Improbable Summer Workshops 

Monday 15th July - Friday 26th July 2024

 
 

For almost thirty years, we, at Improbable, have been developing our improvisational practice. We have taken this work all over the world from Syria to Sydney, from rooms above pubs to grand opera houses. We have been peripatetic and have grown an incredible community of practice on our travels. Now, for the first time, we are rooting ourselves in a specific location, making a home at the beautiful Bore Place, in Kent, UK - A 500-acre regeneratively managed historic estate.

As part of our new chapter, we have committed to holding an annual summer workshop series at our new home. In this, our second year, we want to focus on PLACE as both a theme and an embodied experience. Come and join us on this practical, imaginal and profound journey of staying put, of reconnecting to each other and our surroundings, and of re-finding who we are, here and now.

Both weeks will be residential at Bore Place with a cohort of max twenty people each week. Applications are now closed. Thank you to everybody who has applied, we will be in touch in due course.

  • Monday 15 – Friday 19 July 2024

    “This is maybe the chief ethical and political challenge presented by life in the Anthropocene. To finally match our obvious and increasing interdependence with an appropriate breadth of care.” Daniel Sherrell from Warmth

    The beauty of playing in an improvised scene is that you could be anyone, doing anything, anywhere in the world or beyond it - a child, searching for treasure, on the moon - and yet you are also always exactly yourself, making up a story, precisely where you are. We have taught this for years - the importance of presence, of atmospheres, of sensing the space between each other, listening, moment to moment, to what is alive in the field, and responding to it. And now? Part of what is 'in the field' are the actual fields of Improbable's new home in the Kentish countryside, as well as the much wider issue of the environmental crisis unfolding across a myriad fields and diverse landscapes on the earth.

    This week is an invitation to share and experience Improbable's core improvisational practice, with a particular focus on place, on allowing our improv to be in dynamic dialogue with the fields, nature and the world. Because after all, the skills we practice as improvisers - of listening, responding, adapting, relinquishing our plan in order to listen some more - and the understandings into our subtle and complex interdependence that impro makes vividly apparent- are perhaps what the world needs more than ever right now.

    So whether you are an actor or an activist, a poet or a scientist, a leader or a loner, or are simply feeling lost, we invite you to join us as we bring our practice into conscious relationship with the Bore Place fields, the dormice that nest there, the bats that flit above them at dusk, as well as to the issues we are all facing. Who will we become, what will we do in the world, in this week and beyond, when we start to listen deeply, first and foremost, to where we are?

  • Monday 22 – Friday 26 July 2024

    “Your great mistake is to act the drama/ as if you were alone…../ To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings…. Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation.” David Whyte from ‘Everything is Waiting for You’

    Improbable’s earliest shows evolved from working with simple, found materials - newspaper, sellotape. We let our relationship with these materials unfold and grow: we made an outdoor spectacle, an architecture of sticky tape; we made an opera with ten foot high puppets from newspaper. What could we make, if we follow ourselves and the materials we find in and around Bore Place? Sticks and stones, willows and an old brick works - join us for a week of following, finding, making, and animating. A week of improvisation in collaboration with the materials around us; a week of puppetry, poetry and play. A week of practicing, in a tangible, practical way, how to hold a creative conversation with the landscape around us, because it might hold surprising stories, waiting for us to find them, and let themselves be told. Whether you are a maker, a performer, a gardener, a naturalist, or simply someone who has ever wondered what a bit of wood would want to say, given half a chance - this week is for you.

  • When

    Week 1 Monday 15 – Friday 19 July 2024

    Week 2 Monday 22 – Friday 26 July 2024

    The weeks will run from Monday morning to Friday lunchtime, further details on schedule will be shared as applications open.

    Where

    Improbable Summer Workshops are residential. We’ll be onsite at Bore Place and sessions will take place in the Large Barn and across the site.

    All food is provided in partnership with Bore Place and communal cooking and eating will be part of our time together.

    Transport will be provided from Sevenoaks station at the start and end of the week or you are free to make your own way to us.

    Address: Bore Place Road, Chiddingstone, Edenbridge TN8 7AR

    What?

    Each week will include

    • Up to twelve workshop sessions across five days led by Improbable’s artistic leadership Co-Artistic Directors: Phelim McDermott and Lee Simpson and Associate Director Matilda Leyser.

    • 4 nights’ accommodation at Bore Place.

    • All meals and refreshments throughout the week catered for.

    • Transport to/from Sevenoaks station on arrival and departure days.

    How much?

    £2,500 +VAT for a private room

    £2,000 + VAT for a shared twin room

    On application you will be able to select your accommodation preference. This is subject to availability.

    Bursaries: One bursary place per week is available. This place is fully funded with travel costs to and from Bore Place covered. This bursary is intended for someone in receipt of income-related benefits and who otherwise wouldn't be able to attend due to financial barriers.

    We appreciate that not everyone can qualify for benefits for many reasons, if that's you and you do want to apply for a bursary there is an option to tell us a bit more about you on the application form. This will be held confidentially and we may discuss it with you if we offer you a place.

    If you have any questions about whether you can apply, you can get in touch by emailing office@improbable.co.uk. Our phones aren't always manned but we'll arrange a time to give you a ring.

  • When applying there will is a section where you can tell us about any access requirements so that we can ensure to accommodate them during your time at Bore Place with us.

    Please note - Bore Place House is not fully wheelchair accessible. Level access accommodation is available onsite in the beautiful cottages and there are level access spaces for the sessions indoors. We expect some of the sessions to take place around the site, including sessions on the move and time in wooded locations. How and where sessions take place is flexible to needs of the group.

    Full information on the accessibility of the site at Bore Place can be found on the Bore Place website here.

    If you have any access requirements, you’d like to discuss ahead of submitting your application please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team by emailing office@improbable.co.uk or by calling (+44) 020 7240 4556

    The form also includes a space to provide information on any preferences you have on room sharing to ensure everyone is assigned a room they feel comfortable with.

  • Applications are now closed.

  • Email: office@improbable.co.uk

    Phone: (+44) 020 7240 4556.