Thanks to everyone who attended our tasting day of workshops and the evening party to celebrate the launch of Locomotive. We were thrilled to share the beginnings of our work with you all, and we can’t wait to take the next step on this journey. For those who missed our evening event, we’ve turned the content of our welcome into this post.
Tēnā koutou e huihui mai nei
Welcome, everyone who has gathered here
ki te whakahari i te tīmatanga
to celebrate the beginning
o tēnei kura hou o te whakaari tene i Te Whanganui-a-Tara.
of this new improv school in Wellington.
E mihi ana ki ngā wāhi tapu o Te Ātiawa me Ngāti Toa.
We acknowledge the sacred places of Te Ātiawa and Ngāti Toa.
Nō tāwhiti, nō tata, ahakoa nō hea mai tātou,
No matter where we’re from,
ko tō tātou aroha i te whakaari tene
our love of improv
te taura e paihere nei i a tātou.
is the rope that binds us together.
“Mā te rangitāmiro i ngā weu e torokaha ake ai.”
“By twisting the fibres together they are strengthened.”
Ka nui te hari, ka nui te manahau,
Great is the joy, great is the excitement,
ka nui te aroha i tēnei pō.
great is the love tonight.
Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.
And so: welcome.
Tēnā koutou and welcome to the launch of Locomotive! We’re so grateful that you’re here, and grateful to have shared our first set of workshops with participants earlier today.
We are improvisors with many years of experience, and many areas of expertise - performance, directing, teaching, short-form, long-form, festivals, travel, production, design - and we share a passion for passing that expertise and knowledge on, for building up other creators, and for sharing the joy that we have all experienced through improvisation. We acknowledge and are grateful for every person we’ve learned from, worked with, and watched on stage, in all kinds of theatre, and we are so proud of the journeys they’ve contributed to, that have led us here, putting this new entity out into the theatre world.
Locomotive’s goal as a training company is to grow improvisors into performers and creators with strong stagecraft, competent skills, joyful teamwork, and an awareness of the context and whakapapa of the work they create and contribute to.
We will do this through offering a range of workshops and training services, but more important than the logistics is the kaupapa we strive to embody through all our business and teaching practice.
We aspire to be a company aware of and engaging with its place in Aotearoa, working in and with te ao Māori. We want our classrooms to be safe spaces for learning so people can take creative risks, and for those spaces to be accessible and welcoming for anyone curious about our craft. We hold ourselves to our values: manaakitanga, kaitiakitanga, authenticity, quality, kindness, empathy and joy. And we invite our students and our colleagues to join us in holding those values, and for us all to challenge each other to keep growing and learning.
Though we founders are all performers, Locomotive is not a performance company. Our focus here is on building skills and developing improvisors, supporting others to make work, and supplementing the teaching that is already thriving in Wellington. We’re also keen to work with theatre makers who may not consider themselves improvisors, but whose work draws on improvisation, whether through devising, audience interaction, audition skills, experimentation - we are here to be a resource and we encourage you to talk to us about how we can work together to make new work.
We have three offerings for the remainder of 2019, for which bookings will be open soon. They are:
- An 8 week course with Matt Powell on Non-Verbal Improv - exploring physicality, dance, and other ways to improvise without words (term 3)
- A weekend intensive with Clare Kerrison (feat. cameo teaching by Christine Brooks) on Narrative Long-form aka Let’s Make A Play (dates tbc)
- An 8 week course with Jennifer O’Sullivan on Scenework - a class tailored to the participants working on close scenework and direction (term 4)
These will be announced via our newsletter, and we encourage you to sign up so you’re the first to know (scroll to the bottom of any page to do so!).
Thank you once again, for joining us on our first outing. We look forward to being part of the improv world.
Jen, Matt, Christine, and Clare - Locomotive