Stage Combat Certification Course: SAFDi and BADC
MELBOURNE: Saturday 24th May to Sunday 1st June 2025 (rest day Wednesay 28th May)
A unique and exciting opportunity to train in industry-recognised STAGE COMBAT CERTIFICATION courses, for the Society of Australian Fight Directors inc. (SAFDi) and British Academy of Dramatic Combat (BADC).
WHAT IS IT?
The only course of its kind in Australia, this 8-day intensive course offers certification in the SAFDi Fundamentals and BADC Standard courses – which are professional standard certifications in Australia and the UK.
The SAFDi Fundamentals and BADC Standard (Level One) Certifications are the industry entry-level in dramatic combat training, and are recognised in Australia, the U.K., and internationally. These courses train you in the essential technical and performance skills needed to perform dramatic combat safely and effectively for the demands of professional work in stage, screen and motion capture.
Working with Fight Directors Lyndall Grant (SAFDi, BADC) and Josh Bell (SAFDi), the 8-day workshop will lead you through rigorous training in stage combat technique, illusions, forms and craft for unarmed combat, working with a single sword, and using a quarterstaff.
Importantly, we also explore how you best achieve as an individual artist, developing challenge areas and drawing on strengths, so that you gain the understanding, proficiency and agency you need to unlock your best work in this exciting aspect of performance. So we also explore movement, conditioning, rehearsal techniques, story-telling, and applying consent-based practice to free up creativity and performance in a space.
The certification courses culminate an a choreographed fight scene performed under exam (‘opening night’) conditions, as the assessment for the certification. Successful completion of the certification provides you with an industry benchmark that recognises your competency in performing stage combat, that can be used by casting directors and fight directors across the industry locally and worldwide.
The SAFDi Fundamentals certification is a prerequisite for any practitioner who wishes to train towards becoming a SAFDi Fight Director.
*A minimum of 40 hours for the BADC and 50 hours for the SAFDi certifications are required to be eligible for certification, therefore participants must attend each workshop day. Please note that undertaking the course does not guarantee successful certification – however you still will have benefited from the training*
WHEN IS IT?
Saturday 24th May to Sunday 1st June 2025 (rest day Wednesay 28th May)
10:00am to 6:00pm
WHERE IS IT?
Dancehouse Carlton
150 Princes St, Carlton North, 3054
WHO IS IT FOR?
This workshop is created for anyone with an interest in the performing arts – actors, dancers, circus performers, stunt performers, directors, stage management, other creative and crew… or someone dipping their toe into the Arts for the first time.
Captivate actively supports diverse and equitable work- and learning-spaces. We also fiercely protect safe work- and learning-spaces for all of our participants. If you have any concerns or questions please get in touch with us.
DO I NEED ANY EXPERIENCE?
The BADC Standard and SAFDi Fundamental courses are designed to cater to performers of all levels of experience. We also cater to all levels of physical fitness and abilities, although do note that intensive training does have a (satisfying!) physical impact.
HOW MUCH IS IT?
EARLY BIRD: $955 (+GST) – register and finalise payment by 31st March 2025
CCONCESSION: $1055 (+GST)
STANDARD: $1155 (+GST)
Exams fees are payable in addition to the workshop fees and will be collected just prior to examination: $50 for BADC, $50 SAFDi
A deposit of at least one-third of your course fee is required on registration. Places are confirmed only on completion of full payment, which we kindly ask to be completed by 24th August 2024. Please note we are unable to hold places without a deposit, and any payments made are not refundable.
We accept online transfer (no admin fee), PayPal (3% admin fee) and Square Online Payments (2.2% admin fee), so let us know what is the easiest method of payment for you.
HOW DO I JOIN IN?
Entry to the course is through application. To be first considered for the course, simply fill out an application now:
Make sure you get a text box confirmation that your appliction form has gone through as soon as you SUBMIT. If you do not hear from us within 48 hours, check your junk mail, and then send us an email.
About your tutors:
LYNDALL GRANT (she/her) is a Fight Director, Movement Director, actor and Motion Capture Specialist who works in Australia and Internationally for stage and screen. She is a senior teacher and Management Committee member for the Society of Australian Fight Directors, and certified Dramatic Combat teacher with the British Academy of Dramatic Combat. Lyndall currently teaches stage combat at the Victorian College of the Arts, 16th Street Actors Studio and National Theatre Drama School.
Lyndall trained as an actor as London’s ArtsEd School of Acting, before specialising in fight performance and physical performance. She began working as a fight director in London in 2010. In 2013 Lyndall established Captivate Action Ltd. in the U.K., as the first company to specialise in training and performance in action and Motion Capture, and brought this company home to Australia in 2016. Lyndall was an actor and movement captain in Melbourne’s production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child from 2018 to 2022
Recent fight/movement credits include Oscar (The Australian Ballet); Rusalka (West Australian Opera); The Picture of Dorian Gray (Michael Cassel Group); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf, Sunset Boulevard, Groundhog Day The Musical, Death of A Salesman, An American in Paris, 2:22 A Ghost Story (GWB); Beauty and the Beast (Disney Australia); Cost of Living, Topdog/Underdog, The Almighty Sometimes, 37, My Sister Jill, A Very Jewish Christmas Carol, Is God Is, Sunday, As You Like It, Berlin, The Lifespan of a Fact, The Architect, Cosi, Torch the Place, The Lady in the Van, Astroman, Lillith the Jungle Girl, Straight White Men, Melbourne Talam, Macbeth, Hungry Ghosts (Melbourne Theatre Company); Cruel Intentions the Musical (David Venn Enterprises); Nosferatu, Looking for Alibrandi, Atlantis, The Return, Because the Night and Cloudstreet (Malthouse Theatre); 37 (Queensland Theatre Company); Sunday, Is God Is, Lord of the Flies, Cosi (Sydney Theatre Company), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?, Blackout Songs, The Way Things Are (Red Stitch); Il Viaggio A Reims (Opera Australia); Things I Know to Be True (Theatre Works); Milked, True West, Two Remain, Punk Rock (45 Downstairs), The Importance of Being Earnest (Theatre Royal Haymarket, U.K.), Alice in Winterland, The Wind in the Willows, The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe (Rose Theatre Kingston, U.K.), Henry IV Part 1 (St. James Theatre, U.K.).
JOSH BELL (he/him) is a journey-level fight director, actor and theatre-maker based in Melbourne. Under the mentorship of Lyndall Grant he is an assistant fight director at Captivate Action, and is a member of the Society of Australian Fight Directors. He has a BFA in Theatre Practice (Acting Company 2016) from the Victorian College of the Arts. Josh has regular teaching engagements teaching stage combat to students across public workshops, university and secondary schools – including Collarts, Grace Acting Studios, National Theatre Drama School and Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School.
Fight credits include The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Slay Theatre); 12th Night, Hamlet, The Whale, Julius Caesar and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Melbourne Shakespeare Company); Powder Room (MC Showroom); Crocodile Fever (TART Theatre Collective); The View From Up Here (The Voice in My Hands, Theatreworks); Gundog (Three Fates Theatre); Cloud 9 (VCA); Everyone is Famous (Riot Theatre); The Cane (Red Stitch Theatre); The Human Voice Project (Periscope Productions); and Stockholm (Et Tu Theatre).
Got questions? Get in touch
