2026
VIENNA, Schule des Theater, JANUARY 30, 31, FEBRUARY 1 INFO
ZURICH, FEBRUARY 14, 15 INFO: daniela.marcozzi@gmail.com
VIAREGGIO (Tuscany, IT) FEBRUARY 28 INFO: daniela.marcozzi@gmail.com
BERLIN, Dock 11, MAY 16, 17 INFO
info: daniela.marcozzi@gmail.com
testo in Italiano in fondo alla pagina
The Urge of Being
A workshop by Daniela Marcozzi
A journey where science meets art, and impulse meets awareness and form.
In The Urge of Being, the performer becomes a living organism in motion — a body that thinks, breathes, and vibrates.
Through movement, voice, and impulse, we explore the urgency of expression: the moment when emotion transforms into action, and the inner world resonates outward.
Rooted in Daniela Marcozzi’s research on the biology of emotions and embodiment, this training invites participants to rediscover performance as a vital process of survival, communication, and creation.
The Urge of Being is based on the artistic research that Daniela Marcozzi — performer, director, and former biologist — developed at the Accademia Teatro Dimitri (Switzerland) during her Master of Arts in Artistic Research.
Her research explores the biology of emotions and theories of embodiment, aiming to define an innovative training method based on the urgency of expression, where life science and performing arts come together.
“We’re not just little hunks of meat.
We’re vibrating like a tuning fork — we send out a vibration to other people.
We broadcast and receive.
Thus the emotions orchestrate the interactions
among all our organs and systems to control that.”
(PhD Candace Pert)
About the Work
The work proposed by Daniela Marcozzi is a group-based training and creative process that includes tools from physical theater, vocal training, movement research, embodiment techniques, composition, and dramaturgy.
A strong component of Daniela’s method comes from the Plastique Sequence and Body-voice training developed in Jerzy Grotowski’s research, transmitted to her by Peter Rose.
The workshop is addressed to students and professionals performing artists.
The training places the performer’s organism in a condition where its homeostasis is continuously challenged, allowing it to self-regulate and react to the immediate moment.
The driving force of the work is urgency, understood as the unconditioned impulse to survive at every level.
Performers are invited to consciously generate their own urgency by working with inner impulses.
In this way, impulses become the main source of performative energy.
The process is based on a continuous dialogue between expression and embodiment — a dynamic give-and-take.
Expression is understood as EX-press = press-out, the act of manifesting one’s impulses;
Embodiment as EM-bodiment = press-in, the process of imprinting the external world inside the body.
The Work Process
The Urge of Being unfolds as a flow of work in which specific exercises from physical theater, Plastique Sequence, body-voice training, text and song work are organically alternated with moments of free improvisation.
This work-stream generates various energetic processes that allow performers to explore the emotional system from the inside out and embodiment processes from the outside in.
Day 1 - Accessing the realm of impulses: focuses on movement research, muscular contraction and elongation, the Plastique Sequence, and related give-and-take dynamics.
Day 2 - From impulse to form: focuses on vocal training, body resonators, and the embodiment of text and song.
Throughout the workshop, we build energetic processes that bring text and voice into the body, integrating movement, sound, and emotion.
It is no longer about theater or dance, singing or text work; rather, it becomes a comprehensive performative experience in which the performer’s organism is fully engaged in all its expressive dimensions — harmoniously, fluidly, and authentically.
By riding the waves of these energetic processes, we bridge body, movement, text, voice, imagination, and dance to generate our own dramaturgy.
Notes on the Work
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Physical intensity: Medium to high
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Requirements: Previous experience in performing arts, performative bodywork, or self-awareness practices
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Approach: Collaborative — both group and individual work
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Open to: Performing artists of all kinds, students, semi-professionals and professionals; also to musicians, visual artists, and somatic practitioners
The driving force of the work remains urgency, the primal push to survive and express.
The workshop leads the performer to enter what Daniela calls the Artistic Survival Mode — a state in which the performer consciously generates urgency and works with inner impulses in dialogue with the external environment.
This dialogue — a constant give-and-take — is a continuous rebalancing between expression (pressing out) and embodiment (pressing in).
The training creates the conditions for building energetic processes through which the performer works with the emotional system from within.
This approach reflects the biological role of emotions: in nature, emotions must be expressed from the inside out to fulfill their survival function.
Therefore, in the workshop, performers do not represent emotions through fixed external forms, but rather reach their source — experiencing themselves not as interpreters of emotional states, but as channels of emotional impulses.
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The Urge of Being - descrizione in Italiano
Il lavoro proposto da Daniela Marcozzi è un training e un processo di ricerca di gruppo, che include esercizi e approcci di teatro fisico, training vocale, ricerca del movimento, tecniche di embodiment, composizione e drammaturgia.
Una forte componente del lavoro di Daniela proviene dalla “Plastique Sequence” e dal training “body-voice”, come trasmessi dal regista e performer Newyorkese Peter Rose.
La sequenza Plastique e il body-voice derivano dal training e dalla ricerca di J.Grotowski e, nell’ambito di questo workshop, hanno l’obiettivo di “aprire” il corpo del performer e di metterlo in diretta e autentica relazione con l’ambiente esterno.
Il training body-voice è uno studio dinamico sui risuonatori del corpo, su come lavorare con la vocalizzazione, con un testo e con una canzone in movimento, facendo sì che la voce sia una componente attiva e integrante del lavoro fisico.
Il workshop mette l'organismo dei performer nella condizione di regolare continuamente la propria omeostasi al fine di posizionarsi nel momento e nello spazio presenti e rapidamente reagire alla situazione data.
La forza motrice del lavoro è l’urgenza, intesa come spinta incondizionata a sopravvivere a qualsiasi livello. Il lavoro invita i performer a generare consapevolmente la propria urgenza lavorando con gli impulsi interni del corpo. Questa condizione viene chiamata Artistic Survival Mode, ed e’ stata sviluppata da Daniela durante il Master in Ricerca Artistica presso l’Accademia Teatro Dimitri a Lugano, Svizzera.
Lontana dall'essere una condizione di panico, l'Artistic Survival Mode è una condizione in cui i performer si pongono consciamente in disequilibrio fisico, emotivo, spirituale, etc., fuori dagli schemi performativi conosciuti, attingendo la propria energia dagli impulsi del corpo.
In questo modo, gli impulsi diventano la principale fonte di energia performativa.
Questo dialogo è un processo di give and take e consiste nella continua interazione tra espressione e embodiment.
L'espressione è intesa come ES-pressione = premere fuori, il processo di manifestazione dei propri impulsi da fuori a dentro, mentre l'embodiment è inteso come EM-bodiment, il processo di IN-carnazione del mondo esterno all'interno del corpo.
Questo workshop ha un’intensità fisica medio-alta, ė rivolto a student* e artist* delle arti performative e chiunque sia interessat* ad un’esplorazione dell’espressivita’, presenza scenica, capacità improvvisative, lavoro di gruppo e ricerca fisica, vocale e drammaturgica.