PEDAGOGIC CO-DIRECTION:

Amy Russell - Founder - has taught the pedagogy of Jacques Copeau/Suzanne Bing/ and Jacques Lecoq for more than twenty years. She is also an award-winning playwright. She was a pedagogic student of M. Lecoq in 1997-98, and subsequently created a complete training based on this pedagogy under the auspices of Naropa University, the Naropa MFA in Actor Created Physical Theatre, and was Chair of MFA until 2010. She was Pedagogic Co-Founder of the London International School of Performing Arts (LISPA) in 2003, and lead teacher at this school in London and Berlin until 2017. She has taught workshops and trainings internationally, independently and for theatre schools and universities.

Amy is also a qualified and accredited Gestalt psychotherapist, a facilitator of group process for devising ensembles and an academic researcher.

She is currently pursuing doctoral research at the University of Tasmania. Her areas of research are focused on the interdisciplinary study of spatial theory and Lecoq’s devising pedagogy. Her dissertation, “Devising Lecoq’s Geodramatic Territories as Critical Spatial Practice” speaks to the possibilities that devising holds for understanding the social practice of space and the revolutionary potential of collaborative creation

Norman Taylor: Widely regarded as one of the finest international ambassadors of the pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq, Norman taught alongside Lecoq at the École Lecoq for almost 20 years. He is one of the few remaining first-generation Master Teachers of this school and is an authentic holder of this powerful pedagogic lineage. His specialty is Analysis of Movement and he has taught in over 30 countries at some of the world’s finest theatre conservatories. He is uniquely qualified to train teachers in the movement pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq, of which he has an unparalleled understanding.

Laboratory of embodied spacE

Aurelian Koch - Director - trained at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, where he also studied at the LEM (Laboratory for the Study of Movement), a course relating movement to architecture. In 1993, he co-founded Bouge-de-là Theatre in Oxford, where he was Joint Artistic Director for 12 years. He produced, designed and toured 7 professional shows and worked with young people on over 80 projects, of which, over 15 were devised shows. Aurelian has also designed for other companies, among them Foursight Theatre and Pop-up Theatre.

In 2002, Aurelian completed a three-month animation course in Bristol and has since worked with Aardman Animations. In 2005, he was appointed as the lead artist in the development of the new Pegasus Theatre building, working in collaboration with the architect’s design team to implement the public art aspect of the project.

Aurelian was involved extensively with 101 Outdoor Arts Creation Space in Newbury and, as a result, performed in the large-scale outdoor production of ‘Furious Folly’.

He taught the Spacelab at LISPA (London International School of Performing Arts) from 2005-2016 and is a freelance movement and design consultant working with companies like ‘The Clod Ensemble’. He is now the Director of the Laboratory of Embodied Space at Embodied Poetics, a programme offering workshops and residencies inspired by the LEM at the Lecoq school in Paris, which explore the fundamental relationship between the human body and the space it inhabits and how the two influence and change each other.

Aurelian lives near Oxford with his family.