Acting Training Ireland, who I have done workshops with and am very enthusiastic about are doing a four-day workshop in voice and acting at the beginning of June. It’s €200 for 4 full days which is a little bit out of my price-range at the moment but they are very, very good. If you do get a chance to go along, please let me know how you get on!

Here are all the details. Contact details here.

VOICE & PLAY

A four-day workshop

with Helena Wash and Andy Crook

Tuesday 5th June – Friday 8th June

10.00 – 17.00

€200

City Centre Location

This workshop is an exploration of acting using text, voice and improvisation combining the ideas of Jacques Lecoq and Roy Hart. It will be highly physical and playful using the energy of the individual working within the ensemble to challenge and encourage each participant to explore more deeply their craft and purpose as a performer. It will look at how we can be alive and spontaneous whilst being true to a text and connecting and responding to those around us.

Learning to work with our whole body and mind together produces work of depth, colour and great sensitivity. We will focus on wakening ourselves up physically and mentally, sensitising ourselves with others and then connecting to text and to playful situations.

The first part of each session will focus on physical and vocal technique that will open up the body and voice, grounding the actor and preparing for improvisational ensemble work in the afternoon. Techniques are inspired from Feldenkrais, Astanga yoga, Lecoq and Roy Hart.

The second part of each session will be spent on understanding acting through choral voice and sung pieces and through active imaginative play and work on text. Songs will be used to encourage a greater range of expression in the spoken voice and choral pieces will be sung and spoken. The emphasis will be on the physicalisation of song and the word. We will learn to embody the gesture of a phrase, or ground the feeling of a word through clear energised thought and a dynamic articulate and expressive body. This is taken through to the acting with text and improvisation work allowing physical action to take us into the discovery of situation and meaning.

This is a course that is suitable for anyone with some acting experience. Having a trained singing voice is not necessary and the course is designed for actors who would like to explore moving freely from spoken to sung text . The work is challenging but always fun.