PRACTICE LAB is a year-long peer-to-peer skills exchange programme with twice-monthly free workshops by and for migrant theatre makers, offered in partnership with Rich Mix in London. These workshops are aimed at broadening the knowledge base of the migrant artist community and extending our network of creative connections
If you’re a first generation migrant theatre maker, PRACTICE LAB is for you!
To sign up for a workshop, just email the artist leading the workshop to reserve a place. They will contact you directly with more information.
All workshops take place at Rich Mix, East London’s vibrant home for culture and creativity - 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London, E1 6LA, England.
Sunday 12th May, 3.30-5.30
Documentary Performance: How to Write Real Stories for the Stage - led by Emma Dorfman
Do you have a passion for verbatim or documentary theatre? Perhaps you’re itching to share your own story with an audience but not sure where to begin? This hands-on workshop will offer practical tools, tips and tricks for developing new performance work from real events, whether they be biographical or autobiographical.
To sign up for this workshop, please email Emma.
Wednesday 29th May, 6.30-8.30
Cultivating Presence - led by Lola May
Community Building using World Music, Movement, Storytelling and Improvisation.
What does it mean to be present? Is there a way music can help us achieve this? This will be a session of exploring how music and movement can help us become more present. Using storytelling and improv, we will also connect with each other and in that way, build community. This session is open to all disciplines and backgrounds - please bring one piece of music or a song that you connect very much with.
To sign up for this workshop, please email Lola.
Wednesday 3rd July, 6.30-8.30
Building The Ensemble - led by Shane Dempsey
This workshop will draw on core strands of European Ensemble Training. In this engaging and playful session, participants will create physical scores, develop a heightened approach to physical transformation and make bold choices while working as an ensemble. This session is open to all artists who are curious about developing new approaches to ensemble practice.
To sign up for this workshop, please email Shane.
Wednesday 31st July, 6.30-8.30
Reinventing the classics - led by Paula Rodriguez
This workshop is for anyone interested in storytelling. We'll explore classics with fresh eyes and create new tales inspired by our heritages, focusing on marginalised voices such as those of women and migrants. Fragments from Shakespeare and Calderón de la Barca's works will guide us throughout the process; participants are also welcome to bring their choice of classical/ancient texts to work with. This is a safe space where everyone is welcome!
To sign up for this workshop, please email Paula.
Sunday 11th August, 3.30-5.30
Find your inner babӑ - led by Andreea Tudose
babӑ= Romanian for elderly woman (sometimes perjorative), pronounced like the British ‘barber’; pl. babe, pronounced buh-beh
CRY FOR ME is a dystopian cabaret by Andreea Tudose & iulia isar about outsourcing crying to a cheap migrant workforce. Two babe, professional mourners for the dead in their home country Romania, move to London in search of clients, and upon witnessing life in London, begin to cry for the living.
We all have a babӑ inside of us, whatever our age, whatever our gender. Whether she’s based on a grandmother or other influential older women in our lives, this workshop is a celebration of the babe that shaped you, and the trauma they inflicted on you - through clown.
This workshop is an invitation to use the voice of the babӑ as a tool to reflect on our lives in rampant capitalism and ultimately, to empower our resistance. There will be provocations and invitations for writers, actors and theatre-makers. Wear comfortable clothing, bring a pen and paper and come ready to tell us your biggest problems.
To sign up for this workshop, please email Andreea.
Wednesday 25th September 6.30-8.30
Intro to Clown - led by Aldi Zulaica
This introductory workshop is aimed at expanding the tool kit you need to be present on stage, and to discover that mistakes and accidents are a treasure trove from which you can create powerful improvised narratives. This session will give you permission to follow impulses and let your inner child ‘out to play’. By involving the body as a dramatic and narrating tool, you will discover new ways to express yourself without a dramatic text.
To sign up for this workshop, please email Aldi.
Sunday 10th November 3.30-5.30
Finding Your Inner Ear: Movement Before Voice, Text as the Final Touch - led by Jagoda Kamov
Are you interested in breaking the conventional boundaries of storytelling through theatre? This workshop is designed for those eager to explore a unique approach by using movement as the core element in creating compelling theatrical moments. In this dynamic and highly interactive session, we will dive into a series of exercises aimed at exploring physical language, embracing the power of silence, and integrating text with movement.
To sign up for this workshop, please email Jagoda.
Sunday 8th December 3.30-5.30
Tarot for Storytelling - led by Giulia Maglione
Ignite your storytelling with tarot - join our immersive workshop and discover how tarot enhances creativity. Explore tarot's symbolic language, draw cards for story elements, and delve into character arcs and settings. Let tarot spark your intuition and elevate your storytelling. No knowledge or prior experience with tarots is required. Bring a script or play that you are writing and that you are stuck with, or a blank paper for new ideas. And feel free to bring your own tarot deck if you have one!
To sign up for this workshop, please email Giulia.
Sunday 8th September, 3.30-5.30
Theatre + Technology - led by Marisol Spensieri
What might a hyperlinked narration look like? During this session, we will explore ways in which concepts from the tech world can inspire, or even be applied to, the process of theatre making. We will also explore new material via extracts from a piece in development. Rather than providing set answers, this session will be a playground to imagine new possibilities together. Open to all artists and disciplines!
To sign up for this workshop, please email Marisol.
If you’d like to run a workshop, please contact Anna on anna@projekteuropa.org