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Dr Jaq Bessell

Shakespeare and The Viewpoints:

This workshop explores somatic approaches to Shakespeare, and Shakespeare’s text as the raw material for new forms of creativity. Using the Viewpoints system (originally developed by Ann Bogart, Tina Landau and Mary Overlie) the workshop participants will first explore and experience Shakespeare’s texts somatically, before developing new work out of old texts using Viewpoints Composition exercises. Participants should wear comfortable clothes they can move in. No prior experience of the Viewpoints is necessary, but participants are asked to familiarise themselves with a short segment - 4 to 6 lines - of verse from one of Shakespeare’s plays.

Jaq BessellR&J

Jaq Bessell directing her Italian dance/theatre production of Romeo and Juliet / Romeo and Juliet in rehearsal


Jaq Bessell is a stage director who has directed plays by Shakespeare and modern playwrights in theatres across the USA. Her career began in casting at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and she has worked for several years at Shakespeare’s Globe in London and the Blackfriars Playhouse in Virginia. She has taught in a number of conservatoires across the USA, and she regularly directs bilingual productions of Shakespeare’s plays in France and Italy. Her more recent publications focus on somatic approaches to Shakespeare in performance. She is currently Director of Studies at the Guildford School of Acting, University of Surrey, where she runs the MA Acting programme.

Romeo and Juliet in production

R&J

Production stills from Henry IV parts 1 and 2 - © Mark Dean

Henry IV

Henry IV