Spotlight On: Clare Kerrison
Clare Kerrison is an experienced improv teacher, performer and arts administrator. She has been Business Manager for BATS Theatre, a stilt-walking clown in Germany, a physical theatre actor and spearheaded the NZ contemporary adaption of Hedda Gabler, directed by David Lawrence.
From 2009 - 2015 she lived in Cambridge, UK where she created an improv school and co-founded the Cambridge Improv Factory. She’s also played in London Harold teams (including performance art trio The Dreaming) and been a regular character in Bristol’s long running improvised soap opera, Closer Each Day.
She’s stoked to be back in Wellington in 2016 and able to use the word ‘stoked’ again. You can find her at @suriahslip or www.suriahslip.com.
Why are you excited about coming to NZIF for the first time?
I've been to a few improv festivals while living overseas. It's exciting to be back in NZ and able to come to our own festival!
What do you get out of festivals like NZIF (or NZIF specifically)?
Improv Festivals like NZIF are our version of an industry conference. They give me a chance to check in with the thinking and skills of the best of the best, a chance to play with folk from different styles of improv and a chance for all of us, public included, to see world class comedy and theatre, all made up right in front of us!!!
What will people taking your workshop/attending your show get out of it?
With my workshop, Story Theatre: Big Group Scenes, I want to open minds to the performance art side of improv, the beauty and theatre of what a melding of minds can achieve collectively in the moment. For improv students who cringe at the idea of stepping outside their comedy safety zone, Lyndsey Hailey from iO in Chicago says: 'If you aim for beauty and fall short you have comedy; if you aim for comedy and fall short you have nothing.'