Thursday, June 30, 2016
Is There a Fight Choreographer in the House?
Stage Directions: Last week I traveled to Chicago to attend a stage combat workshop for stage managers offered by the Vagabond School of the Arts. Barbara Charlene ran an excellent workshop, taking us through all the precautions and questions to ask. But perhaps the best part of the workshop was the very first topic: how to find and compare fight choreographers.
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This blog post on stage combat is an interestingly important one to think about, as, like pointed out by the author, the question of whether a stage combat choreographer or fight coordinator is needed for something as small as an onstage slap, fall, etc. In my high school's productions in which stage combat has been used and performed (shows including Hamlet, The Liar, and Twelfth Night), we have always hired a fight coordinator who teaches student actors the basics of stage combat, choreographs all onstage fights and stunts, and trains another student to do fight call before every dress rehearsal, preview, and performance. Not only have students come to absolutely love doing stage combat and stunts during different productions, but it also make both the actors performing stage combat as well as our directors and other faculty feel much safer in the putting on of shows that use stage combat. Having resources like the ones mentioned in the article both about actors with special stage fighting training and where to find fight choreographers for shows can make it easier for stage managers, production managers, directors, etc. to find someone who is willing and good at their job to do stage combat for a range of different productions.
Fight choreography is such an important and high stakes part of theater. In my school’s recent run of Macbeth, our director brought in a friend of hers who had been trained in fight choreography and throughout the entire rehearsal process I was in awe of all of the control we had to attempt to exert over all of the moving pieces in the fight. The differences between fighting with daggers and broadswords were two huge parts of our training. All of the different safety precautions we had to take during rehearsals that had to be translated into parts of the show were massive. We were reminded how important all of the safety measures were when we heard about a school in New Zealand that recently did Sweeney Todd. The school used switchblades wrapped in duct tape, and on opening night two students were sent to the ER with cuts on their throats from the blades, and then the school reopened the show one week later. When I think about fight choreography, there are so many things that I immediately think about that have to happen to ensure safety, and it is instances like that in which I remember how important it is to emphasize and triple-check everything to ensure successful choreography.
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