Hannah Nicklin

The Personal as Political
A short 2 hour workshop with time for discussion afterwards. Looking at autobiographical performance as a manner of addressing the wider political questions of contemporary life; from personal relationships, everyday encounters, to conflict and large-scale historical events from the point of view of the individual. Beginning with ideas of the 'political' and the 'personal' in and of themselves, participants will undertake writing and performance exercises that will explore the political in our everyday lives, examples of other performances and techniques (verbatim, Forum theatre, solo storytelling shows) will stand as case studies, and writer/performers will be encouraged to look towards expanding their experiences theatrically in an evocative, approachable and powerfully political manner.

Tangled Feet

Tangled Feet are an award winning theatre company who create original, physical and surprising work (www.tangledfeet.com). The company are an ensemble theatre company and work with a range of performers over a long period of time - they believe in a shared rehearsal and performance history. The workshop will be a practical introduction to making theatre, both in public spaces and inside theatres. Why do we make the theatre we make? How do we animate public space? What keeps people watching? Working alongside Tangled Feet's two directors and three of their core company the workshop will be fun, playful and exploratory.

Switchback
Professional Development Workshop
Sat 15 Dec

Contemporary performance offers us a limitless range of forms.  If you’re making a piece of theatre, you can do pretty much anything you like, as long as you take your audience with you.  Everything is possible.

Faced with this kind of choice, how do you decide which direction to take?  How do you find the structure that suits your ideas?  And how do you develop it once you’ve found it?
Switchback invited attendees to explore these questions in an opportunity to look in the same direction for a little while, and to share what we see.

Third Angel
Games for Devising
Tues 27 Nov

Co-Artistic Director of Third Angel Alexander Kelly will run a workshop utilising some of the games that Third Angel have used as part of the process of making recent shows, and explore ways of developing ideas from devising games into performance material. Third Angel makes work that spans the territory between theatre and live art; the shows are created through a rigorous devising process that includes improvisation, play, writing and task based performance.
 

Inua Ellams
Writing workshop with Inua Ellams – Building a Character
Thur 18 Oct 2012

Inua Ellams merges theatre, poetry and visual art, telling stories with iconic imagery, humour and beauty. He writes about his upbringing, the experience of immigration, and of living in the UK today, bringing words to life with pace, rhythm, cadence and intonation. Join Inua for this professional development workshop before his show Black T-Shirt Collection which has just been performed at the National Theatre, a fantastic opportunity to work with a nationally acclaimed, fringe first award winning spoken word and theatre artist looking at the skills and techniques used in his writing process particularly how to create a three dimensional character within a short space of time.

Professional development workshop with Mish Weaver to explore the potential of circus disciplines and training in making new work. A discursive and practical approach to working with circus disciplines and movement in the making of performance - looking at process and integration of skills with content.

This workshop, led by Tom Walton, focussed on the core rules of puppetry and taught participants how to bring the most basic object to life. The aim of the workshop was to allow participants to engage with puppetry in a technical and creative sense, giving performers a framework that can be applied to any puppet, and directors the skills to direct puppetry with a greater understanding of the form.

This choreography focussed workshop was aimed at dancers, teachers, artists and practitioners. Participants learned phrase work and explored choreographic tools and techniques.

This workshop introducted some of Analogue's working practices such as devising and storyboarding, and practically explored some of the techniques they use when creating work. The session offered a brilliant opportunity for participants to work with the exciting new company and develop their own practice.

Chris Thorpe, one of the most exciting theatremakers in the UK, devised a workshop about writing as a tool for performance, but not necessarily writing as the point of it. He explored the ways writing can be used immediately and responsively in the rehearsal room, as one of the components of performance making rather than the centre.

Gordon shared his experiences and provided opportunities to learn how to engage young people in the making of theatre for children.

In this practical workshop Hannah Silva shared her approaches to working with text and voice in performance. Participants explored vocal and articulation techniques, soundscapes and a variety of methods of devising text including cut-up writing techniques and structured improvisation.

Drawing on Third Angel’s own methods of creating theatre and installation, this workshop was designed to explore a number of different avenues initiating the making of new work, focusing on rule-based systems of devising, which restrict the performer’s options but consequently encourage creative results.

Bare Toed Dance offered an introduction to how we can create opportunities to dance and play and thrive for early years groups. This course presented ideas to try, some of the theory that underpins Bare Toed’s work and a dance to move and be inspired.

Upswing is one of the UK’s leading circus and aerial dance companies which produces a range of work from outdoor and site-specific work to touring shows.  Upswing’s Artistic Director Vicki Amedume led the workshop which explored aerial work on silks and slings.

Gayle Sutherland's workshop focused on ensuring that both the attendees and the school with which they hoped to collaborate would benefit from a project which stimulates them both by exploring aspects which are of value.

Officers from Arts Council England North East office offered a special presentation on how to apply for Grants for the Arts funding for those who had applied before and those who had not. Attendees where given advice on about current priorities and how to unpick some of the challenges of writing a proposal.

This workshop for artists and practitioners sought to equip participants with tools for generating material for solo and collaborative performance. Ellie’s particular brand of solo performance searches for the sincere in the seemingly synthetic and blends autobiography with pop culture to challenge notions of authenticity and ownership.

Theatre Hullabaloo
What is special about making theatre for children?
Tues 25 Oct 2011

Miranda Thain, creative producer of Theatre Hullabaloo, lead a professional development workshop including a mixture of process-starting practical exercises, discussion about the issues of developing work with children and young people and a look at feature projects.

Apples and Snakes facilitated an artist development open masterclass: working with young people, poetry and spoken word lead by renowned slam facilitator and poet coach Jacob Sam-La Rose.

Phil Ormrod led a workshop exploring different ways of fracturing narrative in order to allow audiences a different kind of encounter with it. Participants were encouraged to consider both styles of composition and styles of performance.

Using sound and music as a starting point, this session will explored ensemble movement and group presence as a way to access and experiment with text. Participants were given the opportunity to create and improvise text and develop a corresponding movement vocabulary, which they then were able to build upon within the particular and rewarding dynamic of the ensemble.

In early July OddManOut were in residence at ARC developing their next production The Guest. As part of their week at ARC the company examined the process of creating political theatre for contemporary audiences. The workshop sought to ask the question: what the relationship between audience and stage should be and how performance, design and text can affect that relationship? 

The aim of this workshop was to develop theatricality in (autobiographical) performance through an exploration of the power of metaphor and covered themes including narrative styles, devised performance, metaphor, atmospheres and neuroscience of memory. The session skills involved developing new performance skills and material, critical reflection and discussion on metaphor, exploring various design and performance languages; playing with distortions of time and space and working solo: developing an appropriate style.

This fun and pratical introduction introduced Tangled Feet’s method of making theatre. Working as a collaborative group, devising from a stimulus and responding physically, it was an opportunity to discuss how and why theatre is made and what the benefits and challenges are of devising in groups. The workshop was aimed at actors, directors, writers, and anyone with an interest in the live art of theatre.