Up Next Masterclass
Western Edge Youth Arts proudly presents our third annual masterclasses series for the next generation of emerging artists in Melbourne’s west.
Up Next: Skill Seekers is series of skills-based training workshops delivered by some of the city’s most innovative and inspiring artists who will help you develop key skills in performance, design, and building a sustainable career as an artist.
Workshops are free and open to anyone from the West aged 16 to 25. In 2020, the workshops will be held at The Bowery Theatre in St Albans.
Come and develop essential tools for your artist toolkit.
The cultural leaders of tomorrow start here.
The masterclasses are completely free, but places are limited, get in quick to secure your spot.
Past Up Next Masterclass
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Stage Combat with Lyndall Grant
Get ready to get sweaty! Stage combat is one of the most exciting and challenging forms of performance, for audience and actors alike. However many people do not realise what goes into performing fights so that they look effective, but stay safe. This workshop will take you through the basics of working with action on stage – the techniques, the principles, the story-telling – and how you use them to best effect.
Lyndall Grant is a member of the Society of Australian Fight Directors and a certified Dramatic Combat teacher with the British Academy of Dramatic Combat. She is currently the Tutor in Theatre (Stage Combat) at the Victorian College of the Arts.
When: 1 September 2018
Time: 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Venue: Bunker Room, Phoenix Youth Hub, 72 Buckley Street, Footscray
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Find Your Inner Clown with Lily Fish
Unleash your inner stupidity and learn tricks and techniques to performing hilarious physical comedy with Lily Fish. Learn the fundamentals of performing in the style ‘clown’ through games and exercises coming from the Le Coq and Gaulier traditions. Develop your ability to connect with an audience, perform without a fourth wall, uncover your unique comedic charm and learn how to act and react as part of a duo.
Lily Fish is a performer, theatre maker, director, playwright and teaching artist. She is the founding member of queer physical comedy ensemble PO PO MO CO and a member of internationally renown physical theatre company Born in a Taxi.
When: 8 September 2018
Time: 2pm – 5pm
Venue: Bluestone Church Arts Space, 8A Hyde St, Footscray
REGISTER HERE!
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Inclusive Facilitation with Jo Dunbar
This creative access workshop will explore the fundamentals of thinking about inclusion and focus on re-framing your thinking on disability and diversity, and explore the fundamentals of embedding inclusion into your creative practice.
Jo Dunbar is a choreographer, director and facilitator, with 20 years experience in the professional arts industry. Jo’s facilitator strength is enabling the learning space to be one where we learn from ourselves and each other. She has co-founded Australia’s first dance company for deaf and hearing performers, The Delta Project, performed with renowned arts companies Strange Fruit and Restless Dance theatre, taught dance and physical theatre workshops to companies both regionally and nationally. Born profoundly deaf and bi-lingual in both English and Auslan she is passionate about all things diverse, experimental and inclusive.
When: 15 September 2018
Time: 2pm – 5pm
Venue: Deluxe Room, Kindred Studios, 3 Harris Street, Yarraville
REGISTER HERE!
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Decolonising Theatre with Candy Bowers
A highly immersive workshop based on human to human connection; participants will develop skills of body, voice, expression, storytelling and theatre making. A truly transformative drama workshop that shifts hearts, minds and perspectives.
“If I didn’t define myself for myself I’d be crunched into other people’s fantasies of me and eaten alive.” Audre Lorde
Candy Bowers is an experienced speaker, writer, actor, comic, theatre maker and filmmaker. The Artistic Director of Black Honey Company, Candy has pioneered a fierce sub-genre of contemporary performance which earned her the 2018 Geoffrey Milne- Green Room Association Award for outstanding contribution to Independent Theatre. She has trained in classic patriarchal European, English and White American Theatre and traveled the country and the world seeking culturally diverse, feminist practices and intersectional points of view. Her practice, observation and immersion in decolonisation has led her to develop tools and methods to approach theatre.
When: 22 September 2018
Time: 2pm – 5pm
Venue: Deluxe Room, Kindred Studios, 3 Harris Street Yarraville
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Physical Theatre with Katrina Cornwell
Let loose! Draw from the theatre practices of The Viewpoints and Frantic Assembly to explore the expressive potential of the body. Work collaboratively with Katrina Cornwell through an improvisational language that can be applied to devising and directing theatre.
Katrina Cornwell is a director, performance maker and actor who has performed extensively in physical/ visual theatre, collaborating with companies such as Zen Zen Zo, The Danger Ensemble and Red Moon Rising.
When: 29 September 2018
Time: 2pm – 5pm
Venue: Womens Circus, 395 Gordon St & Barkly St, Footscray VIC 3011
REGISTER HERE!
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Autobiographical Storytelling with Jamie Lewis
Love telling stories? Join Jamie to explore experimental and contemporary intercultural work through autobiographical stories, conversation and delicious food.
Jamie is a performer, facilitator, dramaturg, and co-creator; curiously exploring place and new vantage points with Dan Koop, she creates and curates site-responsive performances that engage audiences to become participants.
When: 6 October 2018
Time: 2pm – 5pm
Venue: Deluxe Room, Kindred Studios, 3 Harris Street, Yarraville
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Making Art in Public Spaces with Dan Koop
A collaborative, hands-on workshop led by artist, producer and facilitator Dan Koop. Explore art made in and for public spaces and be equipped with new skills, perspectives and networks to enable the creation interactive and participatory public art.
Dan Koop is an artist, producer and facilitator working in public and unusual spaces. Creatively, he makes performance works in unexpected and public spaces that engage audiences to become participants. Professionally, he has worked for contemporary multi art form venues and festivals in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and London.
When: 13 October 2018
Time: 2pm – 5pm
Venue: Deluxe Room, Kindred Studios, 3 Harris Street Yarraville
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Queering the Stage with Stephen Nicolazzo
Plot twist! Join Stephen Nicolazzo, theatre director and founder of Little Ones Theatre for an afternoon of reliving the classics through a queer lens.
Stephen Nicolazzo is a theatre director and founder of Little Ones Theatre, a queer indie company based in Melbourne. He is a Green Room Award winner for Best Direction and his works have been nominated for a total of 26 Green Room Awards since 2012. Stephen was also the recipient of the Besen Family Artist Program award with Malthouse Theatre and in 2015 he received a PlayKing funding award to work in Singapore with Wild Rice Theatre Company.
When: 20 October 2018
Time: 2pm – 5pm
Venue: Deluxe Room, Kindred Studios, 3 Harris Street Yarraville
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Spoken Word Poetry with Sista Zai Zanda
From Page To Stage: a spoken word poetry masterclass
What is spoken word? We begin with a brief his/hers/their story of this performance poetry form and its potential in theatre. Then, using Found Writing principles, each masterclass participant will write a spoken word poem. Finally, we take each poem from to stage, learning and applying performance techniques through a collaborative and supportive process.
Sista Zai Zanda is a storyteller, educator and curator of the Pan African Poets Cafe – a pop up matinee of poetry, beats and performance that is the home of new, cutting edge and classic African literature.
When: 27 October 2018
Time: 2pm – 5pm
Venue: Deluxe Room, Kindred Studios, 3 Harris Street Yarraville
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Adapting Classic Texts with Dave Kelman
Devised works often suffer from poor narrative structures. Using classic texts avoids this problem. Learn to make the works of Shakespeare, Greek tragedy, folk stories, myths and even the works of Brecht, completely contemporary to address the times we live in.
Dave Kelman has worked for the last thirty years as a director, writer, researcher and drama educator in Melbourne and Leeds UK. He has directed critically acclaimed works at the Malthouse, led artists residencies in schools and is a lecturer in arts education.