Workshop Invitation
"The Performer and the Self"
OUR WORKSHOPS
Workshops are an integral part of our development, enabling us to share and adapt our theatre training and performance techniques with other artists, as well as gathering inspiration for our future work from our collaborators and workshop participants.
In 2014 Spindrift Theatre received generous funding from the European Union to tour our productions and workshops and collaborate with local participants in three different European Countries. After a successful run of our latest immersive and participatory performance “Carroll: Berserkur” we are eager to develop our style and technique further, and are scouting for collaborators.
We would like to arrange workshops for students and industry professionals with theatre and/or dance background, to share our way of working and researching for performances.
Therefore we are getting in touch with you to see whether you are interested to accommodate these workshops, and so aid us in our work to collaborate with talent across Europe.
The workshops will investigate autobiographical storytelling, finding and expressing the performer’s Self through movement, sound and text, and devising through improvisation.
WHO ARE THE WORKSHOP LEADERS?
Spindrift Theatre is an all female Nordic Theatre Company. We work physically and visually, as an innovative, experimental company centred around the performer’s curiosity on life and human nature. We focus on visually intriguing, sensory, physical and experimental productions.
Our original devised experimental performances have grown from explorations such as national identity, the actor’s body and physical expressivity, and the blurring of boundaries between the actor and the audience.
Spindrift’s founding members are Bergdis Julia Johannsdottir (Iceland), Eva Solveig (Iceland), Henriette Kristensen (Norway) & Anna Korolainen (Finland) who came together during their performance training in England and Estonia.
“I found the workshop such a freeing experience, never before was I able to connect with my body without self judgement, or second guessing myself.”
Anna is a Finnish actor and director, currently based in Paris. She works as a performer and assistant director at Compagnie Hieronymus, an aspiring Parisian company dedicated to new writing. In 2015, she graduated with a MA in Theatre of Musicality, after working for a year with an award-winning company Teatr Piesn Kozla (Poland) in London. Anna is passionate about interculturality and total theatre. In her work, she takes special interest in music and somatic practices.
Bergdis Julia studied at the Icelandic Teaching University before her theatrical education in London. Since her graduation she has directed and taught theatre in Icelandic elementary schools, as well as working as a freelance actress. Julia has a good eye for physical expressivity which she put to the test in our production as director of ‘Me... Whilst Being Humane,’ a dance theatre piece inspired by Pina Bausch.
Eva is a New York based theatre and film actress and visual artist. Further training includes London Academy (LAMDA), and training in Italy (Meyerhold’s Biomechanics), Poland (Gardzienice), Estonia (Eesti Muusika ja- Teatriakadeemia) and New York (Stella Adler Masterclass) and with Song of the Goat Theatre and the Kevin Spacey Foundation in London. Eva received the Sir John Gielgud Grant in 2012, and is an able mover with great skills in improvisation.
Henriette works as a freelance actor in London. Having trained in movement and acrobatics, she is an able mover and passionate about movement theatre and dance. A talented singer with special interest in simplicity, honesty and physical expressivity. She loves leading workshops and leads our favourite intensive warm-ups during rehearsal periods.
WORKSHOP THEME AND STRUCTURE
We are inspired to continue our Research and Development workshops previously hosted in Norsk Skuespillersenter in Oslo, Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Iceland’s leading independent theatre venue Tjarnarbíó, an experimental, Icelandic performance hub the Freezer, and Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance in London.
The new workshops are created from our two-year touring project, which was developed from our research on the life and work of Lewis Carroll, with emphasis on Alice in Wonderland. We were inspired to investigate identity and society and how each affects one another. The research was centred around how the performer’s ‘self’ is used in character work and on stage.
The workshop will start with physical theatre warm-ups exploring the performer’s background and identity. The participants will be working individually, in pairs and with the whole ensemble, devising in groups and sharing work. The work will be an insight into how our theatre company improvises and devises original movement scores that lead to scenes and performances. The work will challenge the participant to explore and share their own identity: national identity, social and private aspects of their identity, and their perception of a community; in a safe environment through movement and sound.
The workshop leaders will instruct in English but the use of any language is encouraged during improvisation and devising.
To do so we require a spacious, bright studio from our host, with a plug-in for music. Suitable attendants for these workshops are trained performers or students who are open to explore new techniques, styles and devising methods inspired by their individuality.
For more information please contact:
spindrifttheatre@gmail.com
“The workshop taught me ways to find the appropriate balance between the vulnerability of exposing one’s self and the ways of being able to transform and confidently express it.”
