English Cultural Programme

DRAMA FACTORY WORKSHOP by SOPHIE HEYDELL

This workshop has been designed to give people an opportunity to discover different aspects of acting in theatre, and is for people who have English as a second language.

We will focus on theatre which is not entirely language based, that is to say, participants will be shown the tools of acting through a series of activities and games that will allow them to reach a stage of being able to show their work in front of colleagues with confidence and fluency. Speaking English will become a less self conscious process.

The following topics will be covered:

• ‘getting to know you’ games
  
• Physical warm up – this entails a gentle workout and some massaging
• Vocal warm up – some vocal exercises to warm the voice, and practice diction and pronunciation
• Giving and receiving games
• Concentration games
• Stimulate the senses activities – aimed at stimulating observational techniques
• Trust games
• Looking at status. Through various exercises we look at the importance of status, not just in theatre, but in our society and how we behave within it. Lots of fun playing important people and servants!!
• Building pictures
• How to tell a story through images. What is our body saying?
• An introduction to building a character.

Blockbuster Workshop – novels and film by James Haines

Introduction The novels form the basis of a variety of interactive activities which focus participants’ concentration on a variety of skills such as listening, reading, skimming for information, selecting key words, paraphrasing, pronunciation and creative teamwork. All the modes of learning, aural, visual and kinaesthetic are used in this interactive workshop to develop language acquisition and inspire further reading in English.

The workshop looks at blockbuster novels and how they have been represented in the cinema. The activities use original texts from best selling authors such as Helen Fielding, John Grisham, Thomas Harris, Stephen King and Elmore Leonard.

The workshop begins with various theatre activities which will utilise the texts in a fun warm up, which familiarise the participants with the texts and the general themes involved with each novel.

In a relaxed environment the group will then work around the question: What are the essential ingredients for a ‘blockbuster’? Participants explore the texts from both a literary perspective and a cinematic interpretation. We look at the themes and how language is used to develop them. We focus on characterisation – how well drawn are the protagonists? Are they convincing? How does Hollywood portray them?

We examine the use of humour, suspense, drama and other effects to maintain our attention. Taking a dramatic, theatrical angle we also use the texts as scripts, exploring how certain scenes could be played by actors, and comparing our versions with the Hollywood interpretation.

An Introduction to Shakespeare by James Haines

Introduction The session’s objectives are to facilitate language acquisition through aural, visual and kinaesthetic modes, using the work of William Shakespeare. While the emphasis is on language, the workshop also develops awareness of theatrical techniques. These can develop self confidence, spatial awareness, and interpersonal relationships.

This is an interactive workshop designed to provide a basic introduction to the world of William Shakespeare. It uses video, printed material, group activities and role play to bring the Elizabethan world to life in a fun and varied fashion.

We start by looking at the medieval world before Shakespeare, the structure of society and how that influenced the theatre of that time.

We explore how Shakespeare built on the theatrical conventions of the middle ages when writing his plays and how these conventions also affected the physical construction of this theatre. To illustrate this, we look at a few famous scenes to imagine how they may have been performed in ‘The Globe’.

We also consider Shakespeare’s commercial competition and how the tastes of his audience influenced his writing.

We define Shakespearean tragedy and comedy, using two plays to illustrate the different conventions.

Finally we look at the lasting impact that Shakespeare has had on the English language, highlighting a few of the fourteen thousand quotations listed in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Theatre Workshop by Joceline Powter

Introduction: The objectives of the session include expanding vocabulary, becoming aware of phrasing, combined with awareness of physical presence.

1. Warm-up Games – getting to know each other.
2. Vocal warm-up: Including breath control and relaxation techniques, working from the diaphragm and controlling the voice to help improve pronunciation and projection.
3. Physical warm-up: Including relaxation exercises and focuses on finding the centre. This will be combined with the vocal warm-up to fuse both body and voice for physical and vocal expression.
4. Status games, archetypes and the elements: These are physical exercises which are very good fun. The participant will explore characterisation through the physicality of status between 1-10, which may be flowed by improvisation and dialogues. The archetypes are connected to status in which the participant experiments with the physicality of the Fool, the Lover, the Devil and the King. And finally, the participant will explore body and voice with the elements; Air, Water, Earth and Fire.
5. Mask work: The participant will explore the power of silence, stillness, physical and vocal projection through a series of exercises with and without a mask. These exercises have a powerful result in creating a physical presence.
6. Text work: We will look at some extracts from Shakespeare, as Shakespearean themes are timeless, to explore the power of the word through breath control, phrasing, music of speech, and finding the emotional core.
7. Group work: finally the participants will work on a text or improvisation together as a group and a team.