Festivals

Kilkenny 2011

Thank you to all the youth theatres who joined us in Kilkenny for four great days. There was a packed programme of events with a full day of workshops followed by social activities. Leaders and participants gave it their all and helped to make the festival a huge success.

There are so many moments we don't want to forget so we have done our best to gather them all in pictures on the NAYD Facebook page.

The youth theatres who took part were:

• Backstage Youth Theatre, Longford
• Bui Bolg Youth Group, Wexford
• Clondalkin Youth Theatre, Dublin
• County Sligo Youth Theatre
• Droichead Youth Theatre, Louth
• Dublin Youth Theatre
• Griese Youth Theatre, Kildare
• Kilkenny Youth Theatre
• Laois Youth Theatre
• Leitrim Youth Theatre Company
• Mayo Youth Theatre
• Monaghan Youth Theatre
• Roscommon County Youth Theatre

National Festival 2011:The Video

Want to relive some of the magic. Watch a short video packed with National Festival highlights. The video was entered in the 2011 Better Together Awards and has been shortlisted for an award.

About the Workshops and Facilitators

Marcus Bale – Lecoq-derived techniques and Improvisation

During these workshops we will be working with different dramatic techniques, mostly coming from the work of Jacques Lecoq. We will be doing some work on Physical Theatre, creating ensemble work, learning about complicity and other ways of using the body to communicate and create theatre. Also, we will be looking at Clowning, with and without red nose (the smallest Mask in the world!), and we will hopefully create some short clown scenes, some for solo performers and some in duos. Throughout the work, we will link all techniques through the use of improvisation. It will be great fun, and I am sure we will discover some great new theatre possibilities!

Marcus Bale - Biog

Marcus trained in Buenos Aires for seven years in different Actors Studios. He also studied Improvisation, Clown, Circus, Mime, Physical, Mask and Anthropological Theatre. In Ireland he performed and directed a multitude of plays. Since 2002 he has been giving workshops on Improvisation, Clowning, Commedia dell' Arte, & the Techniques of Grotowski, LeCoq, Barba & Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, always emphasising the physical aspect of theatre. He has taught in Ireland, Germany, Italy, Canada & Argentina. In 2001 he co-founded Cyclone Comedy Improv Troupe & BYOB Theatre Company. In 2002 he was co-founder of the Snatch Comedy Improv Troupe with whom he still performs all over Ireland. In 2003 he became Teacher for the Gaiety School of Acting in Cork teaching adults, children & teenagers. He taught & directed "The Spirit of Sign", Cork Deaf Community Drama group & is also guest teacher at the Theatre Courses in Kinsale College of Further Education, Coláiste an Chraoibhin, Fermoy & KCAT Drama Course in Callan, Kilkenny. He is a founding member of Cyclone Repertory Company, which was created in 2006.

 

Ciaran Gray - Dance/Movement

Participants will begin each day with a contemporary dance class during which they will learn some simple sequences exploring swinging, jumping, turning etc. A wide variety of music will be used during class and workshops. In the dance workshops we will be working on the theme and, using a series of choreographic activities, participants will generate their own movement phrases. They will also learn some dance phrases and combine the learnt and generated material to make what will hopefully be a coherent piece of dance theatre.

Ciarán Gray - Biog

Ciarán Gray has been working with young people in both dance and drama for nearly thirty years. In that time he has given workshops all over Ireland and directed a wide range of drama and dance productions for young performers. He has been a tutor on a number of National Youth Drama Festivals and is delighted to be involved again. Ciarán has been involved in Dublin Youth Theatre for the last twenty years in a number of roles. In 2008 he established Company B, a contemporary dance company for boys.

Improvisation with Annie Ryan

An intensive workshop in ensemble based Theatre Games and Improvisation drawing from Chicago’s famous Piven Theatre and incorporating techniques honed by Annie’s company, The Corn Exchange. We will work on building character, objects and location into scene and story. The principles of this work focus on fully embodied play, group transformation and the excitement of discovery.

 Annie Ryan - Biog 

Annie Ryan is a theatre maker, actor and teacher based in Dublin. Originally from Chicago, Annie trained as an actor at the Piven Theatre Workshop and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She founded The Corn Exchange in Dublin in 1995 to explore ensemble based theatre practice and has won international acclaim for her company’s unique performance style and energy. She has also directed for the Abbey, the Gate Theatre and The Ark Cultural Centre for Children. She has performed in theatre and film in the US and Ireland and continues to teach professional actors, young people and corporate clients throughout Ireland as well as in Europe, the UK and notably for the Maisha Film Lab in Kampala, Uganda.

 Richie Ball - Space Exploration

Some say that he came from Kinnegad. Unlikely.
Others that he wrote plays. Unproven.
That he is a she. Why not?
That she was called Elizabeth.Nice name.
That she was also William. Good joke.
That the plays are the greatest body of art ever created So what?
It’s not the words so much as the space between the words. There are a lot of words in Hamlet. In other plays too. That means lots of spaces. Which means loads of fun wandering around in them.
Never know what you’ll find.
Never know who you will meet.

Tomato sauce on the hamburger?

That is the question.

 Richie Ball - Biog

Richie has been involved in youth drama since the early eighties and was a member of the NAYD Board for 15 years. He likes working with Shakespeare texts and devising plays. Richie has also worked in the areas of community drama and drama in education where he has worked with primary, secondary and third level students.

Veronica Coburn: Articulate. Accelerate. Complicate.

There’s a comic from Northern Ireland with the catchphrase - It’s the way I tell ‘em! He, of course, is referring to his caché of tired old jokes. The participants of NFYT are young artists. I am curious about the stories they want to tell? Their forum is the theatre. I am curious about how they want to tell them? This workshop will focus on three ideas.
Articulation. What do you have to say?
Acceleration. Play with how you say it.
Complication. Develop what you have to say. Make it more complex. Layering. Juxtaposition. Contra-playing.

These are the ideas that I will work on with my main group. I will touch on these ideas in the shorter sessions but, for those workshops, I will focus on paper puppets.

Veronica Coburn - Biog

Veronica has had a long association with youth theatre. She was a member of Dublin Youth Theatre from 1982 – 1984 and took part in NYT 1984. She returned to her alma mater to serve on the Board of DYT for 14 years from 1990 – 2004. She has also had the pleasure of acting as Artistic Director of NAYD's National Festival of Youth Theatres in Monaghan in 1998 and The Ulster Association of Youth Theatre's Millennial Festival in Belfast in 2000. Veronica is the director of TENDERFOOT, an apprentice theatre programme, for transition year students in The Civic Theatre in Tallaght. A number of plays written by TENDERFOOT students are featured in Playshare and New Stage 2010/2011. Veronica will complete THE TENDERFOOT HANDBOOK later this year. Veronica Coburn was a founding member of Barabbas Theatre Company in 1993. She moved on from the company in 2007 to focus on writing. Her plays include Requiem For Lena, published in Playshare, Understanding Marcus, and Elizabeth & Mr. D’Arcy – Discuss. Veronica regularly works for RTÉ Radio Drama for whom she won The Prix Europa/Radio France with her play Mayday. Veronica has recently completed a book on theatre of clown, Clown Through Mask, with Sue Morrison. It is due to be published in 2012.

Life is a Carne-Val!

The 2010 National Fesitval (Carne-val) was an unforgettable four days that will live long in the memory of all who were there! It had it all from great workshops .... a digital treasure hunt.....karaoke..... a crazy kiteman.....sand-castles....a broken bone...and of course cupcakes.

Despite some early bad weather the campers persevered and the sun shone for most of our stay. Workshops were facilitated by Liam Halligan, Max Hafler, Sharon Cromwell, Miquel Barcelo and Sue Mythen. 

The youth theatres who participated were:

• Backstage Youth Theatre, Longford
• Ballina Youth Theatre, Mayo
• Blessington Youth Musical and Dramatic Society, Wicklow
• Bui Bolg Youth Group, Wexford
• Co. LYT, Limerick
• Droiched Youth Theatre, Louth
• Dublin Youth Theatre
• Fracture/Nenagh Youth Theatre, Tipperary
• Kildare Youth Theatre
• Laois Youth Theatre
• Leitrim Youth Theatre Company
• Lightbulb Youth Theatre, Cork
• Waterford Youth Arts

Photos.....Photos......Photos

We have uploaded photos to the NAYD facebook page.