Ruth has designed two exciting specialised workshops for third level theatre students.  They can be tailored to be a one visit workshop through to a planned programme.

"Fun, Rigorous, Inspiring!" - Val

"Explorative, Emotive, Enlighting!" - Laura

"Helps one to connect to oneself, to play, to "step out of the box", to make discoveries and to revive the imagination!" - Valerie

"The Performing Arts studio in Colaiste Dhulaigh was filled with stillness and focussed concentration as the theatre students, red noses at the ready, observed a sole clown appear from behind a screen.
One by one the students confidently took to the floor with their personal clown, authentically expressing their emotions, subtly executing the humour and  magic of clown and touching everyone in the room.  Red Nose Clown Workshop practitioner Ruth Lehane created a safe space, enabling students to open to the world of clown and to each other. Her insightful and robust feedback to the students shone a light on their hidden performative abilities and they left the workshop with a spirit of play and a request for more.”

Valerie Coyne (MA. Drama and Performance Studies.UCD), Co-Ordinator/Tutor, Colaiste Dhulaigh Performing Arts Department

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  1. Opening the door to Clown - In this workshop the students are introduced to the fundamentals of Red Nose Theatre, and given an opportunity to open the door and explore their own clown.

  
  2. The Occupation of the Performance Space and Corporal Communication - In this workshop the students gain new awareness of their own physical tendencies through movement analysis.  They will acquire a set of complex and precise references, which will act as a springboard for future work.

   

   

  Ruth first discovered Clown while studying with Jacques Lecoq in Paris. Having gained much experience as a performer, she later went to Toronto to work with Sue Morrison who teaches an approach to clown called “Clown Through Mask”, which was developed by Richard Pochinko. The understanding of Red Nose Theatre is invaluable to any performer.

   

  
  Workshop 1. Opening the door to Clown
  

  Much of the actor’s life is spent pretending to be someone else, but it is invaluable for one to first understand who he/she is as a performer. The clown doesn’t exist aside from the actor performing him/her. Clown is about humanity, and humanity is universal and vital to all good theatre.

  In this workshop the students are introduced to the fundamentals of Red Nose Theatre. They are given an opportunity explore the richness of their own individuality/clown and how this can enhance performance.

  
  

   

  “The clown has great importance as part of the search for what is laughable and ridiculous in man. We should put the emphasis on the rediscovery of our own individual clown, the one that has grown-up within us and which society does not allow us to express.”
  ― Jacques Lecoq

   

   

   

   

   

  Workshop 2. Stage Craft ; The Occupation of the Performance Space and Corporal Communication 

  In this workshop the students gain new awareness of their own physical tendencies through movement analysis. Working with colour, matter and poetry, circuits are laid down in the body through which dramatic emotions circulate, finding their pathway to expression. They will acquire a greater understanding of their own physicality and the playing space that surrounds them, which will act as a reference for future work.

   

  "Any living space has “dramatic possibilities” and influences the behaviour of the people who enter it or the characters who perform in it."

  ― Jacques Lecoq