Time: May 22nd and 25th, 2015
Location: 4# Dancing Studio at Peking University
Within the two-day workshop, Professor Ellis Jones, the former vice principle of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the Creative Director of RADA’s Enterprise Company, provided an advanced training session focused on English communication skills to post-graduate students and Ph.D students from arts management programs in the School of Arts, Peking University together with other arts managing practitioners. Besides improving participants’ communication skills with English language, Prof. Jones also gave individual coaching on voice, tones, body shapes and positions to each participant.
Details of the Workshop:
The Goal is to promote the following abilities of participants:
n Ability to express ideas clearly and effectively
n Ability to resolve contradictions and conflicts
n Ability to listen and understand key points
Step 1: Vocal warm up
Step 2: Improve ability to express ideas clearly and effectively---- participants would give speeches one by one, and Prof. Jones provides a feedback on voice, tones, body shapes and positions after each speech.
Step 3: Practice listening skills---- participants would listen to some interesting pieces, and each participant then retells the story based on their interests and the key points they have caught from the story.
Step 4: Practice problem solving and conflict resolution skills---- assuming participants are in a real problem situation, and they need to suggest possible solutions through negotiation with other members.
Brief Introduction of Ellis Jones:
Ellis Jones is a British director and actor. In recent years he has been involved in training and directing, for sixteen years as a resident director at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and subsequently as a guest director for other leading drama schools in London and abroad, including the Royal Central School, and the Shanghai Theatre Academy. He became known for his role as the young apprentice "Hal Adden", in the 1970s children's comedy series Pardon My Genie. He went on to appear in many other television productions, such as The Squirrels, 1914 All Out, King Lear and Measure for Measure. In recent years he has worked extensively in the field of actor training, and as a theatre director and producer.
Jones was born in Petersfield, Hampshire. After graduating from the Drama Department of Manchester University, he worked as an actor, director and writer in theatre, radio and television, and was awarded an Arts Council Associate Director's Bursary in 1984. He has directed at many British regional theatres[citation needed], and from 1990 to 1993 was Artistic Director of the Century Theatre, Keswick, the precursor of the Theatre by the Lake.
He joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art as Head of Acting in 1993, was the Academy’s Vice Principal from 1998 to 2003, and Creative Director of RADA Enterprises from 2003 to 2009. In 2003 he created a programme of classic plays featuring RADA graduates on board the Cunard ocean liner, the Queen Mary 2 which is still a popular feature of transatlantic crossings. Ellis Jones is currently Lecturer in London Theatre for the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, and during 2010-11 was consultant Director of Acting Programmes for Tisch Asia, Singapore. He is also a guest director at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, China, and in October 2010 directed there the first-ever Chinese-language version of an Alan Ayckbourn play, "Taking Steps". In the autumn of 2012 he directed Rodney Ackland's "Absolute Hell" with final-year students at the Royal Central School, London. In 2015 Ellis will direct workshops at the Shanghai Theatre Academy and at Peking University, two public rehearsed reading of a new play co-written with Martin Wimbush" "Miss Wilson"s Waterloo" at the Finborough Theatre London, and in July-August Ellis has been invited to direct a series of European comedy workshops for the NYU Tisch Open Arts Program in Manhattan.