workshop

Meet The Centre for Solo Performance where writer/ performer Yang-May Ooi developed the script of Bound Feet Blues

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Bound Feet Blues was just an idea in the mind of writer/ performer Yang-May Ooi when she signed up for a workshop at The Centre for Solo Performance in January 2014. With the guidance of facilitators Luke Dixon and Sean Bruno and the feedback of the others workshop participants, Yang-May completed the script of Bound Feet Blues in 12 weeks. She performed a work-in-progress version of the piece at the Centre’s Going Solo scratch night in March 2014 at Conway Hall.

At the performance was one of the producers of the South East Asian (SEA) Arts Festival, Annie Kwan, who invited Yang-May to perform the completed show at that year’s festival in October. The showcase was performed at the Tristan Bates Theatre to a sold out audience and 4+ star reviews. Now, within 2 years of first starting the script, Yang-May and the Bound Feet Blues creative team have brought the show to full production, opening at Tristan Bates Theatre for a 3 week run on 24 November 2015.

The Centre for Solo Performance

CSP-workshopBased in central London at historic Conway Hall, THE CENTRE FOR SOLO PERFORMANCE works with THE CONWAY COLLECTIVE in providing a specialist series of unique performance workshops, events and opportunities catering to writers, actors and performance artists interested in creating, developing, sharing solo performance work.

LukeDixonSeanhiresLuke Dixon is a performance maker, writer, teacher and academic, internationally known for his innovative productions of Shakespeare, his site-specific performances, his teaching of actors and his research into performance. www.lukedixon.co.uk Sean Bruno has a wide range of experience in making, both solo and collaborative, performance work in various contemporary and traditional styles; including dance, spoken word, multimedia and site specific. www.seanbruno.co.uk

Creating Solo PerformanceTheir book Creating Solo Performance is now available as well. It is an innovative toolbox of exercises and challenges focused on providing you – the performer – with engaging and inspiring ways to explore and develop your idea both on the page and in the performance space. Creating Solo Performance by Sean Bruno and Luke Dixon £18.99

You can watch highlights from that first scratch night performance at Conway Hall below:

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BUY TICKETS

**You can buy tickets for Bound Feet Blues via bit.ly/bfbtickets **

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Learn How To Magnify Your Stage Presence to Supercharge Your Public Speaking

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Are your nerves letting you down when you have to give a presentation? Is your delivery getting in the way of the othewise powerful message you want to convey to your audience?

If you want to learn the secrets of commanding a full theatre – and have fun, too, along the way – come to the storytelling and perfomance masterclass Own Your Story, Own the Room on Sat 16 May 2015 in Central London.

I’ll be sharing what I learnt from performing my solo show Bound Feet Blues to a sold-out West End theatre so you can take home with you tools to:

# dominate any stage you may be invited to speak on

# welcome and accept the gaze of your audience

# connect warmly with your audience

In Bound Feet Blues, I stand alone on stage for one hour to deliver a dramatised story, playing all the different characters and taking the audience to settings from Oxford, to ancient China and Australia and Malaysia – all without any costumes, props, scenery/ backdrops or music and performed barefoot. The success of the piece depends entirely on me. I must command the stage and hold the attention of the audience for a full 60 minutes. The showcase performance in Oct last year received 4+ Star reviews and one reviewer said of the piece, “a deeply personal and heartfelt performance… I felt the eyes of the audience follow Ooi unblinkingly until the end.”

Do you want to know how you can command the stage like this, too? The masterclass on 16 May could be for you. It will include theatre games that I have devised that will give you experiential learning – one of the best ways to capture performance mastery to magnify your stage presence.

My colleague, Beverley Glick, an award-winning speaker and well-respected journalist, is co-facilitating the masterclass and we will also be guiding participants through how to find the inspiring personal stories in their lives. You will discover how to Continue reading →

Come and see my TEDx style talk inspired by Bound Feet Blues – Breaking Tradition: How to Live Unbound

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I will be giving a TEDx style talk inspired by my research for my solo show Bound Feet Blues at the Inspiring Speakers Gala on Wed 9th July. The talk is called Breaking Tradition: How to Live Unbound and looks at the life lessons that I learnt from exploring the story of my great gandmother who had bound feet.

Yang-May Ooi talking about bound feet – her left hand stands in for a crippled bound foot

If you enjoyed the work in progress performance of Bound Feet Blues on 26 March, my talk will look behind the show at my personal crisis that led me to find out the story of my family heritage. I also talk about the life lessons that I was able to draw from the courage and spirit I saw in my great grandmother who was able to transcend the brutal limitation imposed on her by her cultural tradition.

If you haven’t managed to see the show but would like to get a flavour of what is in store when the full length performance of Bound Feet Blues is showcased later this year, Breaking Tradition will give you a feel for what lies ahead. Someone who saw me do a snippet of the talk said: “I feel as if I’ve just seen a feature film in 4 minutes!”

The Inspiring Speakers Programme - Gala Finale July 9th 2014

I’ll be giving this talk as part of … Continue reading →