Second only to her love for acting, Siobhán is also an accomplished stage combat performer, a Fight Director and an FDC Certified Fight Instructor.

Since her first National stage combat workshop in 2001, Siobhán has taken workshops and studied with almost 50 different Stage Combat Instructors, Fight Directors, and Historical Martial Artists from 8 different countries.

She began movement training very early in life with ballet. In her teens, she switched to Shaolin Five Animals Kung-Fu for 3 years (including 2 and a half years of also teaching for the children’s program). Upon her return to ballet, she added various forms of dance, including jazz, tap, modern and pointe, and eventually went to post-secondary school for musical theatre at the Canadian College of Performing Arts in Victoria, BC, where she got her first real taste of swordplay.

Upon her solid foundation of dance and Kung-Fu, she began studying stage combat in earnest after completing school in 2001, when she attended her first Fight Directors Canada (FDC) National Workshop in Montreal, beginning her love affair with dramatic violence. A natural performer and instructor, she was soon assisting in stage combat workshops with her husband Matt Richardson, also a Fight Director and actor, and apprenticing with various Fight Directors around Toronto.  She quickly attained her basic, intermediate and advanced actor combatant certifications, and was award the Best Performance Award at the 2002 FDC National Workshop. Six years and several workshops later, she earned her Instructor's Certification. The last several years have included travelling around Canada and the United States to study with other practioners, directors and instructors in this engaging art form.

As an instructor for adults and theatre professionals, she begins with solid basic technique. As actor/combatants advance and they begin to feel more comfortable with the movement, more emphasis is placed on "acting the fight," or making the violence believable from a character standpoint, maintaining motivation throughout, and seamless transitions into and out of the violence, so that the scene doesn't stop for the fighting. The purpose is to give people tools and techniques, so that they can go into a stage combat situation and -- more confidently than before -- act and perform the choreography given to them by that show's Fight Director. Though a continued course of study is preferrable, "brush-up" sessions and "crash courses" are also available as preparation for an upcoming role.

Private and semi-private lessons and can be booked at siobhanrichardson~at~gto.net.

When instructing youth and children, her mission is to teach them to perform staged violence with a strong emphasis on safety, communication and co-operation with their partners. In addition, she wishes to educate young performers, so that when they enter community and professional theatre, they are aware of safety in rehearsal and on stage, empowering them with the awareness to protect themselves and their partners.

School Workshops can be booked through Do Your Thing Productions or at the contact above.

FIGHT DIRECTION:

Siobhán is on the Equity Fight Directors list, and has been an FD professional shows for LKTYP (Touch the Sky), Native Earth (Death of a Chief), and Team Epic (www.teamepic.tv). She choreographed the violence for Martin Buzora's "Lost?" Music Video, which was first runner-up in Cold Play's Competition.