theatrical reality, those are the qualities often important for productions made by Ojasoo. One of the specific qualities of their work is also the ability to develop societal metaphors out of very personal experiences and emotions.
