Workshops, Lectures, & Demos
Ring of Steel has a variety of workshops prepped for many different events, venues, and themes. From hands-on workshops to more traditional educational lectures, learning has never been so fun! Our demonstrations can be themed around popular genres (pirates, Star Wars, superheros, etc) or even academic topics (arts, film, physics, history, English literature, etc). We are also able to make custom workshops upon request. We have given our popular hands-on presentations at events including:
- Michigan Educational Theater Association Thespian Festival
- KCACTF Regional Thespian Festival
- Steampunk Empire Symposium
- North American Science Fiction Convention
- Daishocon
- Youmacon
- ...and at numerous high schools, parties, and private events.
Popular topics include...
Swordplay
There’s nothing quite as exciting as learning to use a sword for the first time. Ring of Steel’s swordplay workshops take participants from the very first steps of sword fighting all the way up through learning a simple piece of fight choreography. You don’t have to be in theater to enjoy a swordplay workshop. We’ve taught actors, dancers, boy scouts, librarians, opera singers, engineers, steam punks, and many more how to safely wield a blade for stage.For theaters and educational groups interested in more in-depth instruction, we can also put together a series of workshops leading up to more complicated choreography. Or, we can assemble a custom workshop series covering multiple stage combat disciplines, ex. swordplay, hand to hand, and quarterstaff, with up to 16 weapons forms available. Contact us for more details.
Theatrical and film productions wishing to train actors and/or stunt performers for an upcoming production can arrange for a swordplay workshop to be part of their choreography package. Even when only a few actors are going to be fighting on stage or for the camera it can be educational and enjoyable for the rest of the cast and crew to take a turn at stage combat. Visit our Choreography section to learn more about training packages.
Hand-to-Hand
While hand-to-hand combat may not use long pointy objects it brings the fighters very close to each other increasing the chance of accidental contact. In Ring’s hand to hand workshop (and yes, it’s “hands on”) we go through the steps that stage combatants utilize to prevent them from actually striking or causing damage to each other.In addition to covering a standard set of punches, kicks, and body blows, we can also take participants through the workings of devices such as slaps (no, you don’t just hit the person), bites, hair and ear pulls, and even carrying and dragging people around the stage. While some of these actions may seem straightforward there’s a right way to do them which protects both giver and receiver from potential injury.
Hand to hand combat can be offered as a single workshop, as a series of workshops allowing for more techniques to be covered, or as one of a series of stage combat workshops covering multiple subjects, ex. hand-to-hand, swordplay, and whip work, with 16 possible weapons forms to choose from. Contact us for more details.
Theatrical and film productions wishing to train actors and/or stunt performers for an upcoming production can arrange for a hand-to-hand workshop to be part of their choreography package. Even when only a few actors are going to be fighting on stage or for the camera it can be educational and enjoyable for the rest of the cast and crew to take a turn at stage combat. Visit our Choreography section to learn more about training packages.
