Even the most simply constructed masks can powerfully transform the face. We all understand that human face communicates information. Masks evoke, reveal, and conceal information all at the same time.

Making a mask enables creator to explore various aspects of his or her own persona – it can be revealing as it takes the mask maker out of the realm of words and employs imagination and nonverbal action.

A simple mask making technique involves molding clay into facial features and then applying different materials (paper mache and/or molding cloth) over the top of the sculpted mask face. Modelling clay with hands, fingers, and palms can provide a powerful connection to deep-rooted feelings through this tactile, nonverbal experience of working physically with the clay. By engaging in this activity the imagination of the mask maker may find new ways to communicate hidden thoughts, feelings, and memories through the creation of meaningful symbols that are shaped into the clay as the mask evolves.

Feelings, images and memories may emerge during the mask making session but even more so in mask using sessions when the mask, made by the client, is used. The inanimate mask comes to life when worn. It becomes charged with a life force from within the wearer. Shamans and healers around the globe has always understood this magic of making and using masks.

Besides being a therapeutic tool, mask making can be a simple pleasure on its own. Mask making and working with masks can help unlock basic playfulness and sense of creative adventure. Adults engaged in busy and demanding lives don’t often have or take time to engage in a hands-on creative process. By simply indulging in the mask making process, the participant can reopen doors and creative pathways long ago forgotten.

We can heal and be healed through integration by using our innate gift of imagination and our ability to create. Masks are a powerful tool in the process of healing and the journey toward wholeness.

This is an extracts from an article “The Benefits of Mask Making in a Journey toward Wholeness” by Douglas Mitchell / GoodTherapy.org

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Our next Mask Making Workshop takes place in January 2024 (26 – 28), and although it aims at Czech participants it will be English friendly so anybody interested to take part from abroad is welcome. Just fill in the form below and we will get back to you.

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Pictures from last year’s mask making workshop at the Open Space

We are happy to announce that Mike Chase is going to return to Open Space with another mask-using workshop in summer this time with another set of archetypes in the shape of Masks of the Seven Planets.

Masks of the Seven Planets Workshop

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The seven planets are archetypes imbued with rich mythology and contemporary relevance. The planets visible to the naked eye are: Mars and Venus, the archetypes of the masculine and feminine; Jupiter and Mercury, the archetypes of the king and the trickster; and Moon and Saturn the archetypes of heredity and destiny; and the Sun, the centre around which the others orbit.

The idea to work with the theme of the seven planets came up shortly after the interview with Mike Chase at the end of his stay in Prague last summer. In the interview published in the Czech Journal of Waldorf Education Mike speaks quite extensively about these archetypes and their cosmologies and how they can be explored both in mask-using and mask-making work.

Here is an extract from the interview:

And how is it with the seven planets – like with the temperaments you have the four and they all make a whole because each of us has them present to some extend… But with the planets how does that work?

Both the temperaments and the seven planets are cosmologies, they are ordered wholes. Where as the Temperaments are in the rhythm of four, connecting to the constitution and life body, the planets have a different rhythm of seven, and they connect to the thinking, feelings and wiling as polarities within the soul. What I found very helpful with the planetary work is to explore the three polarities of Moon and Saturn, Mercury and Jupiter and Venus and Mars. There are different polarities of the planets, but this a helpful starting point. Then you’ve got the Sun as the capacity of the ego to integrate extreme tendencies within the soul.

When using the planet masks in the Hero’s Journey work with young adults with complex needs we usually begin with the masculine and the feminine, the male and the female principle encapsulated by Mars and Venus. In exploring Venus we use the catch phrase: welcome, I accept you as you are. This unconditional state of openness is one end of a spectrum of relational experience. On the other end of the spectrum, Mars says: wake up it’s time to change!  The planets work another level deeper into the soul than the temperaments as they encapsulate the domain of soul and spirit. Between the phase of human development from fourteen to twenty one the astral body is incarnating, comprised of the vast and powerful forces of the planets.

Interestingly, the Planets connect to the Commedia dell’ Arte. Harlequine is connected to the playful archetype  Mercury, and the Doctor is very much like thoughtful Jupiter, and Saturn is like Pantalone, and Magnifico is more like the dark Saturn or Mars. Then you have Capitano and Brighella who are much more in the fighting vein of Mars and then the beautiful unmasked folk type of Colombina who is very much like Venus…  The Sun may be considered as the Capo Comico, the unmasked leader of the  Commedia dell’ Arte troop, whose role it was to hold it all together.

There are so many aspects to it and one thing we haven’t spoken about is the whole area of mask making…

Yes, because the mask has two sides, the outside created by the mask maker and the inside which the performer embodies when they put on the mask. Mask making is like alchemy. It is the Alchemy of taking hold of substance and imprinting something into it, with all the processes that the alchemist goes through. These processes correspond to the seven planets. The Moon is where we gather all the data about the mask that needs to be made. The Mercury process comes in with drawing, modelling marquette’s and moving in the manner of the mask to be made. Venus is the process of searching for beauty, even in ugliness. The Sun is the process of integrating all the different aspects which have been brought to the table. Mars is the process in mask making of cutting through all the sentimental traps, Jupiter finding symmetry and balance, the perfect mean, and Saturn is the process of finding the essence, without compromise. These stages can happen in different sequences, but if any are left out there is danger of falling prey to sentiment and demeaning the human being with ugliness and hatred.

Applications for the mask-using workshop exploring the theme of the Seven Planets available at Masks of the Seven Planets Workshop. The number of participants is limited so if you are interested do apply early!

About Mike Chase

Mike has been working in the field of theatre and therapy for the past 30 years, as a teacher, director, Artistic Director, mask maker and Psychodramatist. He was born in South Africa and has been living in the UK since 1984. For the last 15 years he has been working predominantly with young adults with complex needs and most recently with serious offenders at a special therapeutic prison setting. He has been fascinated by the effectiveness of masks in teaching skills for life, and in supporting individuals in personal and professional development.

He has a degree in educational research focusing on drama arising out of anthroposophy. He is an accredited psychodrama psychotherapist and is writing a series of books on mask making and using in the context of education, therapy and personal and professional development. His book Mask – Making Using and Performing has been just published in UK by Hawthorn Press and can be ordered at Mask the Book.

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It has been quite some time since we first approached Mike Chase to come and do a mask workshop in the Czech Republic – finally he has accepted the invitation and is coming in August to do a weekend workshop working with the masks of four temperaments.

The theme of the Four Temperaments connects to the four-fold human being, the four elements and four kingdoms of nature. By exploring the body psychology of the four temperaments through masks, play and interactive body work, participants gain experiential understanding of self and other.

We all have all four temperaments within us, however one usually dominates. The Choleric temperament brings out the fire and future, the Sanguine, the playful present, the Melancholic the weighty past and the Phlegmatic, the introspective present.

Mike Chase has been working in the field of theatre and therapy for the past 30 years, as a teacher, director, mask maker and psychodramatist. For the last 15 years he has been working predominantly with young adults with complex needs. He has been fascinated by the effectiveness of masks in teaching skills for life, and in supporting individuals in personal and professional development.

He has a degree in educational research focusing on drama arising out of anthroposophy. He is an accredited psychodrama psychotherapist and is writing a series of books on mask making and using in the context of education, therapy and personal and professional development.

His workshops include working with drama exercises, masks and psychodramatic action methods exploring complex ideas, archetypes and themes through embodiment and action. In reflection the participants bring their own life’s experience to the themes explored, incorporating new ideas into their own world view.

The Mask Play with The Four Temperaments workshop with Mike Chase is taking place at our new venue in Trpoměchy. The workshop starts on Friday 19th August at 7pm and finishes on Sunday 21st August at 1pm. The course fee is  € 150 including food and accommodation.

Our new venue in Trpoměchy near Slaný is located about 30 km northwest of Prague in close proximity to Václav Havel Airport Prague. The town of Slaný is part of the Prague metropolitan area easily accessible by public transport.

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