Building Character in the Body with Hassan al Rawas (18th Nov)

A movement and music workshop on building character
Character does not start on the page. It starts in the body: how this person moves, what they carry, the tempo they live at, and what happens to all of it when someone else walks in. This workshop builds a character from the body outward, using movement and music to find the physical life of a role before a single line is spoken.
You will work from a state held in the body rather than shown, in the tradition of Pina Bausch, and let music drive the search: a track that finds your character's pulse, another that finds where they end up, the shift between them scored so your body learns the journey before your head can explain it. Then you bring that built body into contact with another, because character is never solo.

Who your character is only comes clear in the charged space between them and someone else. The words arrive last, over a body that already knows where it has been and who it is standing across from.
Bring a scene or a character you are working on now, or one that simply interests you. If you would rather not, scenes will be waiting for you. Either way you leave with a character you found on your feet, and a method you can run on any role, alone, long after the room empties.
Three hours, almost entirely on your feet.

Hassan Al Rawas is a Lebanese theatre director and educator based in London.  He brings a perspective shaped by a life lived across continents — one that grounds his belief that theatre can hold what the world would rather look away from, and his deep curiosity about the complexity of human experience.

Hassan holds an MFA in Directing and an MA in Performance from Northwestern University, where he also earned a certificate in Middle East/North African Studies. His work spans bold reinterpretations of classics, musicals, and the development of urgent new plays.

In London, Hassan is currently directing for Land Writes at Theatre503, an Arts Council England-supported new writing initiative exploring themes of land and identity.

Directing credits include Little Women: The Broadway Musical(Quintessence Theatre, Philadelphia), Ibsen’s Rosmersholm (Quintessence), Stephen Karam’s adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, The Orange Gardenby Joanna Garner, Les Misérables, and Sylvia by A.R. Gurney.

As an associate and assistant director, Hassan has worked on the world premiere of Jen Silverman’s Witch at Writers Theatre Chicago, the world premiere of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein at Lookingglass Theatre, and served as Associate Director on The Devil Wears Prada during its pre-West End development with Tony Award-winning director Anna D. Shapiro. He was also assistant director and dramaturg on New Jibla, a new musical at the Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Center in Kuwait City.