A SERIOUS GAME - Cape Town, South Africa
A three week course from 7 - 25 February 2011
Exploring dialogue through clowning and storytelling
with Vivian Gladwell and Norman Skillen
It's the first time Nose to Nose is offering a three-week course
(our usual format being 6 days). It's going to be summer, of course,
and there's the sea on our doorstep. You can expect music, colour
and fun.
Norman Skillen has lived in Cape Town for over
10 years and he has performed regularly as actor, storyteller and
musician. He also runs courses in Goethean science and is currently
involved in a venture under the auspices of the School
of Nature - exploring the relationship between inner and outer
aspects of landscape.
Overseas visitors
For those of you arriving from further afield (USA, Canada and Europe),
we will get you in touch with local participants to explore cheaper
alternatives for your stay during the course.
Click
here to enquire about available places and booking
Click here to pay your deposit
online
Course description
Put on a red nose and you're an open book. You become the story of
yourself. Strangely enough, the only way to tell this story is through
improvising, since you don't necessarily know its content; and anyway,
its story-line comes as much from the future as from the past. In
life we keep walking into spaces where we don't know what will happen,
nor exactly how we will present ourselves, and it is exactly the same
in clowning (N.B. this has nothing to do with the circus clown). How
does something as open as this relate to storytelling, where the content
is likely to be fairly fixed? Our course will explore this question.
Here are a few more:
- How, as a storyteller, do you develop the flexibility to enable
you to adapt a story to circumstances as you're telling it? Through
clowning.
- How, as a clown, do you develop a feel for narrative structure
that keeps your improvisations from rambling aimlessly? Through
storytelling.
- How, as a storyteller, do you get used to keeping your head
when things go wrong, even turning them to your advantage? Through
clowning.
- How, as a clown, do you learn to surrender yourself to the needs
of something outside yourself? Through storytelling.
- How, as a human being, do you find the balance between allowing
things to happen and making things happen? Through clowning and
storytelling.
- How, as a human being, do you penetrate the borderland between
who you think you are and who you really are? Through clowning
and storytelling.
- And how, as a human being, do you re-awaken and exercise those
slumbering areas of yourself that lie unused in the information-dominated
world of everyday and are essential for our future wellbeing?
Through clowning and storytelling.
Clowning and storytelling are mutually antagonistic and complementary.
To work with both, as we intend to do on this course, is to enter
a danger zone, an edge, or even a ledge, where anything could happen.
Transformation? Perhaps. If you want to find out you are invited
to join us and meet, nose to nose, on the ledge.
The course will lead you, initially, into the basics of both storytelling
and clowning, the two areas expanding and coming ever closer together
as the course progresses. It will involve much creative playing
- with situations, words, emotions, gestures etc. This will give
you the opportunity to flex your imaginative muscles in a contained
and caring environment.
If you wish to take part in the playful danger of this Serious
Game, the technical details are below.
Running time - from Monday to Friday: 9.00 – 13.00 and 14.00
– 17.00. Weekends are free.
Course fee: R7500 for the 3 weeks
Accommodation: we will send you suggestions for
B&B or possibilities for staying with people after we receive
your deposit.
Venue: Erin Hall in Rondebosch, Cape Town, South
Africa
Group size: 16 max
Meals: bring your own lunch; beverages and biscuits
will be provided in the breaks.
To book:
A deposit of R1500 secures your place – cancellation
must be notified before 7 Jan 2011 otherwise your deposit cannot be
refunded.
Early bird discount: R7000 if you book by 30 Nov
2010
There are 4 places available at a subsidised rate
(more information on request).
Click
here to enquire about available places and booking
Facilitators:
Vivian Gladwell
Since 1988, Vivian has worked internationally as a modern day Court
Jester and facilitator. He performs at business events and conferences.
He is the founding member of Nose to Nose (see www.nosetonose.info)
and Fool View, the Social Clowning group. His teaching has introduced
many to discover the transformative power of play and humour.
His particular interest has been into how to apply the insights
of clowning to different professional field such as medicine, teaching
and business practice. Vivian creates an atmosphere in his workshops
that enable all participants – from whatever walk of life
– to enter into unfamiliar and challenging exercises. Having
completed Vivian's workshops, previous participants have felt an
enhanced openness and attentiveness, a heightened sense of empathy,
a higher degree of presence, increased improvisational skills and
a confidence to apply these across all areas of their life. Vivian's
students say that the course gave them 'permission to be playful
again,' and 'an understanding that every little incident has significance.
Norman Skillen
first came in contact with Vivian's work when he was a teacher-trainer
in Germany, responsible for the training of English teachers. As part
of his involvement in teacher-training he went through a training
in drama and creative speech, which was taken further in Cape Town,
where he was a drama teacher at Constantia Waldorf School for ten
years. More recently he has been intensifying his storytelling skills
through the School of Storytelling. Over the years he has performed
regularly as actor, storyteller and musician. He is also regularly
on demand as a lecturer, has translated several books and published
his own articles in a variety of journals. He also runs courses in
Goethean science and is currently involved in a venture under the
auspices of the School of Nature - exploring the relationship between
inner and outer aspects of landscape.
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