EVENT ARCHIVES
Performing Words 1 and 2
with Gilly Adams and Geddy Aniksdal
The first workshop took place on Monday March 29 - Friday April 2 2004 at the Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster University. The second workshop took place on Thursday 14 th – Sunday 17 th April 2005.
Please click here to see examples of participants' writing and film footage from the workshops.
Gilly Adams is a director, workshop leader and editor who specialises in working with writers. She was the Artistic Director of the new writing company, Made in Wales, for more than a decade and is currently the director of BBC Wales' Writers' Unit and a radio drama producer. She is also an associate artist of the celebratory arts company Welfare State International.
Geddy Aniksdal has been with Grenland Friteater, Norway's independent theatre company, since 1981 and has participated as an actor in all the theatre's main productions. She also works as a director and pedagogue and has given numerous workshops on actor training. She has toured her solo performance Blue is the Smoke of War internationally.
Gilly and Geddy have both been involved with the Magdalena Project, an international network investigating the role of women in contemporary theatre, since its inception in 1986. They have developed their workshop Performing Words through the Magdalena and have worked together on many occasions. In 2003 they toured with Performing Words to the Philippines, Singapore and Magdalena Australia in Brisbane.
Two workshops for performers or aspiring performers who wanted to develop their own text. Using a variety of creative writing stimuli, including personal storytelling, there were opportunities for a rigorous exploration of the thoughts and emotions that inform the words as well as the character of the voice that is being expressed. This textual analysis was balanced by imaginative physical work designed to develop and play with the connection between the language of the body and spoken language.
A film of the first workshop is available in DVD and VHS format for £9.99 (to cover production costs and postage and packing).
The film provides an insight into the methods used by Gilly and Geddy in the workshop, to explore the connection between the language of the body and spoken language in drama, and to provide strategies for generating performance text out of physical action.
The film follows the participants' progress as they move through the various stages of the workshop:
• Warming up
• Introducing the framework
• Characters and physical scores
• Finding a voice
• Writing characters
• Structured Improvisations
• Presentations.
- click here for quicktime movie version
- click here for realplayer movie version
- click here for Windows Media Player version
Please click here for further information about project publications
"I came to this workshop working on my performance piece about Joan of Arc. I brought with me the first draft of my preliminary script. During the past 4 days, I clarified the dramaturgical outline of the piece as well as found a basic physical score for my performance. Gilly looked at my text with an objective, outsider's view and through constructive discussion helped me come up with a clearer writing structure. Geddy's physical and vocal exercises including the work on our individual physical scores (made up of three movements and three sentences from our text) allowed me to gain further confidence as a performer and strengthened my physical and vocal presence on stage."
LSA
"I particularly appreciated the transference of my work from an academic, theoretical perspective into a more creative, performative piece."
GB
I found the workshop stimulating,
productive and challenging. I found myself going
beyond my limitations on my occasions mainly thanks to
the energy built up in the room by Geddy and Gilly... It was intense at times, but it ensured
we all had to go that extra mile, for me it pulled
something out of me within performance that had been
asleep until now."
KR