ENGLISH
Once again we present you workshops program during (and before!) JO! Festival. Choose wisely from masterclasses, 6 and 3 hour options. There’s wide variety of subjects and teachers, so your JO! experience can be intensive and diverse. Remember that if you’re buying Festival Pass, you’ll be given a 10% discount code for all your workshops purchases – so probably better buy Pass first!

For our international customers – yup, prices are in Polish currency. As for now it translates to:

3 hours workshop – 220pln is about 51 euro
6 hours workshop – 400pln is about 92,65 euro
12 hours workshop – 700pln is about 162,10 euro
Remember that you can get everything 10% cheaper – with your Festival Pass.

POLSKI
Zapraszamy na warsztaty podczas (i przed) tegorocznego JO! – na ten moment mamy dla Was ofertę zagranicznych trenerów. Warsztaty realizowane będą po angielsku (ale nie stresujcie się tym zanadto), więc opisy i wszystkie informacje prezentujemy Wam poniżej również w tym języku. Pamiętajcie, że posiadacze karnetów dostają kod dający 10% rabatu na wszystkie warsztaty!

FULL PROGRAM

Sacha Hoedemaker – Musical Mixer

12 hours of workshop + soundcheck/rehearsal on stage with personal mics + 30 minutes show on Main Stage
Workshops: 24-25 July, 10:00-13:00, 14:00-17:00, Soundcheck: 26 July, exact time tbd, Show on Friday evening
Price: 700pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: advanced
A high energy fast-paced musical workshop that encapsulates creating a new musical format from scratch. Including characters, short form games, transitions, an overarching story, group songs and solo songs! All in one jam-packed show! This workshop results in a mixer team performance, accompanied by your teacher Sacha Hoedemaker.

Sacha Hoedemaker – Musical Improv in Short-form 2.0

3 hours
28 July, 10:00-13:00
Price: 220pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: universal
You’ve sung in front of an audience. You created a chorus, but now you’re ready for the next step. In this one-day workshop, you’ll work together with Sacha Hoedemaker to elevate your musical improv during shows! We’ll work on creating meaningful lyrics on the spot, as well as group songs and new and creative ways to use music, voice and rhythm in your improv shows!

Lee White – Fantasy Role Play Genre

6 hours
26 July, 10:00-13:00, 14:00-17:00
Price: 400pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: intermediate-advanced
Delve into dungeons, explore the dark forests, slay your enemies and save the lands from evil.
This workshop focuses on a fun but complex genre that audiences (and maybe even you) love. Fantasy characters need special attention to their creation. The story is different from our regular scenes and takes a different approach. Creating a world unfamiliar to the audience with magic and powers unlike our real world, needs to be handled with care. Whether you are interested in a live RPG show or a classic fantasy like adventure story inspired by mythology, this workshop will give you the tools you need to elevate your fantasy story telling abilities.

Lee White – Tempo and Rhythm

6 hours
27 July, 10:00-13:00, 14:00-17:00
Price: 400pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: intermediate
In this course we will explore the tempo and pacing for our scenes. Find the speed and pulse of the stories with your partner that is both comfortable and inspiring. Many fast scenes are created because of panic and fear instead of it being a choice. We can use our natural impulses to inspire the tone of our scene. So let’s focus on using the speed and tempo of our scenes and characters to inspire the scenes. We want to connect and discover different velocities for our scenes with our partners. Too often our scenes follow similar rhythms over and over but we often need more variety in our shows. Adding style and pulse to an average scene can elevate it to new places. Learn to follow your partners impulses as well as lead your partner. Sign up for this class and learn to slow down and speed up with intention, and add that extra spice to our performances.

Paula Galimberti – Politically Incorrect

6 hours
26 July, 10:00-13:00, 14:00-17:00
Price: 400pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: advanced
We will work with the “dark/bad” characters, those that we don’t like that much, those that are evil, mean, liars, thieves, killers…etc. Without judging them. We will work with the dark side, of situations, characters and decisions. When we are pushed to make a bad choice for a good purpose. These characters are very important we need them to tell the story and we them to have a hero for the story. Good doesn’t exist without evil.

Paula Galimberti – Magical realism

6 hours
27 July, 10:00-13:00, 14:00-17:00
Price: 400pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: advanced
In this workshop we will break all boundaries and rules about what its magic or not in the improv and we will make everything look normal and a day-today thing. We will find a different way to tell stories using a lot of new tools. We can be whatever we want, everything it’s possible!

Hila di Castro – The Lowest Point of a High-Status Character

6 hours
26 July, 10:00-13:00, 14:00-17:00
Price: 400pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: advanced
We can only truly cheer for a powerful, high-status character – hero or villain – once we see their weakness, complexity, and humanity. The moments when these bigger-than-life characters are revealed to be flawed are when the magic happens.
In a longform, a strong, high-status character is someone with power and control. Nothing can hurt them; they are undefeatable. As an audience, we can admire or fear this character, we might even want to be them. But we won’t feel soft, nuanced feelings towards them: we will not love them, become attached or feel compassion. That is, unless we see them in their vulnerable moments, when their weaknesses are revealed. We need to see their humanity in order to identify with them. If we ask the character, these moments are their lowest points – the moments that they will never want us to see. For the audience, those moments are precisely when a tough or evil character steals our hearts!
In this workshop, we will practice five different low points a high-status character can have and learn how to incorporate these into our longform narrative – from a writer’s perspective. From an actor’s perspective, we will learn how to truthfully portray these moments – while treading a fine line: showing the character’s weakness, vulnerability and humanity while still maintaining their high status.

Hila di Castro – The Gender Laboratory

3 hours
28 July, 10:00-13:00
Price: 220pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: universal
Due to the workshop’s character, it’s important to have a balanced group gender-wise. Because of that, we divided slots for this workshop into 3 categories – men, women and non-binary. We are aware that’s not a perfect solution, but that’s what we came up with. Just pick whichever option you feel and remember – it’s not intended to label you, but to enable you to work in a diverse group.
Research shows that an average woman speaks approximately 20,000 words a day, while a man speaks only 7000.
In fact, this research has been disproved, but how quickly it evokes our stereotypes? Since childhood, we are programmed by society to think of gender in a certain way – boys should wear blue and be powerful, while girls should wear pink and be gentle. As we progress in time, we start breaking these patterns. But they are more profound than we think.
In order to break them completely, we must know the history of gender roles and challenge ourselves not to take the beliefs we were raised on for granted. This workshop aims to do exactly that.
We will dive into gender theory and history before challenging ourselves to play the opposite sex on stage without judgment. We will then challenge ourselves to play scenes without ANY gender presumptions at all.
The laboratory’s goal is to make us see the world through different gender glasses.

Vincent van Nieuwenhuyze – Chaotic Fun: Exploring Absurdism in Improv

3 hours
26 July, 10:00-13:00
Price: 220pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: beginner
Description: Are you fascinated by the unconventional, the weird, the nonsensical, and the deliciously absurd? Join us as we dive into the world of absurdism and learn how to spice up your improv scenes with a unique blend of humor, unpredictability, and thought-provoking chaos. We will see: – What is absurdism? How do I play absurdism? – Chaos, your best friend. – Organic playing. (Play from a feeling and not from a thought) – Be weird, it’s okay! – Fun, so much fun!

Vincent van Nieuwenhuyze – The Rainbow Realm

3 hours
26 July, 14:00-17:00
Price: 220pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: universal
Are you eager to expand your own improvisational skills while respectfully and skillfully portraying queer characters? Join me for an enlightening journey that embraces inclusivity and empowers you to bring depth and sensitivity to your performances. We will see: – Discovery of queer identity – Linear vs. circular energy – Breaking free from stereotypes – Empathy and sensitivity – Learning from your own prejudice and mistakes. (Give yourself the ultimate gift of learning and evolving!) This workshop is open to ALL, whether you are a queer improviser or not this is all about being and playing together. Whether you want to learn, (re)discover or just have fun, you’re more then welcome. The only thing I ask is for you to come with a heart full of love and acceptance.

Andrew Hefler – Resistance: Saying yes to the tension

6 hours
27 July, 10:00-13:00, 14:00-17:00
Price: 400pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: advanced
Improvisation is theatre and the audience has expectations of the theatre. They want it to reflect the realities of people’s lives. They want to relate to and feel the struggles, trials and tribulations of the characters on stage and their relationships.
Resistance: A force, such as friction, that operates opposite the direction of motion of a body and tends to prevent or slow down the body’s motion, or refusing to accept something.
People in life want to appear normal, to remain balanced when facing change. They can live in denial, they can say no when being asked out on a date and they don’t always take the life-changing opportunities right away or even wilfully. However, after resisting, when they finally do take that leap or that transformation, the breakthrough is scenic gold. It’s where the audience cannot help but be moved by the tension and vicarity. This intensive will look at the skills and techniques that help actors work together to make aware their collective sensors to say yes to the tension, yes to the struggle through resisting certain opportunities and stretching them out for higher stakes and greater reward. As we become more savvy and start to understand the needs of dynamics, narratives, transformations and most importantly audiences, we start to understand that saying yes is best when we say yes to the obvious, our feelings, the impulses, and the truth of the scene and find yourself in. This workshop will be based on several skill building exercises, including some physical and musical warm-ups to deal with some physicality of tension and focus a lot on scene work with constructive and candid feedback.
Understanding what saying yes to tension story and the audiences desires and knowing your own and how to do this.

Joe Bill – Comedy through connection

12 hours
Workshops: 24-25 July, 10:00-13:00, 14:00-17:00
Price: 700pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: advanced
Do you ever feel tired of chasing comedy premise and then finding the joke or game of the scene but running out of steam once you do? In this workshop I will teach you how to approach comedy as a consequence of human connection as opposed to playing a premise and patterns for the sake of themselves. I'll also give you some behavioral neuroscience insight about how your brain works in different contexts of improvisation.
We’ll play with repetitions in emotional honesty and the theatrical possibilities of our relationships and stories unfolding in a focused and compelling way. I’ll show you how to forward with depth and pay attention to “The Play In Between The Lines”, just like actors do in scripted scenes. Dramatic tension comes from Paying Attention to Emerging Patterns in Speech and Behavior. Listening and Responding to Emotional Content, Psychological Awareness and Point of View through Curiosity and Suspicion and a Willingness to be Changed by your scene partner. We’ll also play with recognizing the power and dynamics that lie in silence. This workshop will be valuable to improvisers of any level that are interested in improving their acting skills.

Joe Bill – First 30 seconds

3 hours
28 July, 10:00-13:00
Price: 220pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: intermediate
This workshop will help participants get present immediately in Improv Scenes. I’ll show you how to have your inner engineer and inner jazz musician come into balance as you’re starting scenes. This includes emotional and strategic presence, the mindset of readiness, playfulness, awareness of interpersonal vs. circumstantial dialogue and tracking the context through patterns that you establish right from the start. In Improvisation the ending is often in the beginning, let me help you start from a place of grounding and strength. Everyone will walk out of this workshop with at least a couple of new tools that they can begin to employ immediately.

Ben Verhoeven – The laboratory of improv rules

3 hours
27 July, 10:00-13:00
Price: 220pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: intermediate
Which impro rules do you strive to play by? Which improv tips do you believe in?
Well, prepare to have your beliefs challenged. In this laboratory we will experiment and play with the rules. This investigation will help us gain understanding in the how, why and when of such rules. Nothing is true until proven!
Homework: think of the improv rule that you personally swear by and bring it to class.

Charlotte de Metsenaere – Catch me outside!

3 hours
28 July, 10:00-13:00
Price: 220pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: intermediate
Who put that there? Why would you walk so slowly? I wish I knew what was going on behind that bench. What’s that guy doing? Why is there confetti on the ground?
Freedom ! Sunlight ! Oxygen ! Let’s take away the safety of being indoors, break down the classroom walls and jump into the outside adventure! This workshop promises 3 hours of following impulses and doing scene work outside, using the inspiration brought to us by the real world. We’ll have 3 focus points: characters, objects and nature. Well, that is if I don’t loose you all at the ice cream truck.

Natasa Papangelou – Be a tree

3 hours
27 July, 14:00-17:00
Price: 220pln, 10% off for Festival Pass owners (promo code on Festival Pass pdf file)
Level: beginner/intermediate
A sparrow, a dandelion, early spring’s morning dew. A swarm of ants, and a row of cypress trees. What stories do they have to say? What other worldviews do we bring in when we look beyond humans? How can these other beings and natural elements enrich our stories and our characters?
In this workshop we will work on expanding our worldview, to include this wonderful thing around us that nature is. We will work on embodying non-human characters (plants, animals, natural elements) and on bringing their points of view into our stories and scenes. We will also play with weaving together human and non-human perspectives, trying to bring on stage a world in all its ecological complexity.
This is an improv workshop that will hopefully give you some tools for outdoor scene building, and for enriching your stories and characters with magical and surreal elements inspired from the natural environment. It is also a reflection on how we connect to non-humans on and off stage, and an invitation to open up to the magic of Nature.

Paula Galimberti is an actor, director, coach and improviser. She studied acting in Cristina Rota school for 4 years. She has been working as an actress since 1996. She started her own improv company “Jamming” 20 years ago. We can also see her working on cinema and TV. She worked as a improv-acting teacher in Bogotá, Lima, Cuzco, Santiago de Chile, Lyon, Berlin… And she completed her professional career with her coach Jordan Bayne.
Now she is working between Berlin and Madrid regularly and also traveling around the world. In Madrid she works with her company Jamming. As a an actor, director and coach. And In Berlin with Esimpro, Esimprocine and Inbal Lori. She also collaborates with a national Spanish radio program doing and improv show on air.

Hila Di Castro is an actress, international improviser and teacher based in Israel. You can find her every year in Pandora improve festival (Italy) as she is the director of the international cast. Hila is a co-founder, member and co-artistic director of the trio MOMENTUM – one of the leading improv groups in Israel. She is the creator and director of the show „Woman up!” and also the host and one of the performers both in the Israeli and the international cast. She is leading this show with a vision of a worldwide project to create a web of women groups performing it worldwide. For over 10 years Hila tours the world performing and teaching acting and improv. She has visited over 10 countries, Bringing her unique, inspiring, personal style and improv philosophy.

Ben Verhoeven is an improviser and teacher from Antwerp, Belgium. He’s known for his work on the intersection between science and (improvised) theatre: using applied improvisation techniques to help scientists communicate and developing and performing science theatre shows. His more rational and analytical approach also features in his artistic endeavours and performing style. Ben has a secure and calm stage presence while thoroughly committing to the show at hand with a solid awareness of the stage, players and scene. Oh, and he loves improvising musical theatre!
Ben is three time winner of the Flemish longform improv competition Kemphanen, with his groups Prism and Commotie musical improv. He has his own company ERLNMYR combining improvisation and science communication, for example in the AI improvisation show Improbotics. He’s also co-founder of Swaajp Improtheater, co-director of Werewolves the improv show, regular performer with ImproBubble, and has a new duo show with Romanian improviser Rozana Radu. Since starting improvisation in 2011, Ben has performed over 250 shows in 10 different countries and in 4 different languages.
Ben was an improvisation teacher at Conservatorium Mechelen for four years, and before that he founded the Swaajp School of Improv and ran it for several years. He regularly offers workshops to different theater groups in Belgium and abroad (India, Germany, New Zealand, France, Slovenia, The Netherlands). He’s a founding member of The SIN, an international network for ambitious improvisers in Europe.

Charlotte de Metsenaere – It will be Charlotte’s third time at Jo! festival. She visited us before as a teacher and performer in 2019 and 2023. Grab the chance to work with her if you haven’t already! Charlotte brings many different assets to the table, being an all-rounder in the Belgian and international improvisation scene. She has been teaching for 16 years, from beginners to experts, from games to longform to directing. With her company ‘Zeggedis’ she teaches applied improvisation to companies and business schools. She just finished a postgraduate degree in experience based learning and group dynamics.
Find her on stage with Prism, ‘Woman Up!’, Improbotics, Fairyfail, Ohana or the Werewolves international cast. Charlotte taught workshops in Belgium, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Poland, India, Israel and Greece. She is most asked and liked for her enormous amount of energy and positivity. Also… she likes chocolate. She needs stuff to be in the right place (her friends call her Monica), and she loves people who see the beauty in everyday life.

Vincent van Nieuwenhuyze is a professional improv teacher, player and coach from Ghent, Belgium. By day he’s kicking ass in the corporate world as a project and process manager for a major telecom operator. By night, and sometimes even in the daytime, he’s playing improv. He has performed in over 10 troupes for over 15 years and has been teaching improv in Belgium and on the international improv circuit for over 9 years.
Some key elements to what Vincent brings to the scene are intimacy, warmth, safety, vocals and a ton of energy to surf on. Within the field of improv, he loves refreshing the basics and keeping the fun in the fundamentals. With a background in social work and education, he loves to find ways to educate society through improv and together create a more diverse, more accepting, warm, and loving environment for all of us to play in.
Throughout the last couple of years, Vincent has taken a deep dive into the topic of intimacy on stage as well as on the topic of gender in improv and on stage. And what he doesn’t want you to forget is, “you be you!”.

Natasa Papangelou started improvising in 2016 and has since participated in numerous shows and projects in and around Brussels. Off stage, she’s a sustainability researcher and teacher, an activist and a folk-tale enthusiast.

Joe Bill is widely regarded as one of the best teachers of Improvisation in America today.
He is one of the founding members of Annoyance Theater Chicago, was the Director of Corporate Training at iO Chicago for 15 years, and a Teacher & Guest Artist in Residence at The Second City Conservatory & Training Center for another 15 years. Joe first practiced improvisation in 1977 and studied and worked with Del Close from 1985 through the mid 90’s.
Joe is also a Senior Facilitator for The Ariel Group, specializing in Leadership & Personal Presence and Storytelling for Business People. He was the Master Facilitator of the Western U.S. for Ferrazzi Greenlight in their Trusted Advisor Initiative with General Motors from 2015-2016.
He has trained corporate clients in more than 80 Fortune 500 companies. Clients include NBC Universal, Disney, PepsiCo, Abbott Labs, Abbvie, GE, Leo Burnett, American Express, the CIA, and the Children’s Miracle Network. He has taught in the Business Schools of the University of Chicago, Harvard, Yale, Northwestern, Duke, and The University of Virginia.
His clients range from C Level to new hires, in a number of vastly different industries. He is just as comfortable coaching Creative Teams, Corporate Leaders, and Television Stars as he is coaching Engineers, Analysts, and Actuaries.
Joe has also been touring internationally as an improvisational performer, teacher, and director for more than 20 years.

Andrew Hefler is a beast performer, director and trainer working in theatre, music, film and television for nearly thirty years.
He’s an actor at the National Theatre of Hungary, who has performed in more than one-hundred episodes of television, over 60 commercials, more than 20 films and sold the rights of 3 TV series. He provided the voices of dozens of cartoon characters and spent thousands of hours in the sound booth. He’s also the founder of Grund Theatre, as well as an MC/host of events.
Chief trainer and training designer, providing skillbuilding for over 100 companies and thousands of people in communication, improv and acting, including media professionals and politicians in 15 countries, as well as NGOs and charitable organisation. Frequent collaborator with ad agencies (Ogilvy, DDB, Saatchi & Saatchi). He has also taught courses at Bauhaus University, Hungarian University for Performing Arts (SzFE) and Central European U.

Last, but not least – father of three and a lucky partner of a heroic wife.

Lee White is an actor, most known for his work with improvisation, comedy and stand-up, but also in film television and as a voice-over artist.
Originally from Winnipeg Canada, now based in Berlin, he became an acclaimed improviser for being part of the famous improv duo CRUMBS. Lee White has been performing and teaching improv since the early 90’s. Touring with shows and workshops all over Europe, Asia and North America for over 20 years, his unique philosophy of improv has made him welcomed everywhere he goes.
Aside from CRUMBS, Lee has been involved in the invention/development of several new shows such as Knowledge and Punishment, Clever: The Live Comedy Game Show, Your 15 minutes of fame, ‚Paradigm‘ with Joe Bill, ‚The Lorilees‘ with Inbal Lori, Winnipeg’s infamous Dungeons and Dragons Improv Show, as well as Berlins hot new long form group, The Marbelles and several other collaborations with artists from all over the globe.
Since he moved to Berlin, Lee is teaching regular improv classes at Die Gorillas improv school. He performs regularly at Impro Embassy at the Ratibor Theater as well as The Comedy Cafe Berlin, the BühnenRausch, the brot fabrik, and many more. He coaches improv groups all over Germany and Europe. He also travels to other towns for shows with local improv groups and his show „Your 15 Minutes of Fame“.
Lee is working as an actor for TV productions such as „The Pinkertons“ and „Spides“, as well as movies and short films. He had a very tiny part in „I’m your man“ (Ich Bin Dein Mensch). As a voice-over actor he is lending his voice to characters and narrates image videos, advertisements and short clips.

Sacha Hoedemaker has been playing professionally for over 13 years accompanying singers, live bands, musicals, studio engineers and theater productions. As the Musical Director at Boom Chicago, he is responsible for the production of original music for live shows and other creative projects such as Escape through Time, New Kids on the Gracht, VR Winter Wonderland, Best of Boom, Escape Through The Movies and many more. In 2010, Sacha was introduced to improvisational theater and was hooked right away. His professional experience combined with an eye and timing for theater made him a highly sought after Musical Director and improviser across Europe. Sacha loves teaching, playing live, producing and working with people on creative and/or musical projects! For more information about Sacha Hoedemaker, check out his website at http://www.themusicmaker.nl or search for The Music Maker on Facebook.

Festiwal dofinansowano ze środków Ministra Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego w ramach Programu Teatr 2024