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Course Outline
Stage 1 of the Adventures in Space Program is a part-time
course in ensemble based physical theatre and visual storytelling.
The course takes place at a London venue, and consists of 1 x 3-hour
class per week (weekday evening) for 10 weeks.
The focus will be on ensemble-based creation through improvisation
and collective devised work, based on the work of Jacques Lecoq. The
starting point is the human body and its relationship to the space
around it. Ensemble members will develop total awareness of how their
bodies move naturally. Using that knowledge to propel them toward
their personal physical limits, they will begin to explore a range
of physical approaches to performance. This work will be combined
with an investigation into different uses of space and how a story
can be told clearly through an imaginative use of scale and mimed
imagery, the emphasis being always on a shared sense of fun and energetic
play.
The company will be encouraged to play and experiment discovering
different uses of expressive movement, puppetry, mime, dance, song,
text and poetry. The aim is to create new theatrical languages and
form a unique group identity and style. In the final two weeks of
the course. The group will be given themes on which they will be asked
to devise and develop short performance pieces, applying the ideas
and skills they have developed through the course. The course may
culminate in a public showing to an invited audience.
Course Breakdown
Adventures in Space
For you as an actor, why is space important? We look at how you can
use your body in space to create meaning for an audience - how you
can make space on stage come alive, and out of thin air you can weave
dramatic tensions, stories and characters. Once you have this basic
spatial training, you are ready for an exploratory voyage to other
theatrical worlds.
Planet Neutral
You as an actor bring to the stage all of your own physical and character
quirks. These lend texture to the work, but sometimes get in the way.
Before you can choose to play a character very different from yourself,
you have to make sure that you aren’t unintentionally bringing
along too much of your own baggage. Also, when you are telling a story
you need to make sure that you are serving the story and not standing
in its way for an audience. You need a body that knows when and how
to give focus to an image - so that the audience can be transported
with you to an imaginative world. This is why we use neutrality as
the basis of our voyage in physical training.
A Trip Around the Universe
Actors need to be able to look at the world around them - at elements,
animals, objects and other bodies; at anything that moves. They need
to be able to see the poetic and theatrical possibilities in the world
around them. A plastic bag is carelessly thrown away, but valiantly
tries to regain its original shape. How can you take the tragedy and
hope that you see in the movement of this plastic bag, and use it
to tell moving and inspiring stories about humanity?
Alien Life Forms
“Its character Jim, but not as we know it.”
You will explore a range of ways of building characters from a physical
starting point. These characters, or theatrical creatures, may not
have a naturalistic reality about them, but they are based on a theatrical
sense of truth, and they help to create a believable theatrical world.
As long you keep that truth, you can push the theatricality into the
exaggerated, the grotesque, the divine.
Heavenly Bodies
When you devise theatre you need a high level of ensemble skill, you
need to have a shared understanding of focus, rhythm and space. Chorus
work will train you in how to develop your theatrical instinct together
so that you create one living breathing organism that can paint pictures,
develop characters and tell stories.
Universal Rhythms
Each character, each scene, each theatrical piece and each theatrical
style or world has its own rhythm. Devisers need to develop a strong
sense of how to use rhythm and suspense in writing, structuring and
performing theatre.
To Other Worlds and Beyond
You will develop your storytelling body. You will explore how you
can tell a story clearly through an imaginative use of scale and mimed
imagery, puppetry and an inventive use of objects. This part of the
voyage is directed by energetic play and a shared sense of fun.
A Starship Enterprise
Create your own world. You and your group will devise a piece using
everything you have learnt from your voyage.
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