Workshops from the Heart
Flying Heart offers classes to the community and aspiring performers of all ages.
Heart Beat!
Learn how to create music with your greatest and most portable instrument, you!
From your thorax to your thighs, from your tongue to your toes, from your greater spinous to your gluteus maximus; you are a music machine just waiting to be played!
This workshop is a fantastic opportunity to explore the music potential your body holds while learning rhythms from around the globe.
Clowning
The tradition of clown is very old and has played a role in many cultures. The clown serves as a social leveller and breaches social taboos with child-like innocence. The clown celebrates human follies and helps us to embrace and transcend them. The red nose (metaphorically speaking) gives the wearer great power and access to people and places, clowns go where angels fear to tread. Anyone who has done clowning will know this. To play the clown requires great faith in oneself, actors require the courage to be vulnerable and express their personal vision of the world.
Although in its essence clowning is simple and intuitive most people need a process of undoing themselves to access the creativity and spontaneity of the clown within. Through games and theatre exercises the workshop will lead participants through this process and impart starting points for developing clown character and routine.
Clowning is good training for actors and performing artists to develop generosity and creativity in their work and a wonderful way for anyone to open up their physical creativity in a unique and challenging way.
Physical Creativity
Creativity is integral to each person and serves us our whole lives. It feeds our imagination and helps us to see solutions to problems and envisage new inventions; it gives us optimism in hard times to see the light at the end of the tunnel and is our source of passion and joy. People face a changing world where creativity is the new currency and as the complex issues of our modern society unfold creative people with truly creative solutions are needed. Theses workshops will inject spontaneous joy into groups and communities of all ages as they designed to take participants into the world of physical imaginative play; imaginative play is essential for human development and child development research has found that imaginative play fosters and builds creativity. Imaginative play is spontaneous self-expression, the very birthplace of creativity.
The workshops require only an empty space and participants who are willing to have some fun.
Physical Theatre Development
This workshop is for schools and performance groups seeking movement based theatre training. Participants will learn how to increase their physical awareness, use the body as an instrument, improve improvisational skills, develop as an ensemble and devise performance material. Using a range of performance resources (see artists CV) to inform the workshop they can be run either as a one off introducing students to physical theatre or as a series directing the content of the work for a specific performance outcome. Consultation is welcome for performance projects and artist in residencies.
Object Play
This workshop takes participants on a creative journey in object manipulation.
The workshop starts with a demonstration and explanation of object manipulation; ala juggling. It breaks down juggling into its essential elements showing the audience the mechanics of the art form.
Participants will then begin to master 3 ball juggling through a variety of games and exercises and create a one ball juggling routine; this is followed with exploring the dynamics of balancing with simple sticks and ordinary cloth.
The workshop then adds ideas from clowning and puppetry to the mix and participants get to find ways to transform everyday objects into imaginative props.
The outcomes of this fast paced and engaging workshop will have participants mastering basic juggling skills, fusing juggling and imagination, exploring performance presentation and inspiring personal creativity.
The workshop has been designed so that all props used are things that participants can access at home at no cost. This is so that after the workshop participants are able to continue developing these skills without needing specialised equipment.
The workshops can run from 30-90 minutes and music is provided to create a more exciting and engaging atmosphere.