The Workshop:   Sunday 21st March 2010  / cancelled

Due to unforeseen circumstances this workshop had to be cancelled.

Venue:

The Hidden Space

93a Falkland Rd, London N8 0NS

(Tube: Turnpike Lane)

Bookings: Email info@theatretraining.org.uk to request a booking form

Fran Barbe’s approach to preparing performers is informed by some 17 years experience of Japanese butoh, and the actor training method of Tadashi Suzuki. This workshop introduces participants to how these two approaches come together in her work to cultivate the performers heightened level of presence, energy, and their poetic, imaginative engagement with physical work.

The workshop will begin with a series of exercises drawn from Suzuki training.  This work involves a set of clearly defined experiences designed to ground, centre and energise the body. The structures give performers direct access to a very high level of energy, and an acute awareness of their body in motion and in stillness. It also incorporates voice work, applying the same principles of energy and awareness to voice and body. The method demands powerful strength without rigidity – mental or physical. Through clear instruction and spontaneous demands, it gives performer’s a profound experience of themselves under pressure.

The second part of the workshop will use the heightened presence and awareness cultivated through Suzuki training as a basis for creative work drawing on butoh’s poetic approach to improvisation and devising. Performers will be guided through structures that allow them to find movement material from within their own body’s organic vocabulary. Evocative words and images will be used to inspire movement from within the body and the creative imagination. Distillation and containment in butoh are explored to facilitate a potent state of listening as the entry point for creative improvisations.

This workshop is aimed at performers but is open to anyone and no prior experience of Suzuki or Butoh is required. It is physically challenging and requires a good level of commitment and focus. The work can be adapted for any injury or disability, please contact us in advance if you need to discuss this.

  Workshop Fran Barbe

Preparing Performers with Butoh and Suzuki

A Workshop with Fran Barbe