What Are You Doing On Stage?

(literally, why are you on stage? Then, once you are there,

what are you going to do?)

A Performance Workshop on Poetry for the Stage

with experienced Perth performer Mar Bucknell

If you are happy to stand somewhere in the general vicinity of a microphone and start to mumble a few words until at some point later the mumbling stops for no obvious reason, then this workshop isn’t for you.

But if you want to turn your poem into a performance that the audience might remember, then this workshop will help. Performing, rather than just reading, your poem can bring your words, your ideas to life. And just as with most things, there are useful disciplines you can learn.

If you try to learn yoga by stretching limbs at random, you will hurt yourself. If you speak words at random without any thought of how a sentence or a line or a passage is constructed to convey meaning, you will hurt the audience.

There are things that can be easily learnt to help you with this process, and far from diminishing your individuality, they will help you find your voice. No one method of performance works for every poet or every poem, but by exploring how performance is put together you can learn how to make an impact.

This workshop covers stage presence, voice production and the grammar of performance and is suitable for anyone, of any level of skills or experience or physical ability. If you are a beginner you can learn some important steps. And if you think you already know everything you need to know about poetry and performance, here is the news: you don’t. Good performers never stop learning.

Things to bring:

some poetry, preferably some of your own and some by your favourite writers
your preferred writing media
an open mind
wear comfortable clothes (it is preferable if you are willing to work barefoot).

please be on time.

In the world of serious performance an 11 am start does not mean arrive in the building some time not very much after 11. It means arrive in time to go to the toilet, refill your water bottle, turn off your phone, take off your shoes, do any necessary personal stretches and be ready to start just before 11.