Rodrigo Rodrigues

Rodrigo Rodrigues
Rodrigues receiving the Irish Times Theatre Award
Born	(1976-12-13) 13 December 1976
Residence	London, United Kingdom
Occupation	Actor, Director, Producer, Set designer, Costume Designer, Acting Theorist, Theatre Theorist, Playwriter, Screenwriter
Years active	1993–present

Rodrigo Rodrigues (born December 13, 1976) is a Brazilian actor, director, producer, set and costume designer and Irish Times Theatre Awards winner ^[1] known for his capacity to create a strong variety of art promoting artist evolutions through scientific analysis. Rodrigues is the creator of the first scientific analysis and applicable technique for a wide range of facial expressions.^[2] Rodrigues published as an author his book "Facial Expressions for Actors" which ever since serves as a guideline and manual to performing art institutions around the world, to study, explore, connect to, understand, and apply an incredible variety of human facial expressions whilst helping and guiding the artist to find ones own variety of expressions through scientific approaches and analysis as explained in his book. The book has been registered at the National Library of Brazil where his therein explained technique for facial expressions houses classified together with the "Ko Method", a unique and widespread acting method, founded by Rodrigo Rodrigues.^[3]

Early life

Rodrigues was born in São Paulo, Brazil, to an Afro-French father and Brazilian mother with Spanish, Portuguese and Italian origins. At the age of 7 he was introduced to the performing arts through his mother during which time his interest and curiosity for the arts increased steadily.^[4] 11 years old, he began to regularly perform in plays at the school theatre. Rodrigo was 14 years old when he enrolled into various drama classes with "Clube Beneficente Cultural e Recreativo 28 de Setembro" being one of them. In 1993, he attended Drama school "Escola de Arte Dramatica de Jundiai" and graduated 2 years later with having performed a total amount of 400 hours of theater presentations equaling four shows a day, two hours between preperation and show, in a total of eight hours per day, during his time at School. He continued to attend full day Drama studies at "Teatro Escola Claudio Melo" while visiting courses at the Vocational Communication Design College "Escola Ana Pinto Duarte Paes" during each evening. Between 1997 and 1998 he completed his acting courses at" Teatro Escola Claudio Melo" with a total amount of 700 hours of stage work which included workshops with Esther Goes and Cleyde Yaconis. Around the same time Claudio da Veiga Lucchesi, Professor at the EAD / University of Sao Paolo, trained Rodrigues in private workshops. in 1999, Rodrigues closed his Art Espace together with his company "RR Eventos" to continue and concentrate on his work and studies in the performing arts at the "Escola de Teatro Ewerton de Castro", directed by Ewerton de Castro. Within the same year he additionally visited acting workshops at The Studio "Beto Silverira". Continuing his studies and explorations in the arts he enrolled into "Indac Escola de Artes" with Flavia Pucci, a specifically themed japanese dance theatre, founded by Hijikata Tatsumi and Kazuo Ohno, where he participated in the studies of Butoh`s technique. He went on to study film making at the Irish Film Academy and later spent a significant amount of time at Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio "Hodogaya" in Yokohama, Japan, to develop his studies in regards to the teachings of Butoh, which have been taught to Rodrigues by Kazuo Ohno`s son Yoshito Ohno in the presence of Kazuo Ohno. During his time there he was invited later to Kazuo Ohno`s house and when Rodrigues gave Kazuo Ohno a kiss on his forehead as a sign of appreciation it is being said that Rodrigues wasn`t able to sleep for three days in a row due to hyperactivity, restlessness and an incredible amount of Energy which Rodrigues received in the presence of Kazuo Ohno.

Career

Awards

In 1994, Rodrigues received the award for best actor at the Monologue Festival for his perfomance in Fafa Volte Para Seu Chico.^[5] His mother , who at the time, had to raise 4 children on her own while struggling to cover the existential costs of her family, supported him by accompanying Rodrigo to the festival. Winning this award played a key role in the beginning of Rodrigo`s career, since only the winner of the festival was eligible to be granted a 4 - year acting scholarship. Rodrigues won although his script had been stolen 12 hours before the deadline for the Monologue Festival has been reached . The Jury has had ordered a friend of Rodrigues to pick up their scripts from Sao Paulo in order ,for each one of them to have a script, to perform yet instead of handing over Rodrigues his delegated script his friend decided to keep and perform Rodrigues`s script at the festival instead which left Rodrigues without a script 12 hours before the Festival began. Rodrigues, who at the time felt under an enormous amount of pressure to win the festival, due to scarce financial opportunities which have been present at the time for him and his family, wrote within 12 hours his own script and performed it in front of the jury, which led to him winning the festival as best actor. It is said that this experience generated a boost in Rodrigues`s confidence in his writing ability and may have been a milestone for young Rodrigues at the time. He forwarded a one hour play, a comedy, which he wrote, directed, produced and played on his own. Receiving the award at the Monologue Festival increased his confidence and inspired him to create his own art form, a feeling which influenced his life and career ever since. At the Age of 22, Rodrigues received an award for "Best Play" at one of the most important cultural events within the state of Sao Paulo,"Mapa Cultural Paulista", which is known to bring out the most promising talents in Brazil, for his play Mitos e Lendas, which he wrote, directed, produced and performed as well. The Festival took place at Teatro Sergio Cardoso, and therefor became soon the most talked and admired show within the state of Sao Paolo while the theatre remained one of the most important and valuable theaters in Brazil. in 2009, he received the Irish Times Theatre Awards ^[6] at the Smock Alley Theatre for Best Costume Designer in The Trojan Women, which has been directed by Rodrigo Rodrigues and co-directed by Alan King.

Acting

Theatre

Since age 7, Rodrigo has performed and produced more than 50 plays in his career, including As Bacantes ,(The Bacchae), by the Athenian playwrighter Euripides, in which Rodrigues was directed by José Celso Martinez Corrêa, one of the most important and well known artists connected to Brazilian theater who is among the most well known and leading directors, actors , playwrighter and directors in Brazil. He starred in a pilot multimedia play “Action Movie” , directed by Darren Thornton who won the European Film Awards.^[7] Rodrigo Rodrigues played Rico, the protagonist, alongside Laurence Kinlan from Love/Hate , Ned Kelly and Gerry Lee. Rodrigues also performed as the complex Tiresias (/taɪˈrisiəs/; Greek: Τειρεσίας, Teiresias), a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance, in a play during which he has been directed by Ewerton de Castro. He later went on to represent Antonin Artaud practicing Shamanism during the reopening of Teatro Politeama, in Jundiaí ,where 1216 people, who were present in and outside the theatre, stood up and applauded as Rodrigues entered the theatre while, in the same week, Academy Award Nominee Fernanda Montenegro and Paulo Autran also have been a part of the same reopening program. He toured with the Big Telly Theatre Company through England, during which time he played Sinbad at the Water Show as well as in the musical Sinbad, directed by Zoe Seaton and Paul Boyd.^[8] During the Dublin Fringe Festival Rodrigues performed as hindi character Gupta, the protagonist, in the play The Indian Wants The Coombe, an adaptation of The Indian Wants the Bronx by Israel Horovitz. He performed his character in hindi during this one hour play, which has been replayed and fully booked for 2 years in a row at the Dublin Fringe Festival.^[9] Rodrigues also performed A Queda Para O Alto, Salome, a play, tragedy, by Oscar Wilde, The Miser, a five-act comedy in prose by French playwriter Molière as well as The Tempest, a play by William Shakespeare, in which Rodrigues played the Spirit Ariel . Further credits include The Hostage by Brendan Behan as Princess Grace and The Plague (French: La Peste), a novel by Albert Camus, the narrator.

Film & TV

A serious artist, Rodrigo Rodrigues has had various roles in a wide range of productions where he contributed to as an actor, director, script writer and costume designer. Rodrigues played the role of Philipe in Fair City and starred ^[10] in the role of a spanish ambassador alongside academy award nominee Stephen Rea in Flight of the Earls.^[11] He developed the concept and directed the music video for DJ Tocadisco and starred in music video Felix da Housecat which he also co-produced. In Colin Downey`s film Paranoia, which has been screened at Cork Film Festival and won Best Photography at Portobello Film Festival,<sup>[12]</sup> Rodrigues starred alongside Rachel Rath and also went on to star in Waterfall, which went to Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, where he played the role of Luis besides Tatiana Fellipo, Michael Parle and Cristopher Kavanagh. In 2011, Rodrigues starred as Max in The Looking Glass (2011), a film by Colin Downey, alongside Natalia Kostrzewa, Patrick O`Donell, Michael Parle and The Business`s Eddie Webber. In 2014, he was announced to play the role of Frank alongside East Enders`s Brian Croucher in Londinium (2015),^[13] as Brian in 1603 (2015) besides Danny Darren and Bent`s Crispian Belfrage,<sup>[14]</sup> the role of Manga, a japanese character, in upcoming action film The Levellers (2015) starring next to Shane Hart, Jadey Duffield, Paul J. Lane and Brian Croucher and as a Shaman in upcoming western film A Fistful Of Bullets, alongside Geoff Bell, from Steven Spielberg`s War Horse. He also contributed as a costume designer to Londinium, 1603, The Levellers and A Fistfull Of Bullets.

Teaching

Between 1997 and 1999, Rodrigues opened "Espaco Cultural Porao", a cultural collage of art space containing 4 floors with available rooms to create and experiment with various art forms. The Public had free access to the library where prospective students where also given the possibility to subscribe to Rodrigues`s courses as well as further established professionals in the field of Butoh teachings such as Jefferson Primo and actress Flavia Pucci, who worked in Meu Pe de Laranja Lima and was widely known in Brazil and throughout acting communities as one of the most established teachers in accordance to the Butoh Studies in Sao Paulo as well as being one of the most well known and recognized pupils of Antunes Filho, at the time, who has been known to emerge and train the best actors in brazil. Both, Jefferson Primo as well as Flavia Pucci have been students of Antunes Filho. In the premisses of the art space Rodrigues also founded and based his event company" RR Eventos e Producoes Artisticas" providing services for Jundiai City Council. At the time Rodrigues directed and performed as an actor in two theatre shows, presented one Educational TV show and 21 intern commercials for the same government, which of three commercials where commissioned by TV TEM Sorocaba, an affiliated Channel of the wide spread Brazilian Channel Rede Globo, written and coordinated by Rose Cereser, who guided and supported Rodrigues with invaluable advices along his career, before he decided, in 1999, to close his art space and his event company in order to freely continue his acting work and studies in Sao Paulo. In 2002, Rodrigues taught one of his own acting techniques, "Facial Expressions For Actors" to the students at The Gaiety School of Acting which included Aidan Turner from The Hobbit.^[15] Rodrigues also managed and taught the students of his Irish Times Theatre Awards winning - Theatre Group "The Core Dublin". The Group used to meet at Film Base Dublin, the same publisher as Film Ireland, where he introduced and taught the group Butoh techniques consisting of facial expressions for actors, costume making ^[16] and silence scream.

Ko Method

The Science of Acting

The Ko Method is a combination of Rodrigo Rodrigues`s techniques, based on the functions of the human body mechanism and objects, which train and allow to experiment partial movements of an individual to find its total understanding and interconnectivity within the totality of life's mechanism. The Ko Method serves as a straight forward and immediate method to give the actor a clear understanding of constructing a wide range of diverse characters.^[17] It demonstrates a vast blend of art and science to give a unique perspective and approach towards the understanding of the human body. It is based on the principles that all movements, materials and parts of any phenomena in relation with the Universe, characters and objects become one. A scientific approach towards the study of universal understanding. The Ko Method has its own techniques which include, but are not limited to Facial Expressions For Actors, Physical Expressions, Ko Universe and Mind Connection, Silent Scream, Costume Making and Set Production.

Facial Expressions For Actors

Facial Expressions is one of Rodrigo Rodrigues`s techniques which belongs to his founded Ko Method. It is a technique which follows the two-way road of knowledge and the road of reductionism. The Objective of this technique serves development purposes and is to learn dominating ones own reality in context to movement, explanations, wording and speech in the most simplistic way, in its totality. It relies on the scientific analysis that to have an adequate knowledge, an individual should not be delimitated or bound to a focalistic and reductionistic approach and that any given situation or circumstance does not exist in an isolated manner but happens within a certain group of interconnected phenomena. The focalistic and reductionistic interpretation of reality in Rodrigues`s facial expression technique reflects the primary impressions that the apparent world offers while it stands in contradiction to the road of knowledge as explained in his book.^[18] Rodrigues`s technique and approach in his book clarify the knowledge of facial expressions by producing an analysis of different points of the world from a global vision setting and perspective which is in search of something hidden, invisible in regards to the relations between these points of the world as they are not immediately “visible” and require some specific source of investigation and reasoning. Although contrary to the simple, focalistic and reductionistic interpretation and easy accessed knowledge of the apparent world, Rodrigues applied the study of the hidden knowledge of facial expression in conjunction with his acting career, fundamentally relating these points to the totality of the universe. Prior to his time at School-Theatre, Rodrigues observed that the understanding of an individuals expression longed for a hidden knowledge which inspired him many years ago to search for the development of concrete points in association with the understanding of human nature. Approaching art from a scientific point of view he is used to start from the objective idea that there are important understandings left out yet should be added to the infinitive art of representation,considering the relation of connection within the universe which walks hand in hand with science as he investigated a considerable amount of scientific points such as anatomy, dramaturgy and occasional points of life among others. He experimented his understandings, knowledge and own techniques on himself, on his own face and further volunteers, facilitating the evolution and realization of technological ideas which later resulted in empirical formulas. Rodrigues`s construction of his work consists mainly of empirical and scientific studies of the unconsciousness of mankind within the universe, which implores for something to happen in a divided world where ingenious beings seem to form before science does often leading to the development of unfortunate and preconceived opinions towards the world. Rodrigues explained that a world enfolds a form of interpreting reality taken as a basis the first and ingenuous impression while obtaining knowledge by economic means, with the least effort possible and with scarse or often even no available methodological resources to nurture from. Rodrigues also stated that because of this mundane load that mankind, meaning the universe, brings along in repititious patterns he steadily continued to move forward towards something new . “The Wings of Imagination” remains an inspirational metapher from Rodrigues towards the development of a particularily sciencific scheme he longed to explore, namely the performing arts, which led him to publish his first and one of a kind book in this field, "Facial Expression for Actors". The book also explains the evolution of all his generated ideas which led to his exercises of partial facial expression as illustrated in the book “Facial Expressions for Actors”, where individuals, through development of factors like facial muscles, reach the understanding and clarification of the universe and stated to have learned to access a state of equilibrium within ones own interpretation.

Set and Costume Making - Paraty Studios

“The Noise of the set and Costume is part of the play or script” - Rodrigo Rodrigues

In 2010, after Rodrigues won at the Irish Times Theatre Awards, he acknowledged that a bigger space was necessary in order to implement more art experiments which led to him moving into the middle of the atlantic rainforest in Brazil where he spent three years working and concentrating on set and costume making. Living in the middle of the atlantic rainforest he found himself surrounded by waterfalls, cascades, spring waters and trees, which are hundreds of years old. He used recycled and organic materials to build a wide range of characters for a pilot film project. Rodrigues went on to create and founded, with the help of Fergal Fitzgerald, a new art space facility, called Paraty Studios, where a small community of Indigenous peoples in Brazil, who live, since over 100 years, soley from their lands, joined and were now actively involved in the process of acting, costume and set making for Rodrigues's film pilot project “Currupira”. His film project "Currupira" which stars brazilian icon Lisa Negri, had been approved for funding by the Ministry of Culture in Brazil and registered at the National Library of Brazil.^[19] During his three years in the jungle Rodrigues also dedicated most of his time to writing, experimenting, building characters, costumes and sets with space of 84 acres of land at his disposal. Towards the end of his time in the jungle, an impressive scenery had been built by Rodrigues, including wood cabins, multi-floor tree houses and stone pats . It was his dedication to building and his restless effort to carry necessary material on his back to access different locations on the land which made it possible for them to be built. After his film pilot had been completed, Rodrigues kept his inspirational art space for life, to which he often retunrs to as it is known to be a perfect place to breathe fresh air and getting inspired as ones creativy level increases due to its healthy environment. Rodrigues describes the place as a magical place and considers Paraty Studios as a starting and inspirational access point for ones creativity and for researching value in regards to all his work. Ever since Rodrigues also assists actors in creating the personality of their characters through creating according costumes for their roles.

His technique went on to become so well known that a wide range of the most influential media in Brazil, including VEJA Magazine and ISTOE, named his costume making technique - Figurino Ecologico Rodrigo Rodrigues / Ecological Costumes. It also has been said to confirm Rodrigues`s necessity to proof and remind the world that a healthy environment serves as the main catalyst for positive development in the evolution and interconnectivity of a balanced world in relation to the universe.^[20]

Filmography

Film

Music

References

External links

• Rodrigo Rodrigues at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website