Buddhafield

There’ll be updates on this year’s workshop programme from about the beginning of April on, but below you can see a selection of the workshops we enjoyed last year.

I loved the way it’s completely chilled out yet there is a sense that people are very passionate about the dharma, the environment, meditation, Buddhist ethics.

Working From the Heart Through Playback Theatre with Random Acts Theatre Company, Tig Land and Helen Rogerson. We will explore ways of removing the blocks we put upon ourselves, open up the often forgotten channels of expression through a rich mixture of movement, voice, play, story-telling and therapeutic techniques, in order to find a richer connection with ourselves and others. Come and learn the art of saying “yes let’s...” rather than “yes but...” and the freedom to create major changes in your personal and professional life. Helen Rogerson is a massage therapist and artist and has been part of Random Acts for 9 Years.Tig has been a freelance Educational Consultant for eighteen years working in schools, with the NHS and the prison service facilitating both groups and individuals. She was the Director of the London Playback company between 1994 — 1998 and went on to be the founder and Director of Random Acts Playback Theatre Company, which after 14 years, still continues to work innovatively, therapeutically and creatively.

Discover and Explore Your Creative Spirit: Improvisation Workshops with Marina Sossi. Marina will guide you through simple exercises in visualisation, creative writing, drawing and drama in order to connect you with your creativity, working individually, in pairs and small groups. There will be opportunity to share small performances with the group at the end of the workshop. Marina is a multidimensional artist and yogi working in performance, live art and dance. She has produced and toured solo theatre works internationally as "Marina Sossi Group" as well as numerous collaborative works in film, installation and socially engaged practice. She has 18 years experience leading a wide variety of groups and workshops in performance, creativity and improvisation with young people, adults, prisoners, people with learning disabilities and people with mental illness. She has worked on retreats and holistic holidays in Turkey, Greece (Skyros), Thailand and Germany. For Marina, art is a spiritual practice- a way to communicate human experience, explore the self, draw out and destroy the ego and express gratitude and devotion.

Theatre of the Oppressed — Everyone is an actor with Jessie Martelhof and Deirdre O'Halloran. The workshops will be high energy, and fun with drama games, physical theatre and exploration of social oppressions experienced within the group. By the end of the workshop the group will have devised and performed a short piece of improvised theatre and experienced the interactive forum process. We would like to offer a series of energetic participatory workshops exploring techniques from Augusto Boal's Forum Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed. It’s for all those who are interested in theatre as a force for transforming society. Theatre of the oppressed is a way of using theatre for comprehending social or political problems - and collectively finding their solutions. This is done through the forum process; a theatrical game in which a problem is shown in an unsolved form, to which the audience is invited to suggest and enact solutions. Jessie has been facilitating creative workshops for over 7 years with adults, young people and children, and both Deidre and Jessie are activists and artists who together run the Brighton Forum Theatre Collective.

Contact Juggling and Balloon Sculpting workshops with Dimitri Ogden. Contact Juggling is a new circus art that involves rolling and manipulating a clear sphere around the body or hands with some techniques producing an illusion that the ball is floating in the air. Come learn and play with Dimitri aka The Fluid Druid. Enter a bendy world of color and imagination where anything is possible in Dimitri’s Balloon Sculpting workshops: This workshop is designed to teach you some of the basic techniques in balloon sculpting: hats, animals, flowers etc. Come and Twist. Both workshops are for all ages.

How to be an idiot with Philip Burgers. As actors and human beings we are always trying to be good. Trying to do and get things right. And when we feel bad for either being bad or doing bad, we want to escape that bad feeling. The clown is different from most of us, in that he/she is happy to be bad. He/she is happy not to get things right. Ordinarily, when we (as actors) feel bad, we try to escape this bad feeling immediately, by covering it up with an action, or acting, or pretending not to ‘feel’ bad. This workshop will push us into this place of ‘badness’ (a place we will nominate ‘the crap’) and encourage us to stay in it and not escape it, helping us find a real vulnerability, humility, and humour – our clown. Once we find a pleasure, joy and comfort here, we discover ‘the crap’ can be a place of freedom. Then can we begin to play and be ridiculous and take the audience on whatever journey we like, using a sensitivity towards. Doctor Brown is the stage persona of Philip Burgers, a London-based performer/clown/idiot originally from California. He trained for two years with French Clown Master, Philippe Gaulier. He has toured three clown shows as Doctor Brown in the past 4 years: ‘Behaves’, ‘Because’, and ‘Becaves’ in Hong Kong, Melbourne, Sydney, Prague, Barcelona, the UK, New York, Los Angeles, and Halifax, Nova Scotia.This internationally renowned visual comedy absurdist was named 2010 Best Newcomer by the Sunday Times (UK), and Time Out Critic’s Choice in 2010. His show ‘Becaves’ was nomintated at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival for a Total Theatre Award.

A Journey of Love and Surrender with Stefan Gaphausen. In this workshop, Stefan takes us deep inside ourselves to a place of surrender, unfolding the blockages that stop us from being. He leads us on a journey which allows us to open to the abundance of love in the universe. After the workshop ends you will experience the physical sensation of relief and bliss. Stefan is the foremost practitioner of his kind in the world and has guided thousands across 5 continents to evolve and surrender to themselves with his profound teachings.

Song Writing with Matt Sage and Jessica Howie. From The Beatles to Bob Dylan, Radiohead to Eminem, songs form the soundtrack to our lives: expressing and resonating with our thoughts, feelings and emotions. Internationally acclaimed songwriter Matt Sage believes that everyone can write a song and demystifies this often-elusive craft in these uniquely inspirational and creative workshops. We will explore the songs that have inspired us most and begin to unravel the processes that brought them into being. You can then learn to be an original songwriter yourself, expressing your deepest feelings through the medium that, perhaps more than any other, has inspired all of us at some time in our lives. Matt Sage has a successful career as a song writer and recording artist and for his day job, he works with groups of all ages to facilitate self-expression through song writing. He has had his songs played on Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4, and performed at festivals throughout the world, including WOMAD and Glastonbury, and shared stages with artists as varied as Harry Belafonte, Carlos Santana, Diana Krall and Faithless. He is the founder and host of Oxford’s best loved performance space, The Catweazle Club, now in its 18th year, and creator of Oxford’s world music organisation, Big Village.

Games for Adults led by Jud Rawle. Play, open, bond, and have fun! We will play a variety of games which may cause side-effects such as: smiling, laughter, opening up, making friends, feeling more relaxed and free, connecting with others and with your own inner child. Come and get silly! Let go of your mind, waken your body and enliven your spirit! Jud is a teacher and leads various creative and dynamic workshops with adults and youngsters, along with being a comedian, musician, masseur, chocolatier and tantric love priest. See Info Boards for location.

Cabaret host Lizzie McHale: Awesome host and compere and Queen of Spoken Word introduced us to:
Random Acts Theatre Company: Interactive improvised theatre - "improvisational theatre of a calibre so high that it is almost shocking to witness" The Stage
Alison Brumfitt: The divinely decadent Ms Brumfitt. So rude, yet so luscious
Dave Pepper: A man who speaks so fast his tongue gets out of breath
Jan E Harriman: Not only brings to life Titania complete with wings - but also has her very own Bottom.. See if you can find the Wish Fairy..?
Emma Shilltoe: Creates a Vajrayogini Burlesque- yes you read that here!
Laura Burrows: Beautiful bedtime story telling with puppets, songs and games (for the little ones amongst us)
Miriam Jangles: Creating Live Art every evening for auction on Saturday night for the Buddhafield Land Appeal