One… for World The­atre Day

Posted on March 28, 2013

One…at The Shadbolt

World The­atre Day, still, in my late evening world. And, I just saw a play – a per­for­mance piece of mov­ing, danc­ing, con­tort­ing story telling con­sist­ing of worlds beyond time, space, and dimen­sion. But, this abstract dimen­sion car­ried an age old dilemma of lost love.

Trav­el­ing “Ghost River The­atre” from Cal­gary, Alberta presents “One” at the Shad­bolt Cen­tre for The Arts from tonight until only Sat­ur­day night, March 30. It’s a visual treat orig­i­nally cre­ated by the per­form­ers as a 20 minute piece, now a full hour pre­sen­ta­tion. Direc­tor Eric Rose and Cre­ator Jason Carnew take us on a foggy, time-​warped, mytho­log­i­cal, antique ride that has us squirm­ing with dis­com­fort. Read More…

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One… for World The­atre Day

Posted on March 28, 2013

One…at The Shadbolt

World The­atre Day, still, in my late evening world. And, I just saw a play – a per­for­mance piece of mov­ing, danc­ing, con­tort­ing story telling con­sist­ing of worlds beyond time, space, and dimen­sion. But, this abstract dimen­sion car­ried an age old dilemma of lost love.

Trav­el­ing “Ghost River The­atre” from Cal­gary, Alberta presents “One” at the Shad­bolt Cen­tre for The Arts from tonight until only Sat­ur­day night, March 30. It’s a visual treat orig­i­nally cre­ated by the per­form­ers as a 20 minute piece, now a full hour pre­sen­ta­tion. Direc­tor Eric Rose and Cre­ator Jason Carnew take us on a foggy, time-​warped, mytho­log­i­cal, antique ride that has us squirm­ing with dis­com­fort. Read More…

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The­atre: Sly Fox and a lit­tle Spring Awakening…

Posted on February 20, 2013

Ahhhh… the energy of youth: impas­sioned per­for­mances, phys­i­cal leaps and bounds, bod­ily con­tor­tions, abrupt turns, dance num­bers and simul­ta­ne­ous songs, sex­u­al­ity burst­ing at the seams, the promise of more, feet that whisk off and on the fiery ener­getic stage, and ….yes, more.

That’s what “Sly Fox” at The North Shore Credit Union Cen­tre for Per­form­ing Arts (Capi­lano Uni­ver­sity) and “Spring Awak­en­ing” at Stu­dio 58 (Lan­gara Col­lege) have in com­mon. Large impres­sive casts that seize the stage with vim and vigour explore each side of the the­atre mask.

Drama and comedy.

“Sly Fox” is a wild comedic romp directed by well-​known cast­ing direc­tor Stu­art Aikens who chose to colour this pro­duc­tion orig­i­nally set in San Fran­cisco in the 1800’s to an 1850’s West­ern caper. Larry Gel­bart’s play adapted to this genre perfectly.

With the theme of greed drip­ping and ooz­ing every­where, the main char­ac­ters had their objec­tives clear. Get the gold. At what­ever cost. Read More…

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Home­less­ness and Sales.…

Posted on January 17, 2013

Every Thurs­day morn­ing at 7:00 I start my day with a rol­lick­ing, yet pro­fes­sional meet­ing with the Think Refer­rals Busi­ness Net­work. We have our break­fast, present our 60 sec­ond updates, maybe watch a pre­sen­ta­tion and/​or dis­cuss some of our busi­ness chal­lenges. And, we have fun.

Some of the chal­lenges that emerged today related to sales.

Sales. A scary word that con­jures up plaid jack­eted, smok­ing, slick used car sales­men and buyer’s remorse. EEK… But, this word is what we all do, all the time. Ask Daniel H. Pink! His newly released book “To Sell Is Human: The Sur­pris­ing Truth About Mov­ing Oth­ers” addresses this very issue. I love Dan Pink’s books (“A Whole New Mind” “Drive”) and this one is another goody. I rec­om­mend read­ing all three.

Pink dis­cusses how we all work in sales, “whether we’re employ­ees pitch­ing col­leagues on a new idea, entre­pre­neurs entic­ing fun­ders to invest, or par­ents and teach­ers cajol­ing chil­dren to study, we spend our days try­ing to move others.”

Or a home­less per­son ask­ing for help. Read More…

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Buf­foon­ery Act­ing and Performer’s Mas­tery 2013!

Posted on December 11, 2012

Buf­foon­ery Work­shops is excited to announce a unique ven­ture with The Performer’s Mas­tery of Van­cou­ver for 2013. For a lower com­bined price act­ing stu­dents can take advan­tage of both the Buf­foon­ery Act­ing Work­shop and the Performer’s Mas­tery in order to have an amaz­ing duo of career and per­sonal growth building.

I, Trilby, took the Performer’s Mas­tery in July 2012 and dis­cov­ered a chal­leng­ing 3 days where your “stuff” gets addressed. This work­shop is great for any­one, really, but for per­form­ers who want to be authen­tic in their work, the Performer’s Mas­tery is a direct way in.

Henry Mah, one of the two facil­i­ta­tors (the other being vet­eran Linda Dar­low), sub­se­quently zeal­ously took the Buf­foon­ery Work­shop in August.

We saw that both our work­shops encour­age actors and non-​actors out of their com­fort zones, and into their truth with very dif­fer­ent yet, com­pli­men­tary, meth­ods. Over cof­fee we decided that in mak­ing it pos­si­ble for peo­ple to take both work­shops at a lower cost, we could help more peo­ple attain their dreams.

For more infor­ma­tion and reg­is­tra­tion please go to The Performer’s Mas­tery site.

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Why stop play­ing because you are an.… adult?

Posted on November 8, 2012

When I was lit­tle, I didn’t want to grow up.

It was very clear I didn’t want to become an adult. It seemed a whole lot less fun. I wasn’t too far off!

Well, despite my resis­tance, I did “grow up” or at least I got big­ger. I still fight the notion of being an adult, and now have as a mis­sion to keep adults play­ing (Buf­foon­ery Work­shops). In my mind, it’s all about bal­anc­ing the over­whelm­ing seri­ous­ness of life with some playfulness.

Find­ing your play­ful bouffon!

Is it possible?

Here is an arti­cle by the Van­cou­ver Sun pub­lished July 2012 on this topic. Would love to know your thoughts!

Adults relearn ben­e­fits of play

For any­one who’s stared long­ingly at a swing-​set or qui­etly cursed the height restric­tion at McDonald’s Play­land, the Inter­na­tional Coun­cil on Active Aging brings a ball-​pit full of good news.

At the organization’s lat­est annual con­fer­ence, “older-​adult play­grounds” were endorsed as a way of get­ting baby boomers and seniors to embrace health­ier, active lifestyles. Like an Amber Alert for your inner child, the idea is to help grown-​ups recover their sense of play and trick them into exer­cis­ing at the same time.

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“Unplug­ging”… What would our ances­tors think!?

Posted on November 7, 2012

Yes­ter­day my stu­dents and I were talk­ing about people’s lack of social aware­ness because every­one is “plugged in” and not pay­ing atten­tion to their surroundings.

As an exer­cise, I took my Vanarts act­ing class(buf­foon­ery phys­i­cal course) to the Van­cou­ver sea-​bus sta­tion, a her­itage edi­fice of beauty, to wan­der and observe the area, the peo­ple, the cir­cum­stances, the smells etc.. When we returned to the stu­dio, each stu­dent played back, phys­i­cally, what he or she spotted.

Vancouver Sea Bus Station

Every­one was very excited about their obser­va­tions and how fun it was to phys­i­cal­ize all the ordi­nary peo­ple, and also the envi­ron­ment. They came up with such great rep­re­sen­ta­tions of poten­tial char­ac­ters. It was an eye opener for them, and one that will feed their future work. Read More…

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Does your team have good periph­eral vision?

Posted on November 1, 2012

Early on in a Buf­foon­ery Work­shop, whether it be the 2 day act­ing inten­sive or a 3 hour onsite team-​building ses­sion, the group will expe­ri­ence a mir­ror­ing exer­cise that illus­trates lead­er­ship, being aware of your co-​workers (or fel­low actors/​crew), and the impor­tance of hav­ing a wider vision. This sim­ple, fun activ­ity is pro­found in alert­ing you to how you play, lead, or try to hold onto power (and what is most effective).

This fun video is put on by a bus com­pany, LiJN, on the ben­e­fits of trav­el­ling in a group. A great effec­tive team, those crabs!

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Radio-​Canada interview

Posted on October 31, 2012

Today I was inter­viewed on Radio-​Canada Colombie-​Britannique-​Yukon, “Boule­vard du Paci­fique” on Buf­foon­ery. It’s always fun to speak in my sec­ond lan­guage, espe­cially when the Bouf­fon comes from the French. We chat­ted about the ori­gin of the Le Bouf­fon and how I came to it, and how peo­ple react when they do my work­shop. As you can see by my pho­tos, most reac­tions are pretty positive!

Thank you to Stéphane Gasc, and ani­ma­trice, Marie Vil­leneuve for this opportunity.

Si vous par­lez le Fran­cais, ECOUTEZ ICI. And, if you just want to hear what I sound like in French, go to the same link!

Vive le bouffon!

Gabri­ola Island 1 Day Buf­foon­ery Workshop

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Cre­ativ­ity in the workplace!

Posted on October 30, 2012

Some times you need to shake things up so you come up with bet­ter ideas, get ener­gized, and inspired.

I’ve seen peo­ple come into my buf­foon­ery class not on top of the world. I’ve heard, “I’m not feel­ing well”, “My back is sore”, “I’m really tired” and so on. I nod my head and encour­age them to just play in their state, and that there are no expec­ta­tions. I ask that they remain open to what might hap­pen if they just show up.

Let­ting go and shak­ing it up!

And, they do. And, I’ve seen peo­ple com­pletely turn their state around to a much more pos­i­tive place.

Imag­ine if you could do that in the work place? Or, maybe you do!

The fol­low­ing arti­cle offers a few tips to help you reignite your employees.

Want to Nur­ture Cre­ativ­ity Among Employ­ees? Assign Crazy.

Unless you’re a solo entre­pre­neur, you prob­a­bly didn’t build your busi­ness on your own. Nope, I’m not refer­ring to Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s incen­di­ary remarks that recently ruf­fled some feath­ers in the small-​business com­mu­nity. I’m talk­ing about employees.

If you dream of build­ing another Google or Patag­o­nia one day, you’d do well to not only accept input from employ­ees but actively seek it. Cre­ativ­ity doesn’t just hap­pen. If you’re ready to really embrace the kind of cul­ture where cre­ativ­ity and inno­va­tion may thrive, here’s how to get started.

Read more by Mathew Torin to get some good tips!

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To Be or Not To Be.… Happy?

Posted on October 29, 2012

Seems like we are con­stantly on a Happy Quest in our soci­ety these days. Is it just us, our time, or an ancient quest that has been passed down the ages? Do we have more time than the “old days” to con­sider our feel­ings and whether they feel good, or bad? Or, is life get­ting so com­pli­cated by the infor­ma­tion age that we feel a dis­sat­is­fac­tion by all the things we are NOT doing, or that we should do? Or, is there too much woowoo stuff out there mak­ing some of us feel inad­e­quate if we are not med­i­tat­ing and run­ning a full time busi­ness, and exer­cis­ing, and, and, and…. Read More…

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