How To Teach Performance - PDF Version

Teaching Performance changes lives.

Do you remember when you discovered the joy of performing?. It lit a fire. For me it was in Primary School. A teacher I’ve long-forgotten had us running in circles pretending to fly. I’d never felt so free.

Sound corny?

So what?

She changed my life.

She lit a fire in me.

Someone lit a fire in you. Perhaps now, you want to light fires in others, to share what you know, to share your fire. Maybe with children, your community, other professionals.

How?

How to feel confident, competent and aligned with your vision? Most of us start by copying what we were taught. It’s a good place to start but it’s not enough. Exercises that worked when someone taught you, don’t work when you teach others. You need to go deeper, find our own voice. We soon learn it’s HOW you teach that makes all the difference. As the song says: ‘It’s not what you do it’s the way that you do it’.

To be confident, convincing and life-changing, start from WHY and HOW. To design and deliver workshops you need strong foundations. Inside ‘How To Teach Performance’ gives you clear foundations to build on. Any level, any art form, I show you essential questions to ask, offer clear perspectives and lay out a repeatable process for designing and delivering performance workshops. Together we'll develop language to explain and sell your workshops and clear, effective ways of communicating with students.

How can one book cover ANY art-form? WHAT you teach is based in your training - dance, theatre, circus, acrobatics, clowning. HOW you teach and WHY it matters is the subject of 'How To Teach Performance'. It's the difference between being ‘just another performance teacher’ and being someone with a unique offer.

For thirty years, I’ve taught and directed across worldwide in dance, theatre, physical performance, circus, improvisation and more! I’ve published two previous books. I’ve trained people in corporate and community settings. Though the language and exercises I use changes from group to group, my WHY and HOW doesn't. My WHY and HOW are the ground I stand on. ‘How To Teach Performance’ is based on ‘The Why and How Approach’. In this book you’ll discover: The 5 Key Questions to start from.

The first (and most important) job of any Artist-Teacher.

‘The Why & How Approach’.

Starting from the end.

Setting up your space.

Experiential Learning

The 3 pedagogies that should be present in any exercise.

Flow Theory and how to use what it.

The 5 (maybe 6) steps of The Learning Journey and how to guide your students through it.

The differences (and similarities) between online and offline teaching.

When a performance is not a performance.

3 types and 3 modes of feedback (and why it is so important to get it right).

Becoming present and how to make your students be present with you.

Self-care - and why it matters.

Over 190 pages ‘How To Teach Performance' is accessible, and concise. It’s an essential tool for Artist-Teachers, workshop leaders and people who direct and train performers through creative process. Whether you’re just starting out or wanting to dig deeper, it shares my three decades of experience in lighting fires in the souls of the people I teach.

There’s never been a more important time than now to Teach Performance. More than ever communities, children and fellow professionals need the deep creative and healing power of Performance.

So go out and teach. Teach excellently. Because what we do matters.

‘What I love about John's work is that it is based in really deep research’ (Circus Performer/Teacher - Greece)

‘You have a unique way of making things clear and understandable’ (Theatre Teacher - London)

‘I immediately found the knowledge you shared changed how I taught and understood my own work’ (Clown Teacher - Manchester)