Explore acting and theatrical skills with prolific actress Hester Ullyart in this series of workshops over three nights at Ōtautahi Christchurch's newest performing arts place-to-be Altiora.

Whether you are an experienced actor, or just starting out, this trio of Acting Workshops at Altiora are designed to develop and workshop various elements of your acting toolkit and hopefully embolden and inspire your artistic practice.

As we only have three sessions, I have gone for a bit of a small taster board of options. We will start each session with a short physical and vocal warm up, which may be a great tool for you to have in your back pocket and can be handy if you have to do public speaking or similar in your life.

I have assembled the sessions to work as a trio complimenting one another, or to work as a one-off session if that is best for you- so mix and match with whatever floats your boat and I look forward to working together soon.

Please note this is a class for adults or mature young persons (Recommended 17+, no upper age limit!)

All welcome, please note that respect for one another, an open heart (and mind) are essentials.

Hester x

SESSION ONE - 26/09

We will dip into the world of Approaching Character: from Stranger to Friend

SESSION TWO 27/09

We will develop our relationship to character through the body and movement, via Introduction to Laban Technique.

SESSION THREE 28/09

We will wrestle with classical text and investigate ways into making old worlds your own.

Tuesday 26th- Approaching Character- from Stranger to Familiar

I love ‘meeting’ a character for the first time. Just like real life, sometimes it’s an instant click, but not always. So, how to begin?

In this session we will

- investigate how we might ‘get into character’ - how do we start to ‘create’ a character, and make it our own?
- explore some of the various choices we can make, physically and mentally, when embarking upon a new role, or are deepening our understanding of a familiar one

- this is a movement and voiced based group session

- please bring a water bottle and wear clothes that you are able to move in

Wednesday 27th- Introduction to Laban technique: out of your head, into body

Furthering our exploration into ways into character, we will look at a technique that can be useful for moving our body in ways that are different to our personal self, expanding our range

- in this session we will dip our toes into the world of Laban, a movement based technique which involves moving the body in various ways

- this is a movement based session, please bring a water bottle and clothes you can move in

Thursday 28th- Approaches to Classical Text: focussing on Shakespeare- from perplexion to empowerment*

In this final session we will look at how we might approach classical text as an actor, using Shakespeare as our focus, with the aim of giving you some tools to empower yourselves when faced with a 400 year old or so dusty text. Some topics will include-

- Iambic pentameter- say what?
- breath and punctuation - yes, it matters
- new thought, new thought, new thought!
- translation station - what does that even mean?

-there will be some movement, but this is a predominantly text and voice based session. Please bring a water bottle, clothes to move in if you wish, and a pen and/or paper if you can.

- *Please note! You are welcome to bring a classical monologue of your own choosing to this session, if there is something you are working on, or are inspired by.

Stage and screen actor. Playwright and independent artist. Singer. Director. Writer of poems, essay, review, and founder of Common Ground Spoken Word Collective. Hester is an award-winning UK born performer and maker currently based in Aotearoa. She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Ages: 17+

hester ullyart
www.altiora.nz