Moonfool (UK), Spin a Yarn & Culture Monks present an international workshop for age 13 - 18 years on movement & musicality at Choreotheque Studio, New Delhi.

Moonfool Theatre Company is back in India and is excited to offer new taster theatre sessions for young people. Explore Shakespeare and encounter a new theatre training.

Turning Shakespeare Upside Down is a physical and musical theatre workshop led by international practitioner Emily Jane Grant & Holly Meechan from Moonfool Theatre Co (UK), exploring Shakespeare’s texts using gesture, movement, rhythm and song.

Let playful exercises in music, rhythm and dynamic physicality take you on a journey to encounter themes, characters and deepen your understanding of Shakespeare’s stories.

The training covers the following:
Ensemble balance training
Physical partner listening
Chorus work and gesture
Extended voice techniques
Choral singing and close harmony
Rhythm and breath awareness
Dynamic speech work
Dramaturgy and composition
Structured improvisation

All this is applied to an exploration of archetypes in stories from around the world, particularly those from classical texts such as Shakespeare and the Ancient Greeks to generate original ensemble works of theatre.

ACT YOUTH -Shaking up Shakespeare uses a number of theatrical techniques including gesture, music, movement, voice and storytelling, participants will explore the themes, language, character and plot of Shakespeare’s classic plays. The workshops could culminate in a sharing where the students present a sharing of their explorations.

What will you learn?

Gain further understanding of Shakespeare, both as an important part of English Literature and a theatrical tradition.

Develop confidence, oration skills, performance techniques, and creative approaches to story and text.

How to use body, voice and imagination, working individually, in small groups and as a large team.

This is a fantastic chance to work with experienced professional theatre practitioners from the UK and it will be an exciting, fun and enriching experience to all those involved.

This workshop will take you through the following training in a very fun but intense manner.

Team-work: Participants will take part in playful energetic group games. This area of the training develops team spirit and creates the chorus. ACT prepares participants for powerful group ensemble performance.

Music: Explore traditional folk song and see how music can create atmosphere and deepen the exploration of character and story. Students will work on solo and choral singing, and rhythm using the breath, voice and body.

Gesture: In creating a physical language to express words, themes, emotions and explore character, students will develop an alphabet of gesture over the course of the workshop creating a new method of storytelling.

Partner work: Working with breath, gesture and impulse, lean on a friend literally in this new look at how group and partner work can train and develop us as actors learning to breathe, move and react as one.

Text: Gain a deeper understanding of the story through structured improvisations leading to work on key speeches and scenes.

About ACT: ACT (ACTOR-CHORUS-TEXT) is an original approach to generating ensemble theatre productions that symbiotically interweave music, movement and poetry in telling stories while reinventing the given spatial location.

About Emily Jane Grant (Workshop leader): Emily Jane is a dedicated performer and Theatre in Education specialist. She holds a BA Hons in Drama and Theatre arts from Middlesex University, a PGCE in French and Drama and is trained as a performer at renowned theatre school E.N.S.A.T.T (École Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Techniques du Théâtre) in France. She has worked for nearly 10 years as a bilingual theatre practitioner and performer specialising in theatre with and for young people. She works for many different companies in London, performing and leading drama workshops. She is currently touring her own one-woman version of 'The Three Musketeers'. In the summer months, she works in Switzerland at Le Rosey International School as a director for the theatre department. She has performed at the Neapolis festival in Nabeul, Tunisia, has trained young people to lead workshops in SMD school, Kathmandu, Nepal and has run theatre projects in a number of schools across India. She has delivered physical theatre and mask sessions for Trestle theatre Company is an ensemble theatre leader for the International Schools Theatre Association. Having been a long standing member of north-east based company Théâtre sans Frontières, she now runs her own theatre company Join the Dots and is working with Moonfool to develop the Youth strand of the ACT training both in the UK and in India.

She believes that drama has the power to educate and empower people allowing them to gain confidence and greater control of themselves, to communicate effectively with others and to have lots of fun along the way.

Holly Meechan (Assistant leader): Holly trained in Drama at the University of Exeter where she first established her passion and commitment to Theatre in Education. She is an actor, workshop leader and director and has worked with and performed for children of all ages across the UK, for companies including Freshwater Theatre, Konflux TIE, Bristol Old Vic and Now Press Play. Holly lived in Taiwan for two years where she not only learnt Mandarin Chinese but also devised and directed productions, and regularly used drama and theatre as a tool for teaching English as a foreign language.