GONZALO ALARCÓN (Brussels, BE) started as a Circus performer on the streets of Chile. He then discovered the Art of the Clown, which continues to be his focus. His latest performance Chiringuito Paradise tells the story of the grand opening of a bar which ends in complete catastrophe.

This is the first part of a series of conversations spiraling around comedy. As these episodes will be quite long, you can use the chapters to jump to what interests you.

With Gonzalo we try (and fail, and try again, and fail better) to understand the nature of comedy, of what is funny, or how is funny. We return to the questions on technique, being good and the necessity of taking risks. We look at Rhythm (the key to it all?), jumping between jazz and theatre, with some fruitful insights into the nature of what "comic" could mean. Of course we look at Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. In the end we listen to and think about the comedy of sounds and objects.

MARIO BARZAGHI is Actor and Director. He started doing theatre in the 70s as a factory worker. In 1981 he joined Teatro Tascabile di Bergamo under the direction of Renzo Vescovi and began studying Kathakali. He has been practising this form of theatre for 35 years under the guidance of his Master Kalamandalam K. M. John. He danced with him in India, Europe and Latin America. In 2000 he founded Teatro dell’Albero together with Rosalba Genovese. Developing the Actor’s Art between East and West has remained their core interest.

With Mario we speak about the current crisis, how theatre has to transform itself, about the relation to the spectator, about saving your work and the double face of the things.

We speak about roots and craft and time, and how Theatre and Art are governed by a different kind of time. In the end we look at Michelangelo.

DANIEL JACEWICZ is the Artistic Director of Teatr Brama (Goleniów, PL), which he founded in 1996, when he was 17 years old.

With Daniel we speak about his beginnings in the theatre, how crazy accidents determine our way, how theatre is above all a Group of people working and struggling together. We speak about keeping a group alive through conscious shocks, changes and foreign elements, about how the theatre confronts a new performance, about the relation between director and actor.

We speak a good part about the practice of singing and making music as a special kind of "Training", shaping, informing and renovating the Group, about a quality of singing which is far beyond just "singing in tune" and "hitting all the notes" - which actually is something completely different - and we speak about the beauty of the "ugly" voice. We listen to a recording of the Ucrainian "Song of the Forest" sung by Teatr Brama in 2017.

Finally we speak about Teatr Brama's great achievement: receiving a new theatre space financed by the town of Goleniów.

You could have guessed from the first episode on: Marije and Simon have an inclination towards "hammer philosophy", indulging in their proto-knowledge. That's one of the reasons why we are very happy about today's guest. With philosopher Christian Grüny we practice "fabrication of thoughts while talking", following our associations on performance, philosophy, thinking as practice, (re)presentation and much more. We shortly present Christian to our listeners and speak about his work, especially about his work as performer** and about lecture performances in general - from this we drift into reflections about the relation between representing and presenting, talking, writing, performing, academics and artists - about form and content and how they inform each other, about artistic strategies, academic realities, and if there is something like artistic research.

André Erlen is one of four Artistic Directors of Futur3 - a Cologne-based theatre group he co-founded in 2003.

With André we speak about his work, his beginnings in the theatre, founding Futur3, performing outside of theatre buildings, about Cologne, scenography, light, space and the relation to the spectator. We speak about Polish theatre, about the Art world and not liking Premiere parties & Vernissages.

We speak about Theatre which always vanishes and strategies to react to this. We speak about streaming theatre and why it does not work, about the necessity of translation, acting in virtual reality, games, shows without actors. We speak about truth and lies in the actor's craft, the necessity of being in charge of the situation and much more...

We are happy to receive any (constructive) feedback and criticism, corrections, comments, questions and notes: whiteroom (at) whiteroom-pod.com. You can support the podcast by subscribing to it and by becoming a producer, if you like. A small regular contribution already makes a big difference.

ADRIANA LA SELVA is a theatre maker, a performer, a networker and a researcher. Adriana is working on a practice-based Ph.D. at the University of Ghent in Belgium, in association with the School of Arts (KASK), where she is investigating contemporary performer training processes in relation to politics of embodied research. She has been a member of the international theatre group The Bridge of Winds since 2015, led by Odin Teatret actress Iben Nagel Rasmussen. In 2017 Adriana co-founded the Cross Pollination Research Platform together with Marije Nie, an international network of performers and researchers, which focuses on the dialogue in-between practices of art, community building and academic research.

With Adriana we speak about training, heritage, etymology, legal issues and training as a resistance and a way to be present. We also talk about her PhD research entitled ‘What Are You Training For?'.

We meet again in the white room; this time we bring a topic which interests both Marije and Simon very much and which is one of reasons of having started these conversations - a basic element of performance: Rhythm.

Before diving into it we react to a comment that we received, one part of which provokes us to speak at length about the current situation and how theatre artists react to it by creating a lot of digital content, which is both great and strange.

PER KAP BECH JENSEN is administrative director of Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium - Odin Teatret in Holstebro (DK) since 2014. In January 2021 he will move to be Director of the theatre.

Odin Teatret was created in Oslo, Norway, in 1964, and moved to Holstebro (Denmark) in 1966, changing its name to Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium - Odin Teatret. Today, its 40 members come from a eleven countries and four continents.

With Per we speak about his beginnings in the theatre, about the work of the dramaturg and about what the current crisis means for a theatre that performs around the world and is home to artists from various countries, a theatre which is based on the presence and relation of actor and spectator.

We sit down and want to speak about our beginnings in the theatre. Instead we drift into a long reflection about what it means to begin, what it means to be a beginner, what it means to be an expert, and if you can be both at the same time. We speak about Groove, the paradox of repeated improvisation and young vs. old musicians. We listen to a small part of a lecture of Orson Welles in Paris, in which he narrates his first days on a movie set. We discover that the work of the actor/performer is quite particular in the relation of skill, knowledge, ignorance and the demand of delivering every performance as if it were the very first.

What are we going to talk about? Why are we going to speak about what we're going to speak about? Why are we making a podcast about theatre? Why even talk about theatre? Conversations on theatre? Or on performance? Or on practice?

We sit down together in the white room, trying to figure out what this is all about, evoking and struggling with the power of the words. In the effort to convey this to you and to ourselves, unreckoned help approaches through a famous quote by the famous Ludwig Wittgenstein. As the poet says: “… where the danger is, also grows the saving power.”