Knife Fights

As we begin week three, we've been phasing out of our workshops and phasing in to our Pre-Show rehearsals. One of the recent workshop days, known affectionately as “Combat Day,” involved all of the campers. Some were in an unarmed combat workshop with Jeremy West and some were in an armed workshop with ASC actor, Ben Curns.

Rather than finding some way of giving Broadsword lessons with improvised cardboard tubes, the weapon these campers learned to work with was a makeshift knife -- or paint-stirrers, to be more precise. Before he even handed out the paint stirrers, Ben proclaimed this maxim: “Every cool fight is safe. Not every safe fight is cool.” And before the campers held those stirrers, Ben and Emily (one of the counselors trained in stage combat) gave them all a lot to think about in terms of how to stand, how to hold oneself, and how to react to a partner in a way which is both cool and which promotes the safety of yourself, your partner and everyone else around you.

The campers started exploring the different knife grips, a variety of “I am ready to fight” stances, and then paired up ready to tell some stories. Whether you’re fighting or dancing or just talking to each other, you are telling stories about the relationship you and your partner have. How you move together tells what that that person means to you, how angry or scared or hurt or young or old that other person makes you feel. When Ben started teaching them a choreographed fight, which he demonstrated with Emily, every pair of campers copied each move in the fight as they learned it bit by bit, but every fight was different. Some of the stories told by the fights were stories about one of the two combatants being frightened and not wanting to fight. Some of the fights told stories that looked deathly serious. Some of the fights looked more like dances, because of the years of ballet training the two combatants brought to the space. Half the class would work at a time, which gave everyone a chance not only to work, but also to watch the others working, and sometimes presented the opportunity to give comments as well. For instance, “She points her toe when she thrusts with her knife. Did you notice? She’s like the ballerina of death!”



Throughout the workshop Ben reminded the campers again and again, “I would rather see a slow fight which is totally clean than a faster fight which is even remotely sloppy.” So the campers stayed slow, stayed cool, stayed in communication with each other, and stayed safe. By the end of the workshop, there were a lot of really impressive looking fights, all worked through with patience and careful attention to detail. In Emily’s words, “Perfection is all I ask.”