A Complicite Workshop
Moving Colour
with
Catherine Alexander
in the studio
Availability is limited–book now
Complicite
Complicité is an international touring theatre company based in London led by Artistic Director and co-founder Simon McBurney. Complicité creates work that strengthens human interconnection, using the complicity between performer and audience that is at the heart of the theatrical experience. Complicité works across art forms, believing theatre, opera, film, radio, installation, publication and participatory arts can all be sites for the collective act of imagination.
Complicité’s recent work includes Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Figures in Extinction [1.0], Can I Live?, The Encounter, The Master and Margarita, Shun-kin and A Disappearing Number, as well as The Dark is Rising, a new audio drama for BBC World Service and BBC Sounds based on Susan Cooper’s cult novel. Founded in 1983, the Company has won over 50 major theatre awards worldwide, and played in more than 40 countries.
Colour
This workshop is grounded in Jacques Lecoq’s extraordinary work on colour from both the theatre training and the Laboratoire d’Etudes de Mouvement. The day will also explore devising tasks exploring colour which have been used in the Complicité rehearsal room.
Working with colour is one of the most elusive, subjective and beautiful parts of the Lecoq training: it leads us into a place of personal perception, uncertainty and abstraction which can be as challenging as it is useful.
It can be helpful to think how colour imprints itself onto our self in everyday life. Humans can perceive up to two million different shades of colour and this perception has been key to our survival. Colour makes us ‘feel’ and ‘moves’ us but we all have different cultural and natural associations which are unique to us. How do we start to find a common language with colour and use this to collaborate as theatre makers?
Objects
In the workshop we will explore the spectrum by playing with how each colour moves and occupies space. We will play with rhythm, duration and form and start to create a dynamic movement vocabulary as a group. We will move through the whole spectrum and use this to create short movement dramaturgies and think about colour, characterisation and connection to different emotions. We will move on to explore a more complex colour palate and see how specific the dynamic movement of each colour can be.
The day will culminate in re-making paintings as group movement pieces focussing on the artist’s use of colour and space.
Participants will need to bring a small object for each colour of the rainbow: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. Something that they feel is as close as possible to the purest form of that colour. (See image)
Catherine Alexander
Catherine is a performer, director and writer. She studied Drama at Manchester University and trained at L'Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris.
She was Artistic Director of Quiconque (PUSH, Biscuits of Love, Hideaway and Big Bad Duvet Terror) and has worked with Complicité for over thirty years. Shows with Complicité include I’ll Take You To Mrs Cole, Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty, The Master and Margarita, A Disappearing Number, The Elephant Vanishes, The Chairs, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Out of a house walked a man….
Other directing includes Hexenhammer, Secretariat, The Gypsy Bible, Opera North, Touching Space Royal Academy of Art and The Boy from Centreville, Pleasance. Other work includes Is That All There Is? Volcano Theatre, Rhinoseros, Theatre Genedlaethol Cymru, Wild Oats, Bristol Old Vic, Coram Boy, National Theatre and Adventures in Moominland and Super Troupers for the Southbank. Catherine won the Young Vic, Jerwood Prize in 2006 and the Amnesty Freedom of Expression Award in 2011 for her devised production SOLD.
Catherine recently co-directed Rebel Voices for Complicité at Hoxton Hall and is currently collaborating with Welsh language theatre legend Eddie Ladd on a site-specific performance in a cow shed.
Who is this for?
Actors
Movers & Makers
Physical Performers
Devisors & Directors
Prices
Early bird till the 4th september 2025
£130
Troupe members use your personalised
discount code at checkout for £15 off
from the 5th September 2025
£150
Troupe members use your personalised
discount code at checkout for £15 off
Considering joining as a member? click here
faq
WHERE IS THE SESSION HELD?
Sadler’s Wells, STAGE DOOR (Studio C), Rosebery Avenue, London EC1R 4TN (Nearest Tube: Angel, Northern Line). NB. Stage door/Lilian Baylis entrance and NOT main theatre entrance.
Getting here.
WHAT DO I NEED TO BRING TO THE SESSION?
Water, snacks, lunch as you are there for the whole day and comfortable clothes to move in. Class is taken barefoot or in socks.
HOW DO I FIND OUT ABOUT OTHER SHAPES IN MOTION WORKSHOPS AND EVENTS?
Do sign up to our mailing list here, you can also say ‘hi’ on Instagram where we post regular updates.
WHAT TIME SHOULD I ARRIVE?
At least 10 mins prior to class start time. Please sign in when you get to reception.
Any concerns or if you need to let us know that you may be late email: [email protected]
IF I CAN'T MAKE IT, WILL I GET A REFUND?
Refunds are given, minus a £10 administration fee, if you withdraw your booking on or before the 25th of September 2025. No refunds after the 25th of September 2025.
HOW DO I BECOME A TROUPE MEMBER?
Details of who and how you can join as a Troupe member, to receive future discounts, can be read here.
Are you ready to develop your skills and inspire your creativity? Move with us and take your skills and confidence to the next level.