Theatre making with the natural environment
Facilitator: Joyce Henderson
How can the natural world fuel self-expression and creativity? In order to express our inner life, we observe our natural surroundings and imitate what we see around us.
Join Complicité Associate Artist, Joyce Henderson, to explore the structures of ensemble devising rooted in the nature that surrounds Hawkwood House. By rediscovering your intrinsic connection to your surroundings and those around you, you will collaboratively create a shared vocabulary with which to access your own and shared stories centred around the body and movement.
Aided by literature, music, comedy and a playful approach that is at the heart of the Complicité rehearsal process, you will create some short devised pieces of work that rediscovers our participation in the natural world.
Open to all – Ideal for actors, theatre-makers and people who want to make theatre through movement.
If you would like to book a shared room, please call or email Cathy : info@hawkwoodcollege.co.uk
Event time: Tue 27th Aug 2024 at 4:00pm - Fri 30th Aug 2024 at 4:00pm
‘…the most influential and consistently interesting theatre company working in Britain’-The Times
- Daily Awareness Through Movement sessions
- Play as innate capacity of all mammals
- The use of space as vocabulary for making theatre
- Presence and lifefullness
- Create theatre from ourselves as participants in the Natural World
- Delicious, nourishing meals in a beautiful space with direct access to glorious countryside
What You will Gain
- Practical skills in movement and devising
- Using observation as creativity
- Organic rather than choreographed ensemble skills
- An opportunity to explore the processes Complicité use to create new work, through the pedagogies of Jaques Lecoq, Monika Pagneux and Moshe Feldenkrais.
An incredible opportunity to create and collaborate with performers and creatives. Dedicate time to take inspiration, build your toolbox and sow the seeds for potential new work.
Ecology & Theatre Making
Complicité works with awareness of the human body in space. For this exploration, our starting point will be gravity and our roots, accessing and researching an understanding that the planet we are a part of supports us. How can we work with gravity to help us, rather than considering it a drawback.
Through the pedagogies of Jacques Lecoq, Monika Pagneux and Moshe Feldenkrais and from the natural landscape surrounding Hawkwood, we will learn the value of the world we are part of and made from, then create a shared vocabulary with which we can access our own and our shared stories.
All mammals play. Play is crucial to developing authenticity and spontaneity. Through Play we learn how we behave and thrive, we can better understand interaction. Play is at the heart of the rehearsal process for Complicité.
Therefore, using Awareness Through Movement, the Universal Poetic Sense, the rich landscape of Hawkwood, Play, Music and Words, we will create some short devised pieces of work to reflect the need to recover our respect for our environment.
Hawkwood in Partnership with Complicité
Complicité is an international touring theatre company based in London led by Artistic Director and co-founder Simon McBurney OBE. Complicité creates work that strengthens human interconnection, using the complicity between performer and audience that is at the heart of the theatrical experience. Complicité works across art forms, believing theatre, opera, film, installation, publication and participatory arts can all be sites for the collective act of imagination.
Complicité’s recent work at includes Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Beware of Pity, The Encounter, The Master and Margarita, Shun-kin and A Disappearing Number. Founded in 1983, the Company has won over 50 major theatre awards worldwide.
Testimonials
“I just wanted to say a massive thank you for facilitating the workshop. I thoroughly enjoyed understanding your rehearsal methods more, physically rather than just studying your methods. It really helped developed my use of body in space and the animal connection with character is something I found particularly interesting.”
- Past Complicité Workshop Participant
“It was a tremendous relief to hear that I am not the only one feeling an urgent need to rediscover the empty space. To take back ownership of the space as artists and creatives, actors and directors.”
- Past Complicité Masterclass Participant
Your Stay at Hawkwood
Hawkwood is a stunning Grade II listed 19th Century country house, surrounded by 42 acres of sustainably managed woodland, farmland, and gardens. Set in the heart of the Cotswolds – an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – it is a sanctuary away from the hustle and bustle of modern life. With a diverse selection of nearly 150 courses, there’s plenty to choose from, including courses in transformative leadership, future thinking, inner life, music and the arts. Our programme of courses is led by experienced tutors and leaders in their fields.
What Is Included
Both residential and non-residential rates are available. Residential options are fully inclusive with all meals provided. Non-residential options include suppers, lunches and all refreshments and exclude B&B.
Additional Activities
Mindful walking through our woodland trails
Meditate in our Woodland Sanctuary
Go on a hike and explore the Cotswolds AONB
Discover surrounding charming market towns
Price Options
£510 Non-Residential
£615 Residential Shared
£690 Residential Single
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Practical Information
The course will be movement based and participants are encouraged to wear comfortable clothing. Please feel free to get in touch if you have questions about any access needs you might have. You may wish to bring notemaking material too. Some sessions may take place outdoors, weather depending.
There are a limited number of subsidised places available. If you'd like more detail about these places then please email Yolande on inhouse@hawkwoodcollege.co.uk
Joyce Henderson
Joyce studied with Jacques Lecoq, Monika Pagneux and Philippe Gaulier. Joyce has been an Associate of Complicité since 1992, performing in The Street of Crocodiles, The Magic Flute as well as researching many projects including Mnemonic.
As part of the Creative Learning team, Joyce has delivered workshops in schools, colleges and communities nationally and internationally, most recently Complicité Does A Level Drama.
Alongside her work with Complicité, Joyce has worked as an actor with companies including the National Theatre, Birmingham Rep, 7:84 and The Right Size. Movement direction in Opera (The Marriage of Figaro, Aix en Provence), Dance (Julie Cunninghame and Company at Sadler’s Wells) and Theatre (Bleak Expectations in the west end).
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan
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