5-Day Dramatic Combat Arts Workshop 
April 5-9, 2010
The Shakespeare By The Sea Festival is pleased to host another intensive Dramatic Combat Arts workshop this spring for professional theatre artists and other theatre practitioners.
This year's five-day, 30 hour workshop will focus on the Single Sword Techniques of dramatic combat, along with a review of basics of Unarmed and will be led once again by Montreal-based Fight Master Jean-François Gagnon (see below for bio).
Click here to hear the interview with Jean-François that was broadcast on the CBC Morning Show about last year's workshop on Tuesday, April 14, 2009.
The workshop will be held every day from Monday April 5 until Friday April 9 from 9:30am – 4:30pm, with an hour break for lunch. The location will be the Reid Theatre, located in the Arts and Administration building (off of Elizabeth Avenue) of Memorial University.
Registration is $350 and is limited to 12 participants. Email sbts@nfld.com or call 722-SBTS (7287) to register or for more info.
About the Workshop
It is a great pleasure to be invited to teach an intensive 30 hours workshop in the art of dramatic combat.
We will first learn the fundamentals of the actor's work in dramatic scenes involving violence and physical risk.
We will then learn some Unarmed Techniques: Avoid, Locks, Punch, Kicks, projection and fall, learning to create the illusion of a fight.
We will complete the workshop with a focus on Single Sword Techniques, and continue our work on physical break down of actions, focus and connection of movement to breath. Giving the opportunity to discover the human experience behind some of those period characters that lived by the sword.
In this workshop, I will work with the participant's capacity; so if you have done some dramatic combat before this can be also the occasion to freshen up.
Looking forward to being in St. John's!
~ Jean-François Gagnon
What are the Dramatic Combat Arts?
Dramatic Combat Arts are an essential tool for the performer that makes the bridge between movement and acting.
The Dramatic Combat Arts address the physical risk involved in some Tragic or Comic dramatic conflicts and the need to propel the story through a dramatic combat scene. The techniques used apply to all the Martial Arts Eastern or Western, period or modern.
The performance of such scenes calls for the synergy of two aspect: the Technical and the Expressive.
The Technical aspect is the integration of movement that needs to be done to acquire specific motricity and the learning of terms and techniques specific to the different combat style. It is the control and precision that must possess the actor to ensure his/her and his/her partner’s security.
The Expressive aspect is the embodiment needed to bring intents and strategic choice support to the movement. It is the proper channel to the emotional impulse and the capacity of the actor to focus and relax – to obtain the abandonment that will permit the spontaneity of the moment and give to a fight its authenticity.
About the Instructor
Jean
-François Gagnon
A graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada, Jean-François Gagnon has been directing fight scenes on stage and for the screen for twenty years. Mr. Gagnon pursues parallel careers as an Actor, Fight Director and
Director and is a recognized Fight Master and member of Fight Directors, Canada, for which he is presently the VP of training.
He has had the pleasure of working with many talented performers, and of choreographing major productions, including Sept branches de la rivière Ota, and Elseneur with Robert Lepage and Ex Machina; Black Comedy with Denise Filiatreau; The Venetian Twins for Just for Laughs Festival; and Les Misérables for Neptune Theatre. He has been associated with productions of most of the plays of Shakespeare (some more than once), and many operas, such as Faust, Les contes d’Hoffman, Roméo et Juliette, La grande duchesse de Gerolsteïn, in addition to many musicals, including West Side Story.
Jean-François was one of the master teachers on the CBC production Triple Sensation. He was swordmaster on Are you Afraid of the Dark?, 4 ½, and The Secret Adventure of Jules Verne, and stunt designer on the film Cabaret neige noire.
He been a consultant for the UBISOFT computer game software Prince of Persia, and for Le Cirque du Soleil/Robert Lepage MGM project Kà, and is the recipient of a Masque Award from the Académie Québécoise du Théâtre, for his choreography of Scaramouche at the Théâtre Denise-Pelletier in Montréal, in which he also played the Maitre d’arme.
He has been teaching dramatic combat at the National Theatre School of Canada since 1991, and teaches Commedia dell’Arte and Movement at Concordia University.