My pedagogue, theatre-maker, and director career have developed because of following my need for making drama, storytelling, comedy, and movement, discovering in them, step by step, tools that might offer a higher understanding of the social, religious, political, and environmental human behaviour and background, as well as an understanding of the connection and liberation of the self. This understanding will help us to embody safely and with confidence, the boundaries, self-structure, and self-drawing of the being, acquiring a greater understanding of our own self and therefore, better well-being and understanding of the world around us.
My line of work seeks to inspire itself from the deepest passion found between the lines of the Classics and turns it into a sight that feeds itself from Greek theatre in its higher ancestral, mythological, tragic, and comical meaning where its connection with the voice, chorus and mask trigger the connection to our roots, to our essence. In love with Shakespeare, the Golden Age, and the wisdom of practitioners such as Stanislavsky who understood what was in between the lines. Admired and Influenced by Commedia dell' Arte which infected the European Classical Theatre and served as a starting point for the emerging modern "acrobat actor", a mixture between the clown, slapstick, grotesque and absurd. This triggered my hunger for understanding the comedy world through its physicality heading towards the foundations of Lecoq. Being moved by Grotowski and amazed by the Odin Theatre work and the symbolism of Gardzienice. My work finally is shaped by the movement as an energy conductor and from the holistic approach of Michael Chekhov where movement is inner energy and Imagination is the key. My last work on research was based on Physical Acting through Michael Chekhov Technique.
For fifteen years, I have been working as a Drama Teacher. I have taught in secondary and primary school, facilitating drama for youth theatre companies, coaching actors, and running workshops for character composition, movement for actors, movement in text, and verse in movement.
I have been working as a drama teacher in Deansfield, Newbury Park, Central Park, and other primary schools in London, I have also taught drama at the young offender´s prison in Rochester,
In all of these different settings, I have dealt with disabled and special needs children by developing strong skills to differentiate their needs and deal with stressful situations with a calm and positive attitude. I have also worked at Wyvern School, in Ashford, working with different children with all kinds of special educational needs and disabilities. I have also worked in special units in primary schools in Kent and London.
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I have directed Classical theatre through my own company “Hypocrites” and “Che Sara Sara”. With “Hypocrites” I have directed, produced, and performed Greco – Roman classic plays for secondary school students in Roman amphitheaters throughout Spanish geography which gave me another insight into classical theatre: Tragedy, chorus, and mask and the work in TIE; with “Che Sara Sara” I have been directing young people in school productions and in youth theater companies, and also written and directed with Diego Fernández a new children play "The Landria´s path" which was selected for the Children's environmental festival in Madrid, and I also I have been the movement director´s assistant for the youth theatre at the Gulbenkian in connection with the National Theatre in 2017.
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Right now, I am working as a Drama Teacher and Head of Drama for the company LSC; as an Acting and Movement facilitator for Theatre Workout; as an Outreach and SEN drama facilitator for Eko.
Downloa Curriculum
Character Composition
Character is part of life and a great deal of the joy of acting lay in going beyond who we are every day, revealing parts of our being that were hidden beneath our quotidian life’s. Therefore, studying character means opening yourself to many approaches, and it requires that you trust your own process.
We shall divide our study of character work into different steps:
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1. The exploitation of character possibilities, GETTING BEYOND THE HABITS OF YOUR “Every day” VOICE AND BODY to discover who or what else you can be.
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2. COMBINE CHARACTER WORK with ACTING SKILLS like LISTENING and REACTING.
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3. Study some approaches to BUILDING A CHARACTER FROM DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES by also following DIFFERENT PRACTITIONERS and learning to direct our ENERGIES ON:​
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Physically (by changing your body center, movement, and rhythms)
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Vocally (by altering your vocal placement, pitch, or accent)
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Internally (by finding character imagery, history, and attitudes)
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Externally (using costume, makeup, and props)
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Energy (analysis of the whole instrument as a way to understand the unconscious of the character by reading what is telling us beyond the words just through movement and voice)
What inspiration could you get for developing character work? You may begin with a clear visual image, or perhaps you can hear the voice quite plainly in your head, you might find inspiration by viewing paintings museum, or you might be inspired by an animal you see in the zoo, or you may need to visit a local bar.
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The use of the external world and its abstraction will be key to the work, as well as applying a multidisciplinary vision that makes other sciences part of our exploration to help us to find the character and achieve the whole transformation from one being to another.
Practitioners that we will look at are Michael Chekhov, Lecoq, Grotowski, Eugenio Barba, Laban among others. Techniques that will be also applied are Butoh, Kabuki, Kallaripayattu, acrobatics, comedy, automatic movement, and word, among others.
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A great deal of the approaches will be based on movement and imagination.
The greater aim is making body and mind working together to find the closest integration between our being and the character, and therefore to become one being connected to itself.
Interested in hearing more about the course, please do not hesitate to get in touch so I send you the dossier with full information.
Verse in Movement
The aim of the course is to carry out the dramatic interpretation of the Spanish classical verse on stage and to learn how to face the poetic, loading it with dramatic meaning and endowing it with action.
Actor placed at the service of the character, of the intention, and the metric. Form to give it a meaning and not to become a slave of the form, at the same time that this is not being lost.
From the form to content, and from the content to the form. By combining form and content we offer a total meaning to the text as well as expressive freedom.
For this, we will go through all the essential points of metric knowledge in the dramatic text, combining it with the corporal expression. From physicality to text and from text to physicality since the word is an extension of physical action and vice versa. Movement as a tool to work with the instinct to release prejudices. Using the verse from the bodywork through the construction of the characters.
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​Literary, dramatic, and historical knowledge of the time as well as of the dramatic resources to stage a work of classical theater of the golden century as stage fighting or costumes will also be part of the process.
The Art of Noticing, I am ME
A fun and playful workshop for young people to explore their selves through drama and movement, both disciplines will be used as a source that will end up in a therapeutic tool throughout the whole workshop.
The workshop pretends to be a journey that moves towards self-awareness, self-development, and creativity applying drama, movement, arts, visual arts and architecture as a means to have a voice, to tell stories, and to find freedom through freedom. A journey of 12 weeks of weekly interaction divided into three blocks; there will be a final show materialised in different forms: photography, video installation, and performance among other arts, a choice that will depend on attendees individual and group choice and will have the possibility of attracting audience.
Movement and abstract work will be the workshop foundation as both works as a stimulus that goes straight to the unconscious and that release forgot information about ourselves, being some storage in our muscles making us move and feel by surprise.
The work structure goes through the awareness of the body in movement, the exploration of the body, the self with imaginative work, improvisation and the qualities of movement applied to bodywork, the relationship between body-space-others-time-direction and architecture, at the same time that we learn little by little to be aware of how we react and how it resonates in our body and mind.
Elements such as gravity, alignments, isolations, asymmetry, or breathing are also applied for helping to turn the focus inwards and therefore, from that point prepare the body to work with its own energy, internal sensation and imagination. Concentration is turned inward.
Then, we jump to a section based on storytelling and self-expression by using games, improvisation, and imagination through imagery, metaphor, puppetry, masks, shadows, ensemble work, devising work, photograph, video making, installation, automatic drawing and writing, and other resources that support storytelling such as literacy, myth, art, music, sound, nature ... at the same time during all the previous process, will be incorporated a section called projections which direct and structure and involve the self to the artistic work.
For further information and scheme of work of the workshop, please ask for dossier and further details.
Drama in Primary Schools
Drama in primary schools is a project to implement drama in primary school in PPA time or as a WORKSHOPS UNITS that support specific topics that belong to the National Curriculum in Primary School, through my own company Ché Será Sera: Theatre for Change.
Drama does not just bring a closer, more practical, innovative, creative approach to children's learning on Maths, Literacy, Science, History or any other subject but, it does also promote and develop children´s communication, understanding, equality, wellbeing, resilience and their inclusion in society; drama also helps them to believe in themselves and therefore, to build positive futures starting from where they are at; drama enables them to have a voice and recognise themselves in a safer space that allows them the freedom to explore their identity helping them to reflect on their behaviour, feelings, and thoughts. Drama is an area that will benefit the other subjects and, in turn, it will be benefited from the others, it is not exclusive but inclusive, it is necessary and, the earliest they start, the better future they will build and the safest the world will be.
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My belief is that drama works as a supporting subject for the national curriculum in Primary School, as a weapon to bring education to a higher level and to offer higher support to young people in order to raise their educational standards, to build a greater quality of life and counterbalance the negative side of our virtual era. Drama is guidance for connection and reconnection. It pushes you to be in a different perspective in order to understand what is around you and inside of yourself; it pushes you to be more empathetic and understanding and therefore respectful and open.
My drama lessons range from children´s structured play, through improvisations, and performances of specially devised material, to performances of Shakespeare or other literary classics. Drama lessons are focused on encouraging and supporting learners in creative drama and theatre work. The key lies in working with ideas, finding significance, and helping children to examine the consequences of the ideas that they have. The drama draws our attention to aspects of the real world; it helps us to recognise a sense of our own reality, and understand it better. Drama is essentially a social art form; it is concerned with how individuals relate to the world they live in; how individuals interact with each other and with society in a wider sense.
Role, narrative, language (verbal, non-verbal, and symbolic), context, and, back stories are essentials in drama sessions as well as ordering a sequence of events or images in such a way that their order creates meaning and shows a gradual and coherence progression linked to the narrative.
Everything done in the space will be a mutual agreement. Everyone will feel part of the process and their ideas will be continuously present and discussed. Everyone will be heard and will listen. Values such as honesty, loyalty, team group, respect, collaboration, and unity will be continuously present in the dynamic of the lesson.
It is about fostering the child’s creativity, invention, insight, discovery, and problem-solving through exploring actively the intuitive and the spontaneous and increasing their level of curiosity, and here, for me, masks and puppetry are quite powerful.
For further information, the scheme of work, planning lessons, annual plans, and curriculum maps would be offered on request.
Providing Drama for Education to Primary Schools through my own company “Che Sera Sera” with the aim of supporting the national curriculum through drama by working on games, imagination, art, improvisation, movement, and voice.
Body in Performance
Body in performance is a workshop for young people and adults who would like to feel more comfortable in using their bodies, working towards self movement awareness, and movement expression, as well as creatively through their own practice in performance.
Workshop will focus in developing a stronger and more flexible body; bringing awareness of body and its possibilities when moving, expressing and communicating as well as developing awareness in how ourselves relate into space, other people and to ourselves. More importatly, voice also will be involved as the main foundation of the workshop is to keep the organicty of the body and to keep body and mind connected.
You will also gain inspiration, confidence, & new methods of creating performance work through body and movement work. Some of the work you create maybe a springboard or inspiration for further work. Or you may want to develop your ideas from class into full-length pieces or develop stories into a short, basic drama that can be filmed at the end of the session or the term as a material for portfolios or work more on theatrical techniques and storytelling for creating material and sculpting the body for creation and transformation.
Any participant will go through a scheme of work based on different steps that are linked to each other as individual steps that belong to a bigger picture. The first one is focused on bringing joy and energise the body, imagination will be the next stage of the workshop to bring awareness of body movement in different levels, to later develop and challenge the language of your body through different physical and artistic movement techniques that come from acrobatics, martial arts, or dance which will be modified also by working with energy, balance, gravity, dimensions, extensions to later get into the storytelling through the embodiment of external and internal realities by using a multidisciplinary language of stimuli to end through a cool down which will bring reflection and the last touch for experiencing full connection.
For further information, a scheme of work, planning lessons, annual plans, and curriculum maps would be offered on request.
Movement in Text
The objective of the course is to provide the actor with resources that place him at the service of the character and the intention, giving meaning to the text and its interpretation without being a slave to the form.
To prepare the body and the self for the act of liberation. Working with sources that make the way to be ready for the embodiment of character, space, others, and the interrelation of these elements between each other.
Acting training serves to prepare the instrument of an actor (mind, imagination, body, voice, and embodiment) to be ready for the act of transformation. To disclose, explore and release the performer’s blocks that make feel free to connect for the act of transformation to be invaded by the world and the characters they are creating.
Firstly, experiencing and locating where and what could be what makes us no connect: (lack of concentration, tension...); Secondly, reflecting on what has made us connect (a feeling of being present, an emotion, and understanding, a part of the body, a movement...) We become aware by working with body, voice, and imagination on top of using a different stimulus that allows unblocking the mind.
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Work with each of those elements separately and later on together (mind, body, voice, imagination)
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Once we feel free to be free, we start embodying external or internal realities that belong to the world we need to live in, and it would always come from a sense of playfulness, curiosity, and discovery.
It is a must to find the play of what you are doing as it is the only way to make it real and then react naturally as if everything is happening. As Lecoq establishes with Le jeu.
3. Learning new acting skills is essential for practice and it is here where they will be introduced.
4. We will also work on character and text analysis as another door of knowledge to embody text and character so later, we jump onto the character and text techniques from the bases of the structure: movement, imagination, and understanding to compose character and text and to finally live the text. This process is called “movement in the text” we move emotionally and physically through the text at all levels from all human pores to create a new life as close as possible to the new life and far from us.
Movement in Text PDF
5. Work on Imagination through stimulus is present throughout the whole process. The stimulus can be any visual art or any other discipline such as architecture, sculpture, or maths that allows us to approach reality through different perspectives with the aim of opening our creativity and giving birth to the unknown.
6. The final aim is working towards the act of transformation in which we take into account all the drama elements: actions, situations, characters, ideas, objects, and emotions...
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You will gain inspiration, confidence, & new methods of creating performance work. Some of the work you create may be a springboard or inspiration for further work. Or you may want to develop your ideas from class into full-length pieces. Following the course, you will be encouraged to perform your work at Theatre in the Pound, our scratch night, to the general public and any other audience you would like to invite.
Download the PDF for further information or book a workshop here.
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What they say:
Thank you, for bringing your enthusiasm and your knowledge to every zoom class. I recognize that teaching online isn't an easy task so I appreciate you and the energy that you brought to every class.
I truly believe that I'm leaving your class a better artist because of the care and dedication you have as a teacher! I'll never look at breathing the same. Breath is life and I feel like I finally get it....took me so long to truly understand...now I won't forget it. I wish I was fluent in Spanish but I'm not (yet)...so for now, I'll say muchas gracias, mucho gusto y cuidate!
Sincerely,
Eboni Adams
Freshers Advanced 9
Just wanted to give some praise to Rebeca for her outstanding drama lessons. She always comes fully prepared and with interesting ideas for activities. Moreover, she is enthusiastic and energized when delivering the lesson, and has a good rapport with JM - she obviously cares for his progress. Even better, she monitors how things are going during the lesson and is not afraid to switch to a new activity if it could work better.
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David
Excellent. A really fun, creative, and engaging lesson. A lot of physical and vocal activities. Great use of the classroom space.
Ashleigh Stewart.
