The Ember: 8th Summer School of Studio Kokyu
You need attention, care, focus and effort to coax a fire from a smouldering ember to heat a house.
The Studio Kokyu Summer School will span 10 days of intense physical and vocal training in the forest base of the Grotowski Institute in Brzezinka, where Jerzy Grotowski led his paratheatre and Theatre of Sources work in 1971–1981. Participants will be working and building a community in the indoor training space and in the surrounding nature.
Workshop participants will explore the performer’s action within a group through regular group training incorporating Studio Kokyu’s day-to-day practice.
Key elements of the work will include:
- Kokyu training: Studio Kokyu’s original training inspired by aikido and Theodoros Terzopoulos’ method, it combines individual and chorus training with body, breath and voice work.
- Elements of aikido: aikido is a martial art that redirects the energy of the opponent; the work will involve both physical training and weapons training with the Japanese wooden sword (bokken) and the Japanese stick (jō).
- Partner work, based on aikido’s understanding of contact, emphasizing whole-body listening and readiness to attentively follow and lead; we treat partner work as a tool for studying the physicality of a dialogic situation.
- Contact run, an intensive group practice that develops awareness, mutual listening and dynamic spatial relationships.
- Global resonator: exercises designed to discover the full vibrational qualities of a performer’s voice within their body.
- Text work, which involves deconstructing text, treating it as a living process, breaking interpretive patterns and focusing on finding the physicality of text.
By studying these tools and practices, we aim to guide participants through a journey into the inner source of individual energy. Participants will also explore relations with partners in partner work and deepen the quality of collective action as a chorus. The workshop practice will also work on improvisation.
The forest environment bolsters creative processes and will help us achieve a unique quality of the work and experience in an ecosystem we will be part of.
The Studio Kokyu Summer School is aimed at professional or experienced performers. Be ready for intensive training.
WHEN: 3–14 July 2026
WHERE: Brzezinka – forest base of the Grotowski Institute (40 km near Wrocław)
FEE: 800 EUR if you apply and pay by 31 April 2026
925 EUR if you apply and pay on or after 1 May 2026
The price of the workshop includes transport from Wrocław to Brzezinka and back.
Leader:
Przemysław Błaszczak is an actor with a degree in philosophy who has been associated with the Grotowski Institute since 1995.
From 1996 to 1999, he worked with the Song of the Goat Theatre, where he performed in Song of the Goat – Dithyramb. In 2002–2003, Przemek created the solo performance Ecco Homo and in 2004 he joined Teatr ZAR, a resident company of the Grotowski Institute, with whom he performed in the Gospels of Childhood: Overture and Anhelli: The Calling, and in Armine, Sister. Przemek also performed in Heiner Müller’s Mauser, directed by Theodoros Terzopoulos (Greece), which had its Polish premiere in 2012. He studied the original actor training method developed by Theodoros Terzopoulos at Attis Theatre, Greece, and is its certified teacher. Przemek is the founder and leader of Kokyu Studio, a group established in 2016 and working under the auspices of the Grotowski Institute.
Since 2005 Przemek (2nd Dan) has studied the Japanese martial art of aikido under Sensei Piotr Masztalerz (6th Dan). In 2011, he studied with Juba Nour Shihan (6th Dan) in Mexico. Przemek is a founding member of Na Grobli Aikikai Dojo, where he teaches regular sessions. The Dojo works under the auspices of the Birankai Poland. In 2005, at the invitation of Toshi Tushitori, he went to Japan where he practiced shintaido, a Japanese system that integrates voice and body through training based on traditional karate.
From 2013 to 2016, Przemek was one of the leaders of the Two Paths Studio, which was part of the Grotowski Institute’s BodyConstitution research programme. In 2016 Przemek formed Kokyu Studio. He is also a co-founder of Wrocław Theatre Offensive (WrOT). He has run workshops in Poland and abroad.