RESPONSIVE PERFORMANCE PRACTICE
Responsive Performance Practice is a training program developed and led by Leisa Shelton. It has grown out of years of professional practice within contemporary performance, and continuous investigation with many of the worlds leading teachers, directors and innovators. It draws directly from the embodied actor training developed by Etienne Decroux, the rehearsal processes of Pina Bausch via Meryl Tankard, Autonomous Actor training as developed by Lindy Davies, alongside a continuing dialogue with Eastern principles of theatre practice.
The teaching is an act of transmission actively focusing on enabling and developing a performer’s intuitive, responsive, articulate awareness of space, those within it and their relationship to the material under investigation. The techniques offer a deeper understanding of, and relationship to, the interconnectedness of the body and voice within authentic performance language.
Responsive Performance Practice offers on-going training for the establishment of a community of practitioners. It focuses on creating continuous opportunities for independent artists to develop their practice by working alongside others with a shared connection to the development of new directions for contemporary performance within an Australian context.
CONSIDERING PRACTICE – is a focused investigation into the core principles, values and intentions that underpin our independent arts practice.
This work is open to artists of all backgrounds and core skill bases, from performance to management, installation to writing – all artists seeking greater clarity in their current practice and interested in considering structures and strategies to re-define their current practice toward stronger, more resilient future outcomes.
Combining this work with the addition of landscape and a retreat structure enables an immersive and expansive relationship to the process. The aim of each workshop is to take time and make space for reflection through led structures of enquiry, in order to gain clearer insight into the potential and next stages of each individual’s practice.
Across a series of individual units of practice we will investigate –
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Exploring and articulating core values.
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Processes of problem solving and project development through the articulation of values and intentions.
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Development of key collaborative relationships - our roles within projects and those that will be sourced via others to create sustainable collaborations and networks.
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The roles we fulfill and the roles that fulfill us.
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Strategies for building resilient communities of practice.
Considering Practice has been hosted at the Abbotsford Convent Melbourne and retreat centres within Victoria, Queensland and NSW. It has been hosted by Next Wave Festival, Centre for Contemporary Projection Artist Residence and in Berlin, Mumbai + Bangalore India.