Presented as part of Azimuth Theatre’s Expanse Festival

Class Description

A workshop to explore the discovery of abstract puppetry and object expression in connection to storytelling with the body. We will create a container to analysis simple movements and going immediate into craft and creation. Finding everyday life observations and rhythms that are transposed into dynamic abstract structures and shapes, meant to be moved in space. Participants will be in direct contact with the basic material of simple cardboard, sticks, tape and garbage to creates forms and then put them into motion to discover their dramatics. We are miming our body for inspiration of structural and architectural and experimental language.

*Rapid Covid-19 Tests will be provided for workshop participants and masks are encouraged but optional. 

About your Lab Instructor

Elaine Weryshko (she/they) is a physical theatre artist and practitioner of live performance from Mohkínstsis||Calgary, Canada. My medium is the poetic body for a Post-Britney world, a practice based out of extensive worldly training in Mask, Clown, Greek Chorus/Ensemble and Puppetry. I write, perform, produce, teach, design and kamikaze live events in alternative spaces all over Alberta. I celebrate the need for epic and abstract ideas, while encouraging our collective exploration into our shared profane experiences with the natural world.

I am interested in creating work that in unimaginable and unreproducible. Inspired through a visceral live honesty to keep pushing the collision of genres and be paving greater roads of permission for how we make live art and how we experience it. Through this physical and visual lens, I have found my voice as protester, punk and artist; an emotional expression which apart from being anarchistic and slightly chaotic, is essentially visual and poetic. I am trying to work in a way that encourages the un-traditional, sparks surrealism and reinvigorates how we gather together in chaos.

Elaine is the co-Educational Director at the Canadian Academy of Mask and Puppetry, creator and coordinator of The WunderBriefs series at the Animated Objects Festival and co-curator of, to the AWE, a once reoccurring risk-based performance series in Calgary that finalized in 2021. In the past I have worked with or presented at: The Old Trout Puppet Workshop, Canadian Academy of Mask and Puppetry, Alberta Gallery of Art, Mile Zero Dance, Sage Theatre, Springboard Performance, Alberta Gallery of Art, Swallow A Bicycle, Theatre Junction, the Pacitti Company (UK), The Invisible Dog (NYC), and mentored with immersive theatre giant PunchDrunk in their London production A Drowned Man. I have trained around the world at: The London International School of Performing Arts, Dell’ Arte International School of Physical Theatre, The Manitoulin Conservatory for Creation and Performance and with the SITI Company NYC Summer Viewpoints Intensive.

Pay What You Will

Suggested Donation of $15

What Do You Need To Join?

In Person:

• Movement Clothes that you will be okay to wear while also using a glue-gun
• Water Bottle
• If youth are wanting to join the workshop we welcome you, but you will need a guardian/adult to join you for the lab.

Online:

• Your self
• A Device To Zoom In On
• An Internet Connection
• Any of the following
  • Glue Gun
  • Glue Gun Sticks
  • Masking Tape
  • Watercolour Paints, Paint Brushes & Pages
  • Cardboard
  • Fun Garbage
  • Craft Paper

PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
All of our tickets are based on a Pay-What-You-Will model. However, to make the art happen, we have suggested rates below! Give more or give less. What’s important to Azimuth Theatre is sharing theatre experiences together. Any contribution is valued and appreciated.

TICKETS
General – $35
Students/Seniors – $15
Workshops – $15