Connecting Body, Audience + Space
How to stay present with your three silent scene partners
This week’s workshop is $17. Pre-registration suggested to guarantee spot.
ABOUT Shanda Bezic
Shanda Bezic is an actor, director, educator and clown. A Graduate of George Brown Theatre Conservatory and certified in the Lecoq pedagogy.
Recent acting credits include: Murdoch Mysteries (CBC), Culprits (Disney +), Accused (FOX), The Way Home (Hallmark Channel) and animated feature Red Iron Road (Plex and Amazon Prime).
Shanda has a passion for creating original work. She is a founding member and director of A Bit Much Productions recently premiering Canoe Lake for Theatre By the Bay. Bezic’s directing credits also include three original award winning one woman shows that have toured the Fringe circuit playing in Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, NYC, San Francisco, and Australia. All of Shanda’s directed works use a feminist lens, physical theatre, and the clown spirit.
As an education, Shanda has worked with Bad Dog Theatre, Pro Actors Lab, U of T, and The School for Theatre Creators (Italy) She has self produced numerous workshops and collaborated with experts from all over the world. Her most recent offering, Clown Witch, was crafted for women and non-binary artists of all disciplines to discover the power of Clown and physical theatre.
Her clown duo, The Sensationals have been playing together since they accidentally got thrown into BusketFest in 2014. Bezic and her creative partner, Michael MacEachern, create work that blends this serious with the absurd. Always physical. Always very dumb.
Shanda is so excited to be doing an extended teaching residency with Play Play.
Every week, we will try different methodologies to activate the creative engine, connect with our playmates, stretch our physical presence, and create bits and content.
My goals for each week, is to make you feel:
💪Empowered to use your body as a tool for creation, inspiration and source material
🎈Experience Clown foundations in a safe and nurturing space
🌳Expand and grow your self definitions (at least a lil bit)
🙌Through play, encourage you to become more authentically YOU and everything you are
😂 Most importantly, to connect with other creators and folks to engage in some silly weird wonderful fun together
Come Play! I promise you’ll have fun.
Play Play is a workshop series started in September 2022 by Janice Jo Lee and Oliver Georgiou with a vision to offer a variety of performance training based in clown and improvisation. We brought in guest teachers and covered an array of topics such as: physical theatre, Viewpoints, voice, contact improv, melodrama, artist statements, and more.
We encourage people of all abilities and backgrounds to join Play Play. Folks who are 2SLGBTQI+, racialized, or have different physical abilities are especially encouraged to attend. Contact Janice if you have any questions at janjolee@gmail.com.
Our workshops are held Monday nights 8-10pm at Sweet Action Theatre, in the Artscape Youngplace building, 180 Shaw Street, Unit 106.
HEALTH, SAFETY AND ACCESSIBILITY
Sweet Action Theatre has 3 HEPA filters and air conditioning. Performers may choose to wear a mask for the entire duration. Performers are asked to self-screen and stay home if feeling ill.
Sweet Action is a wheelchair accessible venue. Performers with access needs are invited to participate and contact Janice in advance (janjolee@gmail.com)
TESTIMONIALS
“The lab pushed me hard and kept me engaged throughout. Intense warm-ups and challenging ensemble exercises created a culture of hard work, risk-taking, and deep openness. It provided the opportunity to collaborate with new people, and gain new perspectives on the work. It allowed me to see my ideas and experiments in the context of other works, and to be influenced by them. The process of seeing the whole emerge from the pieces was transformational as a performer, and provided insights into developing a director's eye. I had truly succeeded in finding joy on stage--the very cornerstone of clown-based performance. Janice is welcoming, encouraging, and enthusiastic. She has created a safe space for people to be vulnerable, to take risks, and to grow. She is very receptive to new ideas and feedback, adaptable, and deeply respectful. She is amazing to work with.”-Creation Lab Participant, Spring 2023
“Janice creates magic through having genuine relationships with the artists that revolve around mutual respect, consent and honesty at every step of the way.” -Creation Lab Participant, Spring 2023
“Janice’s style of creation and discovery just works. She set up a space that was safe but also allowed us to possibly dig into some very uncomfortable territory as we explored our various “pain pieces”. A tricky task, but it worked. She knew when to interject with a different idea or approach, or to scrap something altogether when our ensemble was experimenting with different pieces. She also just sat back at times, and let us discover some things on our own; beautiful or funny or tragic things that we could weave into the show. I never felt silly (in a self-conscious way) or left out or ignored, and I’m sure that the rest of the cast felt the same way. She made sure we felt safe sharing ideas, and gave us ample opportunity to express ourselves in so many ways.” -Creation Lab Participant, Spring 2023
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR, JANICE JO LEE
“Lee has a mischievous twinkle in her eye and a marvellous spontaneity”–Now Toronto
“An iron fist in a slowly-removed velvet glove.”–Mooney on Theatre
Janice Jo Lee (she/they) is an award-winning queer multidisciplinary artist based in Tkaronto, Ontario. She is a second generation Canadian settler and twenty-seventh generation Korean. She is a folk-soul-jazz singer, songwriter, composer, sound designer, spoken word poet, actor, clown, satirist, and educator. She has facilitated Play Play since fall of 2022 at Sweet Action Theatre.
Janice is a hard femme, queer, radical, comedian, truth-teller and satirist. She is interested in using art to build flourishing communities based in justice and joy. Her work explores gender justice, antiracism, friendship, community, ancestry and the Earth. She has created theatre with MT Space, Green Light Arts, Theatre Passe Muraille, fu-GEN, lemonTree Creations, Randolph Kids, Le Project N’we Jinan, Theatre MADA and Cosmic Fishing Theatre. Recently she completed the Musical Stage Company’s Noteworthy Program for Composers and Lyricists.
Janice composed the book and music for her critically-acclaimed one-woman musical titled Will You Be My Friend (Dir. Matt White, Green Light Arts) a searing satire on cultural assimilation in Canada. She composed original music and sound for: This Is How We Got Here (Green Light Arts 2022), Shaded by Nada Abousaleh (Cosmic Fishing Theatre 2021), I Don’t Know (Theatre MADA/MT Space 2021) Dora-nominated Suitcase (Theatre MADA/Theatre Passe Muraille 2020), both by Ahmad Meree. Lee has released three albums of original music.
Janice has spoken word training with d’bi young anitafrika, Lillian Allen, bouffon/clown training with Adam Lazarus, Nathaniel Justiniano, and Deanna Fleysher, and physical theatre training with MT Space, and Fadhel Jaibi. Janice has worked as an educator for 12 years facilitating arts, anti-oppression and leadership workshops across Canada. She has facilitated anti-oppression workshops for University of Waterloo, Laurier Student Public Interest Research, Laurier Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto Faculty of Social Work, Folk Alliance International and Vancouver Poetry House. Janice has directed theatre creation programs for racialized youth with MT Space, Le Project N’we Jinan, and Randolph Kids.
In Waterloo Region, Janice Jo Lee was voted Best Performance Artist five years running from 2016 to 2020 (The Community Edition Newspaper.) Currently she is working on a new musical satire titled Man Baby and the Earth.