art from life heals and celebrates life
Performance Art from Life
Jelilou is a personal growth process that culminates in the creation of an original theatrical play. This workshop process employs Dynamic Breathwork and improvisation techniques taken from Psychodrama and theater. Using breathwork, participants access meaningful experiences from their lives, and then using improvisational tools from psychodrama, they re-enact these events on the stage. Very performable dramatic scenes emerge from this process which are woven together through improvisation to create an original script.
As well as being a healing transformational modality, Jelilou is an excellent training for actors and creative people in general, as participants are required to create many dramatic roles in the process. The method also works to free emotional blockage giving participants greater depth and freedom of expression.
Tools Used in the Workshop
- Dynamic Breath work (rebirthing) is very effective in accessing and clearing deeply held tension related to unprocessed traumatic experiences from the past. Participants use breath and awareness to more fully notice the details of their internal experience. By breathing into a charged feeling state, unresolved issues, relationship, and situations are revealed and transformed.
- Psychodrama continues the healing process by bringing these life experiences to the stage. Through reenactment, participants experience and learn to witness their feelings, behavior and relationships that have culminated in negative core beliefs about Self.
- The shamanic element is revealed through improvisational techniques focused in rhythmic movement and sound.
Benefits of the Workshop
- As Participants are asked to improvise and perform many different dramatic roles, the workshop is an excellent actor’s training for emotional range and versatility. The methods also work to free emotional blockage giving the participants greater depth and freedom of expression.
- Participants gain more awareness and healing of their individual family system script that negates, limits and denies their essential wholeness.
- Participants creatively transform their life challenges into performance art and experience being a part of an ensemble acting group performing before an audience.
A 13 Week Process
In the 13 week workshop, 5 people are invited to participate. Each participant will be the focus of 2 sessions in which he or she is the protagonist or star of the drama. No acting experience is necessary.
- Weeks 1 – 6 — Meets twice a week and identifies the themes and scenes that will continue to evolve throughout the workshop. The group’s work is focused on a different participant’s story each week.
- Weeks 7 – 12 — Meets two times a week for rehearsal. Through repetition, the vignettes are honed down to their essential form and are woven together with the shamanic element.
- Week 13 — Meets four times for dress rehearsal and performance on the weekend.