STAGE COMBAT | unarmed workshop

Un-Armed Workshop – School Year 7 up to adult
(Maximum of 25 students in one session)
This workshop introduces students to the skills and safety required for effectively using the techniques of Stage Combat. We take them through a careful and steady process graduating through a variety of techniques including movements such as punches, slaps, kicks, falls and many more. 

We demonstrate how to creatively utilise the combination of skills learnt while integrating them into a short performance and further more to use within future work. The students get an overall experience of the physical demands and awareness required for stage combat as well as exploring the techniques individually and with a partner or team. 
How can students use armed or unarmed stage combat in their work?

  • Swashbuckling in a play like Peter Pan
  • Sword fighting in a Shakespeare play; such as Mercutio vs. Tybalt in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ 
  • A general fight scene with or without the use of knives and daggers
Creating a livelier and more engaging experience for the audience.
The benefits of stage combat…
  • It offers useful skills to incorporate with curricular and non-curricular work such as Shakespeare, Commedia Dell’Arte, devised exam work and standard drama classes

  • It gives many attributes to a scene or play that requires any form of stage fighting or slap stick

  • It increases physical ability and confidence

  • It allows the students to learn a complex technique in a safe environment while learning the significance and benefits of the skills

  • It is an exciting and enlivening technique offering an exhilarating experience

  • It give students a new respect for the safety required for all stage combat techniques
Aims of the workshop...

  • To understand the basic safety principals behind all stage combat techniques

  • To learn a number of stage combat techniques

  • To work safely with a partner or partners and perform stage combat

  • To understand that stage combat is an acting technique

  • To have fun and gain confidence in a supported environment

  • To give students the basic knowledge and skills of the technique to use in future work