Workshops

Holly’s workshops are designed to be of benefit to both professional performers seeking performance skills training and the brave and curious seeking self-development. Through skillful holding and carefully paced progressions of games and exercises, Holly creates the ideal conditions that allow creativity, play, insight, wonder and discovery to thrive.

Holly has been devising and delivering workshops for adults since 2007. She draws upon her huge history of training and experience in many areas, including: improvisation, clowning, fooling, dance, physical theatre, voice work, creative writing, dramaturgy, dramatherapy, mindfulness, playwork, group process, nonviolent communication and laughter yoga to deliver bespoke, bountiful group experiences. To read more about Holly's experience or see her TEDx Bristol talk, click here.

See below for a full list of Holly's workshops. If you have a company or are an individual artist looking to commission your own bespoke training, have a look at what’ s on offer and get in touch with Holly to begin co-designing your ideal workshop. Holly’ s workshops range from 2-hour play sessions to 10 day residencies.

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE

6th September 2021

Hello dear reader,

Holly here, with a COVID update to let you know where I'm at with the workshops.

I'm getting a lot of requests for my in-person Introduction To Clowning Weekend. This makes my heart sing as I used to love teaching this course!

Here's what I know - I haven't started hosting my own in-person clowning or fooling workshops again since the pandemic, as I haven't quite figured out how to make it safe in the current conditions. So much of my work is about releasing breath as a way of accessing and expressing emotions. If I cut the breath release, we lose the heart of the work!

I held a conversation looking for solutions with a group of improvisers at a recent Devoted and Disgruntled Open Space event, and have had many opportunities to try some of these solutions out, through taking on a range of in-person consultancy for theatre companies. With smaller groups and clear boundaries, I've been able to experiment with different ways of working. Clarity is coming, but it's taking time.

In the meantime, I have been writing a book about facilitation (thanks to Arts Council England) which has led to developing a new in-person and online facilitation training called The Well-Held Space. This course is designed to work in the current conditions and allows me to begin a new chapter for Holly Stoppit Workshops in a post-coved world.

The pandemic gave me so many opportunities to reinvent myself. I'm so grateful to have had so many chances to learn how to teach online with Robyn Hambrook, as one half of The Online Clown Academy. We devised and co-facilitated a series of Zoom courses and ran two incredible online conferences, Clowns In Crisis and Clowning Out of Chaos. We connected with an international throng of clowns through our events and facebook group. I also got to learn about digital and hybrid performance alongside my company Beyond The Ridiculous thanks to The Wardrobe Theatre and Arts Council England for their generous support.

My work is changing, I am changing, the world is changing. Will I ever go back to running my beloved clowning and fooling workshops? At this point, I really don't know. But watch this space and sign up to my newsletter at the bottom of this page to find out!

Love and laughter,

Holly x

Upcoming Workshops and Events

The Well-Held Space: Creative Facilitation Training with Holly Stoppit

I'll be offering two versions of this new training course, one in person in Bristol UK and one online.

Explore the theory and practice of creative facilitation, and develop the confidence, knowledge and skills to facilitate groups in a safe, responsive and playful way.

Bristol Version:

2nd and 3rd October 2021
30th and 31st October 2021
27th and 28th November 2021
Plus a one-hour one-to-one online session with Holly in the week of the 29th November 2021
Deadline for applications: 9th August THE IN-PERSON VERSION OF THIS COURSE HAS NOW SOLD OUT

Online Version:

23rd and 24th October
20th and 21st November
11th and 12th December
Plus one-hour one-to-one online session with Holly in the week of 13th December
Deadline for applications: APPLICATIONS ARE BACK OPEN FOR THE ONLINE VERSION OF THIS COURSE.

More about The Well-Held Space: Creative Facilitation Training here.