Full house: Dr Laura Haughey from the Theatre Studies programme at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has coordinated a series of free community theatre workshops.
New Theatre Studies lecturer at Waikato Dr Laura Haughey has coordinated a number of free theatre workshops for the public focussing on different specialist areas of theatre such as dance, mask acting and writing for theatre.
The first two workshops will be held this week at the Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts and have been fully booked out with educators, professional practitioners, actors and students amongst those taking up the opportunity.
These two workshops will be facilitated by Bill Hopkinson, award-winning theatre director from Edge Hill University in the UK.
Free theatre workshops
‘Archetypal Mask Workshop’ is the first workshop to be held 15 April which will enable participants to explore the embodiment of Archetypes and the creation of masked movement without the artefact.
The second workshop, ‘Words on stage: Some writing tools’, will be held on 17 April and is for playwrights and anyone interested in writing for theatre.
Dr. Laura Haughey and Bill Hopkinson have been long term collaborators, working in young people's theatre and on professional productions in England for more than a decade.
“These workshops are an opportunity to explore mask acting and a physical approach to theatre with a diverse group of students and professionals,” says Laura.
Local performing arts community
"With Bill visiting New Zealand to work on some collaborative research plans, it seemed like a great opportunity to set up some workshops to meet the local performing arts community".
Bill is spending three weeks in New Zealand travelling but says that the opportunity to visit Waikato and meet such a diversity of artists, teachers and students is one of the highlights of his trip.
“There are relationships here I would love to develop in the future."
Although these two workshops are fully booked out, Dr Haughey will be holding two more free workshops for kids and adults called ‘Storytelling through the body’ at the University’s Community Open Day on Saturday 17 May.
Keep an eye on the Community Open Day website for updates and details on the workshops.
www.waikato.ac.nz/go/community-open-day