Helen Fost, United Kingdom 2024
Helen Fost graduated in Eng. Lit. from Oxford University taught English and directed theatre at Siena University in Italy, worked with Enrique Pardo and Pantheatre in France and in 1989 she began training in shamanic techniques and altered states of consciousness, working over two decades with traditional shamans in the Andes and Amazon and contemporary shaman Alberto Villoldo in the US and Manuel Schoch in Europe.
In 2005 she created Temenos Theatre as an experiment in contemporary shamanic performance, writing and performing regularly at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She teaches workshops for actors internationally. Her goal is to expand the potential of the actor to embody the power of the shaman.
‘Helen’s work investigates ways of expanding human potential for alternate modes of accessing reality in order to merge the extraordinary with the pragmatic needs of theater. She restores a power to the actor that is both ancient and futuristic’. (Michael Morgan, author of ‘Constructing the Holistic Actor’)
Moving between the lines: shamanic skills for actors
Using shamanic techniques to enter unfamiliar perceptual states we create a new relationship between the physical body and surrounding space. Inner stillness arises effortlessly as we disrupt habitual mental patterns and enter into a fluid dialogue with the invisible world of energy. We will explore breath, spontaneous movement and lucid dreaming.