Join us for the next Festival: January 15-26, 2025

Workshops During the Festival

Festival Workshops

Register for hands-on workshops led by visiting festival artists. All workshops will happen in the festival’s education space in the Fine Arts Building, 7th floor. Workshops are designed for adult professional artists working in any discipline. Everyone welcome. No application required.

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Register for Two Festival Workshops, Get the Third 1/2 off!

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Workshops During the 2025 Festival

Thursday, January 16

Plexus Polaire (Dracula: Lucy’s Dream)

The Art of “Chorus-Manipulation”

This workshop will look at how to give life to the puppets through precision of gestures and movements, and how to “write” a theatrical situation through play and improvisations. The participants will work with puppets in three scales brought by the company; human-sized, middle-sized and small puppets as well as objects. The workshop will focus on the relation between actor and puppet, and look at how this relation can be a “dramaturgical key”. Why is it interesting using puppets to tell a story? What can the puppet allow us to express differently than an actor? A central part of the work will be how to combine being an actor and a puppeteer, and “chorus-manipulation”; how a group of actors together can make a theatrical situation and at the same time give life to the puppet.

Time: 10 am – 1 pm
Location: Fine Arts Building, Little Studio, 7th Floor, 410 S. Michigan Ave.

Cost: $60

Ages: 18 and up (everyone welcome, working artists encouraged)

Friday, January 17

Gildwen Peronno (I Killed the Monster)

Object Theatre, Poetry and Imagination as Playground

What if you came to rub shoulders with the incredible poetry of object theater? Starting with a heap of motley, obsolete objects, we’ll try to discover what lies behind each of them, beyond their utilitarian function: what common memory, what character, what emotion, what personality, what landscape? From there, we’ll do a few “stylistic exercises” with manipulation, writing and acting, and find the keys to making these objects real playmates. Note: This will be a repeat of the workshop, “Object Theatre, Poetry and Imagination as Playground,” taught in Fall 2024.

Time: 10 am – 1 pm
Location: Fine Arts Building, Little Studio, 7th Floor, 410 S. Michigan Ave.

Cost: $60

Ages: 18 and up (everyone welcome, working artists encouraged)

Saturday, January 18

Alex Bird (Concerned Others)

More info coming coon.

Time: 10 am – 1 pm
Location: Fine Arts Building, Little Studio, 7th Floor, 410 S. Michigan Ave.

Cost: $60

Ages: 18 and up (everyone welcome, working artists encouraged)

Sunday, January 19

Rolling Puppet Alternative Theater
(Made in Macau)

More info coming coon.

Time: 10 am – 1 pm
Location: Fine Arts Building, Little Studio, 7th Floor, 410 S. Michigan Ave.

Cost: $60

Ages: 18 and up (everyone welcome, working artists encouraged)

Monday, January 20

Yael Rasooly (Edith & MeHouse by the Lake)

The Performer, The Object, The Secret in Between

In this short and intense workshop, Yael Rasooly invites participants on a creative journey into the universe of object theatre and solo creation. Participants will explore the dialogue and relationships between the performer/character and “ready-made” objects. They will look for objects that are “loaded” with meaning, either from the use of the object or from its symbolic associations, or objects that contain an emotional load linked to memory and personal history. Exercises and improvisations will be carried out in groups, also touching on the theme of individual creation as a starting point for future development. Above all, the workshop aims to immerse participants in the process of creation itself, providing tools for individual and group work. We will dive together into a space of invention and playfulness, working quickly, with increased sensitivity and insisting on pleasure in the creative process.

Time: 10 am – 1 pm
Location: Fine Arts Building, Little Studio, 7th Floor, 410 S. Michigan Ave.

Cost: $60

Ages: 18 and up (everyone welcome, working artists encouraged)

Tuesday, January 21

La ruée vers l’or (Arctic Tall Tales)

Create Your Own Tall Tale

In this workshop, participants will create a short tall tale with foam scraps and foley material. Each team will choose a personal story that they are inspired to expand and exaggerate with humour. With only a few foam scraps and foley elements, they will tell their tall tale to the other participants, in the style of the show “Arctic Tall Tales” from the collective La ruée vers l’or.

Time: 10 am – 1 pm
Location: Fine Arts Building, Little Studio, 7th Floor, 410 S. Michigan Ave.

Cost: $60

Ages: 18 and up (everyone welcome, working artists encouraged)

Wednesday, January 22

Tram Arts Trust (Maati Katha)

Theatre with Objects, Material & General Rubish

Focusing on visual communication at various levels & visual storytelling, this workshop celebrates the most ordinary objects and materials found all around us. The participants will experience how to communicate with objects and materials to create layers of symbolic meaning. This type of theatre is simple, yet deeply poetic, associative and layered. Objects and the Theatre of the Objects carry the playfulness of the child hand-in-hand with the critique and commentary of the adult. Focusing on non-verbal & visual communication / storytelling, the workshop will attempt to bring focus to the power of symbolism, association as well as delve into how ordinary objects & materials can tell extraordinary stories. From an array of objects, materials & general rubbish brought together by everyone in the room, the workshop will focus on communicating ‘themes’ through ordinary object-based images. The attempt will be to work towards evocative, poetic and layered imagery.

Time: 10 am – 1 pm
Location: Fine Arts Building, Little Studio, 7th Floor, 410 S. Michigan Ave.

Cost: $60

Ages: 18 and up (everyone welcome, working artists encouraged)

Thursday, January 23

Craig Leo (J.M. Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K)

More info coming coon.

Time: 10 am – 1 pm
Location: Fine Arts Building, Little Studio, 7th Floor, 410 S. Michigan Ave.

Cost: $60

Ages: 18 and up (everyone welcome, working artists encouraged)

Friday, January 24

Josh Rice (Kayfabe))

Puppet Wrestling with Josh Rice

A three-hour Bunraku-style workshop that is inspired by the spectacle, physicality, characters, and choreography of professional wrestling. The class will watch videos of wrestling spectacle, moves, and matches, then through kinesthetic learning, work to understand how to safely translate this choreography from people to puppets, culminating in creating short matches with paper puppets. Participants are invited to wear comfortable clothing for physical activity.

Time: 10 am – 1 pm
Location: Fine Arts Building, Little Studio, 7th Floor, 410 S. Michigan Ave.

Cost: $60

Ages: 18 and up (everyone welcome, working artists encouraged)

Saturday, January 25

Maraña (Organismo)

More info coming coon.

Time: 10 am – 1 pm
Location: Fine Arts Building, Little Studio, 7th Floor, 410 S. Michigan Ave.

Cost: $60

Ages: 18 and up (everyone welcome, working artists encouraged)

Sunday, January 26

Poncili Creacion (Hungry Garden)

More info coming coon.

Time: 10 am – 1 pm
Location: Fine Arts Building, Little Studio, 7th Floor, 410 S. Michigan Ave.

Cost: $60

Ages: 18 and up (everyone welcome, working artists encouraged)