For our summer project this year, we were very excited to welcome UYA alumna Grace Ford back as a guest practitioner. Grace is training on the BA Acting and Fight Performance Course at East 15, one of the UK’s top drama schools, and we asked her to come and share some of her fight performance training with our actors for a series of mini-action films.

In July and August, Grace joined us in our weekly sessions to lead several workshops and teach our actors how to perform intricate fight sequences in a fun and safe way. The actors worked incredibly hard to devise the action films and took the safety elements of fight performance completely seriously. As well as exploring hand-to-hand combat, the actors also got to experiment with using everyday objects as makeshift weapons and Grace did an exceptional job of finding ways to incorporate all of the actors’ ideas. Together they created some brilliant pieces.

It’s so important to us to continue to give our actors exciting opportunities and it’s always useful for them to learn new techniques. It was wonderful to watch our members explore a brand new skillset whilst also watching a much loved former UYA member thrive in teaching her craft. At our annual awards evening this year, hosted by the Y Theatre in Leicester, we were delighted to premiere the final films with our actors, their families and friends.