Siobhan Richardson: How To Succeed When You Have More Than One Passion

How do you juggle multiple skill sets? How do you keep your skills sharp?

Joining the conversation on Cue To Cue this week is Performer/Fight Director/Intimacy Professional Siobhan Richardson who advises us to always reassess and rebalance on what makes us happy, not what other people think you should be.

Are you suffocating because you’re selecting what you should show the world? Are you being the fullest version of yourself?

Release yourself from those shackles! You can be more than one thing at a time and still find fulfillment. You can enjoy and thrive in the diversity of your passions!

In this episode:

How breaking the shackles from the expectations of others allowed her to thrive in different forms of art and creativity
How ballet triggered her journey in movements arts to discovering stage combat and scenes of intimacy
The importance of points and pathways in embodying the required movements for scenes of violence
The impact of communication in knowing if someone is in trauma response versus being uncomfortable with scenes of intimacy

by Chelsea Johnson | Cue to Cue

A little about Siobhan:

Siobhan Richardson is an award-winning actor/fighter/singer/dancer, Fight Director and Instructor, and Intimacy Director and is a pioneer voice in the Canadian Theatre Industry regarding Intimacy in Performance.

She is the preferred Fight Director and Instructor for a number of theatre companies, actors and directors, and a certified Fight Director with Fight Directors Canada. Stage combat teaching has, likewise, taken her across Canada, the USA and Europe. She has taught at international events such as the “Paddy Crean International Art of the Sword Workshop”, “The World Stage Combat Certification and Teacher’s Conference”, “Fight Directors Canada’s National Workshops”, and the “Nordic Stage Fight Society’s Summer Workshops”. In 2009, she received a “Chalmers Arts Fellowship Award” from the Ontario Arts Council, which allowed her to travel to Washington (DC), England and Sweden to study with some of the world’s foremost Fight Directors: Brad Waller, Jonathan Howell, Tim Klotz and Peppe Östensson. She has completed three separate teaching tours of Europe which included Sweden, Norway, Estonia, England, Ireland, Scotland, Finland, Germany and France. Siobhan‘s approach to teaching stage combat draws parallels to the actor’s process in order to connect fight technique to the characters objectives, obstacles and tactics. From a physical perspective, her classes examine structure and biomechanics to prevent injury, while expanding physical vocabulary.

She had been teaching Intimacy extensively across Canada for the 2.5 years before Pandemic, travelling from Vancouver to Halifax to teach this work, in professional and amateur settings, and in educational institutions. She has also shared these techniques across the United States and in Europe. She is the first certified Intimacy Director in Canada (Intimacy Directors International), was the first ACTRA “Intimacy Coordinator” contract and the first Intimacy Coordinator contract at Ubisoft.

Her work as a fight director and/or intimacy director has appeared at The Shaw Festival, the National Arts Centre Indigenous Theatre and English Theatre, The Stratford Festival, Native Earth Performing Arts, Tarragon Theatre, Factory Theatre, Soulpepper, Canadian Musical Theatre Projects, The Grand Theatre (London, ON), Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company, Young Peoples’ Theatre, Starvox Entertainment, and Coal Mine Theatre, to name a few.

Meanwhile, she continues to perform as an actor/fighter/singer/dancer, most recently Faking It (#canadaperforms, NAC), The Penelopiad (Grand Theatre, London, ON) and A (musical) Midsummer Night’s Dream (Driftwood Theatre). When at home, she and her partner, Matt Richardson, teach stage combat (private lessons, workshops for actors, and workshops in schools). In the 2013-2014 school year, Burning Mountain was on the Ontario Arts Council’s “Artists in Education” roster, a program that subsidizes professional artists in high schools. In 2011, they won the Stage Combat Competition at CombatCon (Las Vegas), and later shot their scene “Trespasser” for film.

Always infusing Joyfulness and Curiosity into the work, Siobhan is dedicated to the growth and development of the art forms, the artists and the workplaces. She builds upon current practices, inspired by historical sources, drawing upon a variety of styles and approaches, infused with some science and developing ideas. Her approach to teaching movement arts draws parallels to the actor’s process in order to connect movement technique to the characters objectives, obstacles and tactics. From a physical perspective, her classes examine structure and biomechanics to prevent injury, while expanding physical vocabulary. She endeavors to foster and support a vibrant and healthy artistic community, and to help performers around the world connect more through their bodies to continually grow as storytellers and joyful co-workers.

Follow Siobhan!