Workshops

Facilitated by professional actors, technicians, and other artists, the Live-In workshops are an opportunity for artists and community members to come together and learn new skills while sharing artistic expression. Open to both public and theatre practitioners.

Pre-registration is required. Space is limited, so please register early by emailing dapopolivein@gmail.com

Participation in all workshops is by donation. Donations over $10 may be eligible for a tax receipt. Please ask when registering.

THE WORKSHOPS

October 2, 6:00 - 9:30 pm
Physical Theatre - Grotowski Inspired
Facilitator: Gina Thornhill

Gina Thornhill

Using rigorous physical training, this workshop will introduce you to a creation process based on Jerzy Grotowski's Theatre Laboratory work. The idea of the actor as the creator instead of the director as well as the connection of body and imagination are the concepts we will explore during this Training session. Come prepared to run and sweat.
Min 4 / Max 12 participants.

Gina Thornhill is a Halifax based actor who has recently interned with the physical theatre company Double Edge Theatre in Ashfield, MA. She is a co-founder of Once Upon a Theatre Collective and an Instructor at Neptune Theatre School. She is grateful for the opportunity to share her passion of physical theatre through the DaPoPo Live-In this year for real.

October 6, 13, 20 & 27, 10 am - 1 pm 
The Song Is You
Facilitator: Garry Williams


In a series of four sessions held over a sprawling brunch each week, participants will be encouraged to write the songs they want to write. We will explore how songs function, and develop one or more original songs to be performed at the end the Live-In. In this genre-defying workshop, there will be time to work, play, collaborate and share ideas. Based on interest, we'll have tutorials on metre, rhyme, chord finding, structural elements and analysis. Participants should bring a keyboard + stand or a guitar, if possible.
Max. 12 participants. 

Garry Williams

Garry Williams is a Halifax-based director, writer, musician, performer, pedagogue and artistic director for DaPoPo Theatre. He studied Musicology, Composition and Vocal Performance at the Free University Berlin, Manhattanville College, NY, and Mount Allison University, NB. He has music and stage directed on countless music theatre pieces ranging from Opera to Dinner Theatre in Halifax, New York and Berlin. He has written music for Mother Courage and Her Children, The Tempest, King Lear, Twelfth Night, as well as the original musicals So… What About Love?, A Dream Deferred, An Enchanted Twist, That's Our Job! and The Thirteen Clocks. He has been teaching singing and music theory for over a decade. He loves to write novelty songs, and performs sing-along Show Tunez every Saturday night at Menz Bar. 

October 6, 2-5pm

Laban Laboratory

Facilitator: Eric Benson

We will create a laboratory, of sorts, in which we will experiment with movements created by Rudolph Laban as they relate to character, and investigate how posture, body position, and internal movement can be used as a key for character and text.

Eric Benson

Eric Benson has been a core member of DaPoPo Theatre since 2005, and is currently an Associate Director in the company. He has been a participant in the Michael Langham Workshop for Classical Direction at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in 2011 and 2012. At the moment, he is developing Büchner's 'Woyzeck' into a puppet show, and Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus' into a one-man production. See a reading of Woyzeck on October 17th!

October 7, 9:30 am - 12:30 pm
Kids' Creation Lab
Facilitators: Zach Faye & Kim Parkhill


Calling kids aged 5 - 9 for a few hours of adventuring in theatre! We'll be experimenting with theatrical storytelling in a playful way. You'll make sound and music, move your bodies and use your imagination!  Parents are invited for the last part of the session to see what you’ve been creating!

Min 4, Max 14 participants

Kim Parkhill

Kim Parkhill is a professional performer / creator who thoroughly enjoys the imagination and zest for story-making that kids bring to the table. Her own story-making experiences have taken her from Halifax to New York, Latvia and Germany. She has contributed to the creation of several new works for stage, collaboratively or individually, through collective creation, workshopping, adaptation, writing and/or dramaturgy. She has faciitated theatre workshops for younger people at Neptune Theatre School, the Just Say It Festival at FEZ-Berlin, the DaPoPo Live-In and the NS Youth Project. She was a key instructor, mentor and project leader for the 2008 and 2010 DaPoPo Academy Youth Ensemble Workshop and Mentorship Programs. She sometimes looks at paintings upside down, because a different perspective can be quite thrilling.

Zach Faye

Zach Faye is an actor and theatre artist based in Halifax, NS. He has been working with DaPoPo Theatre for just over three years. So far, Zach has acquired theatre training through the Pre-Professional Training Program at Neptune Theatre. His passion is bringing characters to life on stage but, when he’s not doing that, you could find him serving you coffee, teaching your children theatre or just existing creatively around Halifax. Zach’s favorite kinds of freezies are the blue ones. What is your favorite kind of freezie?

October 10, 6:00 - 10:00pm and October 14, 1:00 - 5:00 pm
Stories Out of Stuff - An Introduction to Found-object Puppetry
Facilitator: Chris Little

Create fun, inventive theatre about things that are important to you.
Found-Object Puppetry (FOP) is the art of manipulating everyday objects as characters in a play.  The story advances when the audience recognizes what each new object is as well as what it represents in the story. This ‘joy of recognition’ allows us to tell stories that explore values, culture, and topical issues. During this two-day workshop, participants will create their own short FOP shows that they will perform for multiple small audiences during a Found-object Cabaret to follow the final workshop (October 14th, 4pm). 

*Participants are asked to bring three objects that they can throw in the pile for all to draw from.  Participants keep the objects they pick for their show.

Min 6 / Max 12 participants

***This workshop is currently fully registered.  Email now to join the waitlist. ***

Found Object Puppetry

Chris Little began creating object theatre while working with the Irondale Ensemble Project over twenty years ago. In 2009, his found-object show Grandma Noda’s Tigers won a Robert Merritt award for Outstanding New Play by a Nova Scotian Author.  Chris is co-artistic director of Lohifi Productions with Theo Pitsiavas. In 2010, they led a found-object puppetry workshop at the UNO Theatre Festival in Victoria, BC.  Their critically acclaimed found-object production of 'Epic in a Box' is currently playing living rooms across Halifax.

October 16, 6:00 - 10:30pm

Let Me Sing You a Story: 

How to Perform Character-Driven Story Songs From Musical Theatre and Opera

Facilitator: Nina-Scott Stoddart

For singing actors of all levels and ages, this workshop combines a performing masterclass with discussion and questions. Discover how to make your sung story telling more vivid and focused through practical techniques that explore the intersection of singing and acting. Whether you're a singer who want to act or an actor who wants to sing, get tons of suggestions for story song repertoire and build your skills in this fun and supportive workshop! 

(Max. 9 singing participants, plus 10 auditor spots). **Singers must preregister with choice of story song to be worked on in the session.

Nina Scott-Stoddart

An enthusiastic and supportive educator, Nina Scott-Stoddart believes strongly in creating a safe place from which artists can create and grow.  Her career as a singer, performer, director and producer has spanned almost 30 years. Nina is the founder of Toronto's Opera Anonymous, the Halifax Summer Opera Workshop and Nova Scotia's Maritime Concert Opera.  As a stage director she has a particular love for 20th century opera in English, having directed Menotti's The Consul, Barab's Mushroom Pizza, Floyd's Susannah and Mollicone's Face on the Barroom Floor among many others.  This past season she directed RENT for DGM Music in Halifax, Amahl and the Night Visitors for MCO in Lunenburg, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown for Acadia's Singing Theatre Ensemble and Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream for HSOW. 

October 20 - 21, 2:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Embracing Your Inner Stereotype and Saying the Wrong Thing
Facilitator: Guillermo Verdecchia

Saying the Wrong Thing is an invitation for actors and writers (and actor-writers and other hybrid performance creatures) to take on micro-managed discourse, media, corporate, and political distortions of all kinds (like the bullshit in which Tony Blair and Colin Powell engaged during the Gulf War, or the "Official Seriousness" of the CBC) by speaking uncomfortable truth. Working physically and creating text as well, participants will explore their Fool / Jester/ Goof. Not for the overly polite or hyper-sensitive. Bring your anger, your irony, your wits, your sense of humour. 

Max. 12 participants. Participants are expected to attend both sessions.  

***This workshop is currently fully registered.  Email now to join the waitlist. ***

Guillermo Verdecchia is a writer of drama and fiction as well as a director and actor. He is the recipient of a Governor-General's Award for Drama for his play Fronteras Americanas and a four-time winner of the Chalmers Canadian Play Award. His work, which includes the Governor-General shortlisted Noam Chomsky Lectures (with Daniel Brooks), the Seattle Times' Footlight Award-winning Adventures of Ali & Ali (with Marcus Youssef and Camyar Chai), A Line in the Sand (with Marcus Youssef), bloom, and Another Country has been anthologized, translated into Spanish and Italian, produced in Europe and the US, and is studied in Latin America, Europe and North America. As a director and actor he has worked at theatres across the country, from the Stratford Festival, where he directed Sunil Kuruvilla's Rice Boy to Vancouver's East Cultural Centre.

An Associate Artist with Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre, Guillermo is also a theatre scholar, currently completing a PhD at the University of Toronto. He has published a number of articles and book chapters on aspects of intercultural theatre practice in Canada, and is a recipient of a Governor-General's Gold Medal for Academic Achievement.

October 23, 6:30 pm - 10:30 pm
Of Projecting 
- Creating and Exploring the Digital Image on Stage
Facilitator: Nick Bottomley

Projection and storytelling go way back to simple shadows on the cave wall. Representation of images, textures and symbols through manipulation of light is already an essential component of theatre and indeed the spectrum of visual art. The digital projector is a fairly inexpensive tool for manipulating image and light on stage. With so many creative uses being developed every day it's an essential tool in the arsenal of the creator. The workshop will aim to creatively and collaboratively explore the essential elements, possibilities, and restraints of working with projection on stage. All levels of familiarity with projections welcome -- computer savvy or shy -- we'll be playing with tools everyone can use.

Nick Bottomley

Nick Bottomley is a computer science graduate of Dalhousie University turned projection designer and filmmaker. His recent shows include collaborations with Wit’s End Theatre (Science Inaction), 2b Theatre (When it Rains), DaPoPo Theatre (Drinking Game) Halifax Theatre for Young People (In the Fall and In This World), Neptune Theatre (Masked) and Maria Osende Dance (De España con Amor).

October 27, 2 - 5 pm
Noisy Narratives
Facilitators: Paul Cram & Arthur Bull

Noisy Narratives explores the  arranging of improvisational sound textures with storytelling to create multi-layered sonic events. 

Your short stories are welcome, as are sound sources with wide textural possibilities (e.g. a guitar - plucked/strummed/scraped or two rocks).

We will finish with a recital at 4:30pm featuring the participants.  

Paul Cram (Composer/Bandleader/Artistic Director Upstream Music/saxophonist/ clarinetist) toured Canada extensively and been nominated twice for Juno Awards for Best Jazz Album. He has also worked extensively in film and theatre. For several years he has been Artistic Director of the Upstream Music Association, a musician-based collective that produces cutting-edge concerts in Halifax of local, national and international artists who  share an interest in the flourishing  of creative music.

Arthur Bull (guitar/harmonica) has been active on the improvised music scene since the mid-70’s.   He has performed in concert with Roscoe Mitchell, John Tchcai, Paul Rutherford, Joe McPhee, Roger Turner, John Butcher, Peter Kowald, Fred Anderson, and many other leading Canadian and international improvising musicians. Arthur Bull has also played blues and rhythm and blues in various bands since the late 60’s, and is a publisher writer.