RC-Annie - Professional and Corporate Fight Performances and Training

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  

 

Training for the experienced fighter, who wishes to push the boundaries of their ability further. We have developed the following courses and workshops for experienced fighter performers in mind and have toured most of them internationally.

 

Aerial Course’s
Rc-Annie is the first and only company in the UK who have set up and run Aerial Fight workshops. After our extremely successful 'Fight Flight' I & II workshops run in conjunction with 'Cuerda Producciones' we observed a real hunger for a regular training practice in wire-work and combat techniques. Course participants clearly wanted to delve deeper. Thus came about the idea of 'Suspended & Kicking': 6 weekly sessions that really get to the core of how to integrate the techniques of combat and aerial work. Whilst developing these ideas with aerialist and movement specialist Clare Elliott we have found a truly unique practice that will teach the discipline, strength and artistry required for practitioners wishing to expand their own talents. The work is challenging and very inspiring. Fight action sequences and harness-based wire work have been around for many years. They were first developed in Hong Kong action cinema ('wire-fu'), and later appropriated by Hollywood. Within the past decade, from 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' (2000) to 'Inception' (2010), the need for actors with the ability to work and fight in a harness has boomed due to the development of Special FX technology. Not only within film but in the arenas of theatre, opening ceremonies and events, harness work has become increasingly sophisticated and ambitious and very much in demand. (See Showreel page for Aerial footage)

 

Close the Gap
Introducing some unusual moves that effectively hide the gap for both camera and an audience. Through a desire to break away from conventional “STAGED FIGHTS” and create more gritty/realistic action, Rachel and Ruth have developed their own techniques of closing the gap, hiding the ‘safety distance’ and the ‘tricks of the trade’ while remaining safe. These unarmed combat techniques add a refreshing twist for violence in both theatre and film. Participants will explore the basic safety inherent in most unarmed actions before the group are introduced to alternative solutions. The quirky aspect to this workshop is that the moves alone do not work in a conventional way, the punch doesn’t look like a real punch yet when performed the audience believes a punch has been thrown and a contact is made. This style of fight arranging adds ‘fuel to the fire’ of the opinion that that a fight doesn’t have to feel right to look right. At least an intermediate level of fight performance and experience is required to safely execute these actions at a convincing pace.

 

Fantastical Physical Fighting
Is sword fighting with a difference. The class is inspired by the early swashbuckling movies with quick to learn, flashy sword fighting techniques that exploit your environment. We will teach you how to fight around, on and under furniture, teach you sword phrases that keep you safe whilst you propel yourself around the set playing with the stock characters of the genre. It takes a lot of practice to master, there is lots to learn and when performed well it is beautiful, thrilling and compelling.

 

Scrap!
This workshop gives the participants tools to help them perform messy, un-choreographed looking, fights. Influenced by Tony Wolf, Ruth and Rachel developed this class after seeing a need for a more realistic fighting technique that do not look obviously staged. They were driven by a desire to mirror clumsy realistic fighting which is safe to perform and repeatable. From a performer’s point of view these techniques help to keep a fight ‘alive’ and look much more convincing to an audience. This type of movement is an advanced skill which works well both for the stage and screen. Time and dedication is required to hone your body to be relaxed and responsive to impulses whilst fighting and performing well. However, Scrap is a style of fighting that all fighters can access with their own physicality.

 

Fighting it Out
This workshop allows us to study techniques that can help you tell your characters story to the audience. We discover how a fighter can embrace breath and teach specific acting techniques to access the story in the fight and engage the performer’s emotions. As an actor it is easy to become consumed with the desire to perform the fight well and in a safe repeatable manner. Sometimes we can almost forget the reason why we have actually entered into the fight itself. A theatrical fight can be comprised of complex physical choreography that requires much of the performer’s skill just to re-enact it. Therefore, we have to find ways of incorporating the character into the fight early on in to the rehearsal process, allowing the performer to inhabit the character throughout the whole fight journey.

 

Telling the tale (works well as part two, to ‘Fighting it out’)
Examines how the audience feels and how to manipulate that. Shakespearian fights are very much character and story lead and often the climatic ending to the play. Once we have enabled the performer to maintain character and to make character lead decisions through their fight, we now need to address how the audience interprets our hard work. A complicated back story which may be very helpful to the performer in creating their character is not necessarily something that an audience is fully aware of. We look at ways to create a convincing emotional state for our performer to enter into a fight and how to effectively convey their emotional journey clearly to the audience throughout their fight. Participants with a performance background would benefit most from this workshop.

 

Weight and Balance
We explore weight and balance in its application to Stage Combat. It is very easy to take our day to day biomechanics for granted. Find how to control and use your weight and that of others to support them though every action. Identify the points to control, support and protect. Weight control and a good understanding of one’s balance are essential to the stage combatant. The more experienced you are the more this becomes second nature as it should be. From close quarters fighting to the moving of dead bodies.

 

Time and Space
There is often a tendency to rush a fight to get it ‘on its feet’. In this workshop we look at techniques which help one to fully learn all aspects of the fight so when we suddenly have to go for a take, we can do so safe in the knowledge that we are completely aware of our actions and our environment. We learn the fight in 3D with all our senses engaged and our conscious mind happily keeping several balls in the air at one time.

 

 

Check out other workshops on Drama School and HE page