Teaching Team

Thomas Prattki

LISPA Team

Thomas is the Founder and Director of LISPA.

He is the former pedagogical director of the Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris.ï¿½

As a performer, he hasï¿½toured the world withï¿½Mummenschanz, a world renowned company combining movement, puppetry and visual arts. He has directed, taught and lectured in over 30 different countries at institutions such as the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis USA, the Aarhus Theater in Aarhus, Denmark, and the Ilkhom Theater in Taschkent, Uzbekistan, among others.

His most important reference point next to the pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq is the strongly Jungian and Zen based work of Maria Hippius and Karlfried Graf Duerckheim, where life, art and spiritual practice all serve the same purpose: to become transparent for the grand movements of Life and how they resonate in our body and personal life.

Abigail Dooley

Guest Teacher

Abigail is a theatre director, teacher, performer and scriptwriter, specialising in devised theatre.ï¿½ She trained at East 15 Drama School, Ecole Philippe Gaulier and LISPA.ï¿½

She has performed, directed and devised with many companies including Compagnie Philippe Gaulier, Keith Johnstone, Spymonkey, Told by An Idiot, Peepolykus and Trestle Theatre Company.ï¿½ She is joint Artistic Director and performer with the theatre company - A & E Comedy, whose play, Enter The Dragons, won the Best of Brighton Fringe award 2017.ï¿½

Over the last 25 years Abigail has taught extensively at drama schools and Universities, including Mountview, ALRA and Middlesex University.ï¿½ As a scriptwriter, she won Hat Trick Productions Sitcom Mission Competition and has made a number of short films, including a TV sitcom pilot with Spymonkey Theatre Company.

Anna Kistel

Guest Teacher

Anna was educated at the School of Visual Theatre in Jerusalem as well as the ï¿½cole Internationale de Thï¿½ï¿½tre Jacques Lecoq in Paris. Engagements at travelling theatre „Los Dilletantos,“ puppet theatre „Ha Karon“ (Jerusalem), clown solo „Brilli“, travelling theatre „Ton und Kirschen“, clown duo „Vorsicht Grenze“, Berlin Youth Dance Theatre „Kiekkebuk“, Theater Strahl „Klasse Tour“. Anna is an actress and author for award-winning company Familie Flï¿½z.

Ariel Gutierrez

LISPA Team

Originally from Buenos Aires, Ariel has a background in internationalï¿½politics, Literature and Performing Arts. He studied at the Ecoleï¿½Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq in 1996 and joined LISPA inï¿½2011, where he completed the Advanced Devising Practice program asï¿½well as the pedagogical training.

An active collaborator with companiesï¿½in the US, Europe and Latin America, he also holds a PhD in Modernï¿½Languages and Literatures from the University of Miami with an emphasisï¿½on Performance. His dissertation “Scenic Landscapes: The theater in theï¿½global city” explores the relation between globalization, theater and non-conventional performance spaces.

Cat Gerrard

LISPA Team

Cat is a performance-maker, storyteller, director and teacher from London. She trained at Drama Studio London and LISPA.

Cat has toured Europe with solo work and with various puppetry, physical theatre and storytelling ensembles, including Theatre Tï¿½moin and Impronta Theater. She is Artistic Director of storytelling company TailSpin.

She has been exploring the depths and heights of voice, text and telling - as a practitioner and a teacher - since 2010, colliding her cross-arts interests with a movement towards wholing.

Hajo Schï¿½ler

Guest Teacher

Hajo Schï¿½ler trained at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen.

He has worked as an actor, choreographer and director at several playhouses, inlcuding: Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Essen Theatre and Philharmonic, Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Burgtheater Vienna, Schillertheater NRW, Frankfurt Opera, Centro Cultural Recoleta Buenos Aires and Ballhaus Ost Berlin.

Hajo's teaching work comprises assignments at the University of the Arts Berlin, the Folkwang University of the Arts Essen, and the University of Music and the Performing Arts Stuttgart.

He is also the co-founder and Artistic Director of award-winning company Familie Flï¿½z.

Jenny Andreasson

Guest Teacher

Jenny has been working as an in-house theatre director at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm since 2010. She has also worked for other theatres in Sweden such as Gothenburg City theatre and The National Touring Theatre (Riksteatern).

Her main focus has been to investigate and highlight works by female playwrights and writers both contemporary and throughout history. She holds a master's degree in directing from the Dramatic Institute in Stockholm 1998-2002 and also holds a PhD in Political Science from Uppsala University.

Jonathan Young

Guest Teacher

Jonathan Young is an award-winning theatre maker, writer and teacher. He trained for two years with Jacques Lecoq at his school of theatre and movement in Paris, before studying contemporary clowning with Philippe Gaulier and Sue Morrison. In 2001, he set up a touring company, Shams, and was its artistic director until 2012. Shams created intelligent and playful new work, often using multimedia elements, clowning, site specific or immersive projects.ï¿½

For the past 20 years, Jonathan has also worked freelance as a performer, writer and director/dramaturg with other UK theatre companies. Since 2008, he has regularly taught movement, devising, clowning and theatre at drama schools and universities, including LAMDA, LISPA in London and Berlin, Guildford School of Acting, Birkbeck and Manchester Universities.

He is a qualified Feldenkrais Method practitioner and a screenwriter. His first short film, Padlock (2016), co-written with director Ben Hyland, won Best Film at the Bottle Smoke Film Festival and Best Thriller at the New Renaissance Film Festival. He is currently developing feature film and TV projects, as well as a new clown-theatre show.ï¿½

Kelley Soul

LISPA Team

Kelley has worked professionally as an actor, director, stage manager and arts administrator.

She trained as an actor, director and dramaturg at the University of Northern Colorado (1994), before completing her MFA in Actor Created Physical Theatre at Naropa University (USA) in collaboration with LISPA.

Before moving to Europe, she performed with a number of US-based theatre companies, devising experimental work, whilst working as an arts-in-education activist with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Kelley completed the pedagogical year at LISPA in 2004, and has taught with the LISPA team since 2005. She is also a visual artist, working primarily in acrylic, ink and watercolour, and has a deep interest in the creative space that is opened when different artistic and educational practices meet and transform.

Lionel Mï¿½nard

Guest Teacher

Lionel worked for 10 years with the Company Marcel Marceau before joining Philipp Genty's Company.

As a director and choreographer he has worked beyond others with Philipp Glass at the Carnegie Hall, Michael Jackson and Marcel Marceau at HBO, Claude Lelouch, Jean Paul Goude and Lea Seydoux. at the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Luxembourg Philharmonic, the Warsaw mime centrum, the Valencia Festival in Venezuela and the Sydney Festival.

Marina Rodrï¿½guez Llorente

Guest Teacher

Marina studied theater at Institut del Teatre de Barcelona. In 2009 she moved to Berlin to work with Familie Flï¿½z (Mask theater), and from 2013 on played in the piece “Hotel Paradiso” with shows all arround the world. In 2011 she created Kazibaze Theater Company, with which she organises the bilingual theater Festival for Kids “Kindertheater Reihe”.

In 2012 she began to work with the company Theater Am Tisch,ï¿½ as an actress and director of “ALTBAU”, a Site Specific theater piece, which played in many different apartments of the German capital.

Patrick Soul

LISPA Team

Patrick graduated from Cambridge University in 1991, following this with PGCE training. In the mid-1990s he founded and ran a music school in Bristol before joining the LISPA team in January 2005.

In 2006 Patrick completed an MMus in Jazz Performance from the the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and he is a keen jazz musician and composer with over 20 years of experience both performing and writing in many different styles of music. In London he sang for seven years with the London Vocal Project, one of the top jazz gospel groove music groups in the country, and has performed with them at London's best jazz clubs as well as at the Royal Festival Hall and the Barbican.

ï¿½

Peter Oechsle

Guest Teacher

Psychologist, Zen Teacher and initiatic therapist. He lives in Ibach in the Black Forest and has worked for over 30 years at the Duerckheim Center in Todtmoos Ruette.

He gives workshops in guided drawing, embodied mythology and personal process at LISPA Berlin.

Philipp Schaefer

LISPA Team

Philipp is an actor, clown and licensed TaKeTiNa Rhythm Teacher. Anï¿½alumnus of Jacques Lecoq, he has performed his show “stï¿½x rhythmclown”ï¿½in street theatre festivals all over Europe. As a teacher he has worked atï¿½theatre schools and universities such as LISPA, Universitï¿½t fï¿½r Musik undï¿½darstellende Kï¿½nste (Vienna) and Bayerische Theaterakademie Augustï¿½Everding (Munich).

He is a drum circle-facilitator and works as well withï¿½Himalayan singing bowls. “Rhythm is my tool as a clown and as a teacherï¿½in order to create a space for new experiences and personal development.ï¿½There is no need to learn a new instrument, since you are the instrument.ï¿½You will find out how to play it in the best possible way.”

Valentina Bordenave

LISPA Team

Valentina Bordenaveï¿½is a freelance dancer, choreographer and, since 1998, a certified Alexander Technique teacher. She is a graduate in dance from the Folkwang University in Essen, Germany.

With overï¿½20 years of experience as a dancer andï¿½movement teacher,ï¿½ Valentina has been actively researching the integration of mechanics and poetry of the body.ï¿½ Now based in Berlin, herï¿½workï¿½has aï¿½strong focus on the body support system, spatial and energeticï¿½awareness, intense physicality and utmost sensitivity.ï¿½ As well asï¿½holding workshops and training forï¿½dance and theatre companies, she teaches Alexander Technique, dance and improvisation atï¿½Familieï¿½Flï¿½z Summer Academy and for the past ten years at theï¿½Acting Department at Berlin's University of the Arts (UDK).

As a performer, Valentina has worked with the choreographers Mark Sieczkarek and Editta Braun among others.

In 2014 she founded the international Collective ANDERPLATZ with nine other actors and dancers,ï¿½whereï¿½she directs and performs.

Viatcheslav Kushkov

LISPA Team

Viatcheslav Kushkov studied Sports and Movement Science (HU Berlin, Germany) and Intercultural Communication (Russia).

From 2003 to 2010 he taught at the State University in Pyatigorsk. 2012-2017 assistant to choreographer and movement teacher Professor Martin Gruber. Viatcheslav studied Suzuki (M. Gruber) andMeyerhold’s-Biomechanic (G. Bogdanov).

Since 2016 Viatcheslav has been a lecturer for movement at the University of the Arts and the acting school HfS “Ernst Busch” in Berlin. Working as a sport therapist, he combines extreme with healthy movement possibilities and practice bodywork methods like Talmi (M. Gruber), Isogai/Flower-treatment (N. Watanabe), Being-in-Movement (P. Linden). He has about twenty years of experience in different martial arts (3. Dan Aikido, Systema Instructor, Taekwondo, Lubki) and he is co-founder of the Martial-Arts-Convention-Berlin.