The actor-combatant (a professional actor who can also perform fight scenes) who actually gets work must be versatile enough to work with the needs of each production, so is cross-training in several martial arts a good thing?

Two Kinds of People

I hate to be one of those people who divides the world into two kinds of people, but in this case, there really are:

1. People who learn actions through physical repetition
2. People with general body-control

Students often begin to study physical movement from an awkward phase of rejecting the physical play of their childhood and turning to books and the stage as an intellectual or emotional pursuit. They forget how to swing on monkey-bars or climb a tree.

The awkward young adult who has not played sports wants to make their stage movement an intellectual pursuit, and it makes sense to repeat like memorization the leg and arm displacements.

With enough practice in various directions, varying speeds and different goals, the repeater can become a generalist who can quickly learn a new hand position or stance or balance point. However, many adults remain stuck in the Repeater phase.

You Can’t Rehearse Versatility

If you’re the kind of person who gets into a certain way of moving, and you have trouble changing the pattern, you should stick with stage combat as your single pursuit.

If you’ve recently said “Sorry I did that step wrong, I’m too used to stepping like that in Karate,” then you should stick with as few distractions as possible until you feel mastery.

Stage combat skills are designed to be generic, so that the actor with little time or limited training can apply the same motions to different weapons. Your best path to better movement and especially improved stage fighting is to devote more time to practicing stage combat.

Plasticity

You don’t need to be flexible to display your plasticity: it’s your ability to conform to a new pattern. With enough general skills, your body will be ready to refine existing movements, or creatively invent new positions.

If you’re the kind of person who likes to observe a stunt, and can reproduce it pretty well without much coaching, then seek out as many different experiences in physical expression and combat as you can:

• dance styles
• Western swordplay
• Eastern martial arts
• yoga, gymnastics, running and parkour

Should I Specialize?

There’s no doubt that having more skills is better, and above the Basic Actor-Combatant level, FDC expects your plasticity to improve.

But once a performer has several martial arts in their “bag of tricks” and the ability to learn new ones fast, is it better to focus, or to keep expanding that base?

There are two logical arguments:

1. More skills = more types of shows = more work (reputation: Can Do Anything)
2. Higher skills = directed marketing = work that I like (reputation: Master Of Thing)

In an article for FDC’s newsletter, Daniel Levinson once related that Fight Master Simon Fon told him that stage combat is not a speciality, and every high-level performer should decide on a further refinement.

It’s the answer to the question: What’s your favourite weapon? In a way, it’s a silly question. In another way, it’s a good marketing tactic.

Can’t It Be Both?

I believe that an Advanced Actor-Combatant should have a speciality in mind, as well as a wide base of skills.

Here’s your carrer path:

1. Learn Basic stage combat
2. Pick a martial art in which you can get local training, and study that for a year or two (while taking Intermediate stage combat)
3. Pick another martial art or dance or movement style to practice, while reading about and testing out other skills from videos, online and books (while taking Advanced stage combat)
4. Keep researching until you feel that you could mimic pretty much anything new someone demonstrates to you.
5. Re-focus on your favourite style or combination of styles to show off your best skills, and have clear ideas about how you’d choreograph an ideal fight.

You’ll find that all fight choreographers are expected to know all historical eras, and duplicate any martial art worldwide. Therefore, generalized skills are indispensable. But you’ll never get work by saying “I can do anything, really!”

Instead, build on your general skills by telling people that you’re especially good at X. That way, you are top-of-mind when anyone needs that particular art. If you’re lucky, a director may even design a production to show off your speciality.

Most actors learn stage combat for a specific role while in rehearsal. My belief that every performer before leaving acting school should have Basic Actor-Combatant certification wth Fight Directors Canada does not have widespread support.

Therefore, the majority of actors already have a scene to fight to.

But actors who are taking the full stage combat course need to find three scenes of about 3 minutes. One for each weapon tested. Where does one find fight scenes for tests, or just for the fun of it?

FDC Requirements

The scenes must:

• Be from a published play
• Last no longer than 3 minutes (5 minutes with the fight included)
• Contain information about what each character has at stake and why they are fighting.

Feeling the Shakes

Shakespeare is not only replete with violence, but his scenes are great for the actor in several ways:

• Due to the type of audiences and theatre he wrote for, the scenes almost always repeat key plot points so we know what’s going on.
• Actors who don’t normally work on stage can stretch their acting skills
• The adjudicator will appreciate the effort, and their familiarity with the scene may lead to higher scores.

Where are the good Shakespeare fight scenes? Ask me for the full list, or consider the following plays with more than one awesome scene:

• Macbeth
• Henry IV
• King Lear
• Romeo & Juliet
• Twelfth Night
• Troilus & Cressida

Collections

Besides Shakespeare, there are plenty of authors from the classics and contemporary theatre who include lots of fights, and you can often find their works in collections.

Consider these playwrights:

• Alexandre Dumas, Pere: The Count of Monte Cristo, The Man in the Iron Mask, The Three Musketeers
• Moliere: Don Juan, The Miser, Tartuffe, etc.
• George F. Walker: Zastrozzi, Tough, Heaven, etc.

The Anthology

Any anthology of scenes for two actors will have scenes of conflict, whether they are fights or not is a matter of interpretation (see blow on Clip and Edit). I know of only one anthology of scenes that is made for stage combat:

They Fight: Classical to Contemporary Stage Fight Scenes by Kyna Hamill

Standard Fight Scenes

I would love to give each fighting pair a standard scene, but that would not only be unbearably boring for the adjudicator, it would set up the students to compete on acting the scene.

Our goal is good fights in the context of a scene, we don’t need to compare actors on their acting skills within the scene. 

Clip and Edit

Grab the nearest script. There will be a scene of disagreement, since conflict is the essence of drama (a great writer once said)… make that conflict your fight.

Any scene in which two characters have a strong disagreement (even if there’s no mention of swords or physical violence) can be a fight scene. The student can insert a physical fight into a scene in which the characters only yell at eachother. Or you could upgrade a fight from “she slaps him” to “she attacks him, and they fight.”

The rule is this: you can change stage directions, but you can’t change the written dialogue.

Just remember that we need to know why the two characters are fighting, and keep it short.

And in case it wasn’t clear: No, you may not write your own scene for FDC certification.

On Sunday, one of our most popular workshops debuts for the new year. Here’s a smattering of what we’ll learn:

Fairburn-Style

Javelin-Style

The London Riots (no laughing matter… feel free to chuckle, though):

Penguin-Style (not Linux, you geeks!)

Batman: Umbrella Attack (Flash game)

http://dcbeyond.kidswb.com/games/umbrella-attack

Poppins-Style

If you can find one, I’d recommend the Poppins, which will allow you to fly, and only occasionally talks back:

Bartitsu-Style

This Sunday, 22 January 2012, we’ll be exploring the most effective uses of the umbrella for self-defense. We draw mainly from Victorian Bartitsu, plus adaptations from older systems designed for longsword and new systems of combat in modern urban settings.

See you at 2pm. Sign up now at Academie Duello (412 W Hastings St, Vancouver. 604-568-9907), this workshop fills fast.