Stage Combat Workshop

On Saturday, my friend Ken Nicholas came to St. Mike's to give a stage combat workshop with our Drama Club! It was a great day. We started at 9am with warm-ups and basic hand-to-hand moves like slaps, punches, falls, and chokes. There were about 15 people from the club present, and we all got the chance to do each move.

During the afternoon we worked on a line of choreography using the hand-to-hand pieces from the morning and filmed them! It was definitely the most moves I've remembered in a long time; I find dance classes very challenging. I worked with Julia, my mentee in the drama club, and we had a lot of fun!

Later, we learned how to use whips. It was like genuine Indiana Jones material! Cracking whips is harder than it looks and some of them were really heavy. The workshop was only supposed to go until 5pm, but we had some interested students stay until almost 8pm with the sword work!

The champs that stayed for hours afterward!!

I got to spend some time with Ken and his friend Jenn who came up to see Vermont as well! We went to the Skinny Pancake, the Single Pebble, and around Burlington a little. I hadn't seen Ken since leaving Gateway Playhouse this summer, so it was a real treat to have him come up. Check out a video he made from the weekend: Welcome to UVM (pun intended).