Exploring Awareness in Relationships through Psychodrama and Physical Theatre

20-23 February 2025

Welcome to a highly experiential and playful group of personal development in which the Psychodrama Approach and Physical Theatre will dance together to provide a unique experience of emotional awareness and embodied spontaneity.

The focus of the group will be on relationships and partnerships.

Both individuals and couples are welcome, as well as anyone wishing to explore a partnership in their life (friends, work colleagues, family members…).

When two people/individuals engage with each other, they are well more than two! 

The psychodrama approach sees relationships as a fascinating field of human interactions in which a variety of roles are engaged, each of them manifesting different desires and needs, complicity and conflicts, potentials, dilemmas, values and dreams. 

The language of theatre allows these roles to be explored in a playful and embodied way, facilitating insights and awareness, personal process and further understanding of the nature of the relationship. The play of these roles reveal their fundamental vital drives as well as their unique wisdom, providing precious insights in the process of exploration, amplification and integration of the amazing theatre of our Psyche.

When two people interact many roles appear; some of them are welcome, others might be more difficult, at the point of remaining in the background, hiding from awareness. In Psychodrama the person is encouraged to bring these roles into the light and explore them through play.

The amplification and play of the different roles often bring humor into the personal process. Playing a problematic role of our personality deepens the somatic experience, sometimes bringing the role to its grotesque nature, when we can fully realize the depth and intensity of their urgencies as well as their intrinsic paradoxes. With the support of the protagonist of the Psychodrama can play the various roles of their personality in the interpersonal field and witness the inner drama of their psyche, which can be seen and transposed through the lenses of the theatre genres. Tragedy, Melodrama, Satyre, Absurd and, very often, Comedy! 

Welcome to the theatre of relationships!

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN…

The workshop is open to anyone wishing to engage in a quest of personal awareness and emotional awakening through role playing and theatrical games, within the context of a psychodrama group.

This workshop is specifically designed for anyone interested in exploring their psychological field in an embodied and theatrical way, in which the body and its language comes first, before words. 

• Theatre practitioners who are interested in a therapeutic process that includes play and theatricality, and that can be as deeply healing as fundamentally fun.

• Teachers, educators, therapists, psychotherapists, psychodramatists, drama-therapists and any one active in the field of healing who is interested in exploring psychology using a theatrical paradigm based on embodiment, play and fun.

• Individuals who are already engaged in any theatrical or therapeutic process.

• Couples, colleagues, team or family members who wish to explore their relationship patterns.

If you are coming from the field of theatre arts, you can expect to practice a therapeutic process constantly fed by the dynamics and techniques of physical theatre and embodied play.

If you are coming from the psychological field you can expect to explore emotional processes and wounds through theatrical games, exercise and the creation of characters, both in collective movement practice and through improvisation.

A fierce and playful curiosity about human folly and beauty is required, as well as a passionate engagement to the exploration of one’s own emotional life in an artistic way.

Though no previous specific knowledge of Psychodrama and Physical Theatre are required, a previous experience in Personal Development/Therapy OR in Theatre is necessary. 

THE APPROACH

The pedagogical approach integrates the practice and the experience of the two facilitators.

Psychodrama proposes a journey of emotional awareness and creative transformation of one’s own psychic structure, roles and relationships through the re-enactment of inner and outer life scenarios. In this sense it is a highly theatrical therapeutic practice, in which the person stages (enacts) a scenario of their life using the group both as cast (auxiliaries) and as audience of the play.   

If you wish to know more about Psychodrama you can visit www.zso.fi/psychodrama

Physical Theatre provides a set of exercises, games and playful techniques that supports the embodiment of the different roles, thus encouraging a deeper experience of the process. The result is a deep artistic and emotional work, involving the body in a dynamic of play, spontaneity.
Theatre artists will discover a fun way to work on themselves with psychological depth and theatrical delight.

PRACTICALITIES

DATES AND TIMES

From 11am Thursday 20th February to 7pm Sunday 23rd February

Schedule:
Thursday 20th February: 11pm to 4:00pm
Friday 21st February: 11:00am to 7pm
Saturday 22nd February 11:00am to 7pm
Sunday 23rd February: 11:00am to 7pm

Please note that the workshop is a learning continuum and that it is not possible to attend only in parts or to miss some classes. It is not possible to ask for leave from sessions or to take days off. The group is a living organism where each member is as important as the whole group. By signing up you are committing to attend the course from the beginning to the end. 

LOCATION
Calliope Sea Scouts Hall
25 King Edward Parade, Devonport, Auckland 0624
Aotearoa-New Zealand

The studio is 5 minutes walk from Devonport Ferry Terminal, which is 13 minutes ferry to Auckland Downtown Ferry Terminal.

ENROLLMENT

Application process 

To apply to the workshop please e-mail a letter of motivation, to Zsófi at zsofi.councelling@gmail.com sharing the essence of your story, vision, dream, desire, fear or un-explicable intuition that leads you to this workshop, along with some notes on the relationships you are warming up to explore during this workshop. 

Please also mention in your letter your previous experience in the field of personal development, psychotherapy and other relevant practice of emotional awareness, as well your previous experience  in the field of Theatre, if any. If you wish to apply to this workshop as partners (couple, friends, family members, colleagues...), please send an individual motivation letter for each of you.

Once the application is accepted, applicants can confirm their enrollment by sending a NZ $300 non-refundable deposit. Once accepted, places will be given in order of arrival.

TUITION

Early Bird Discounted Tuition: 

NZ $850, if full payment is made before 19th January 2025

Full Tuition: 

NZ $1000, if tuition is paid after 19th January, 2025

Please note that the tuition does not include food and accommodation and that participants will be responsible for organizing their staying in Auckland. 

A limited number of spots are available at a reduced tuition. Please enquire if you are interested.

Please note that in case of cancellation by the enrolled participant, the deposit is NON-REFUNDABLE.
The workshop will be confirmed to all applicants once it reaches the minimum number of participants.

Once all the places will be assigned, a waiting list will be set up, in case a spot will become available.

 BIOS

Zsófi Kígyóssy is a Board Certified Psychodramatist, Sociometrist and Group Therapist trained in Hungary and in the USA, a registered Psychodramatist with AANZPA and Psychotherapist with PBANZ in New Zealand. She runs personal development groups and works with individuals and couples in Wellington.  By living on three different continents she has gained multicultural experience to see how psychodrama works in different cultures. She has been amazed how much interaction and connection can facilitate healing and bring quality change to one's life. When not working, Zsófi loves to explore the wilderness in Aotearoa.

https://www.zso.fi/

Giovanni Fusetti is an Italian multi-disciplinary fool. Natural Scientist, Theatre Artist and Pedagogue, trained in Gestalt Therapy, he works internationally as a teacher and process facilitator, exploring theatre as a tool for artistic training, education, healing, personal awareness and political or environmental action.

He is the founding pedagogical director of HELIKOS International School of Theatre Creation, based in Padova, Italy. https://giovannifusetti.com/

Joan Mirò : The Garden (1925)