Workshops for Spring 2020

**CANCELLED**

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Due to the current situation regarding COVID-19, we have unfortunately cancelled all of our upcoming April puppetry training workshops. 

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We are disappointed that we cannot share these workshops with you next month, but we feel it is the responsible action to take and is in the best interests of all participants.

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We are aiming to reschedule them for the Summer.  If you would like to receive updates you can sign up to our newsletter here.

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You can still read about the workshops we'll be offering below;

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Sparkle and Dark’s Puppetry

We are known for our puppetry and we have been training actors to puppeteer for nearly 9 years. ‘Puppetry at it’s best’ - The Guardian on Killing Roger. ‘A puppet masterclass’ - The independent on The Girl With No Heart. More then one of our puppeteers have gone on to puppeteer on shows such as War Horse and companies such as Flabbergast, Strange face and Les Enfant, as well as working for TV and Film.

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The Teachers:

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Louisa Ashton is a founding member of Sparkle and Dark. She originally trained in dance and musical theatre, but has since trained in puppetry with Oli Smart, Henry Maynard, Steve Tiplady, Gomito, Paper Cinema and trained in movement with LISPA, Complicite and Shapes in Motion. She has taught puppetry to children, adults, performers and non-performers throughout the UK and Italy, believing that the work and preparation that goes into creating a puppet-character needs to be as extensive and developed as an actor’s preparation to perform a role. Since developing this style of puppetry training with Shelley, Louisa has gone onto puppeteer for the BBC, the RSC, the Globe, Little Angel Theatre, Flabbergast and more.

Shelley Knowles – Dixon is the other founding member of Sparkle and Dark and has trained in puppetry with Oli Smart, Steve Tiplady and Louisa Ashton. She is a director and movement director and has been developing Sparkle and Dar’s particular training model with Louisa since 2009. Shelley has trained in Lecoq pedagogy movement techniques with Thomas Prattki (founder of LISPA), Joseph Alford (Theatre O), Mark Bell (The Play that goes wrong), Ruth Naylor-Smith (Mountview Academy) and has been fusing these techniques, alongside Louisa, with puppetry principle training to create a technique to specifically train actors and performers how to transfer their own skills in embodying character and movement to endow inanimate objects.

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