Stage Fight/Stunt
Safety – Cooperation – Martial Arts – Mime – Dynamic Expression – Acting

Stage Fight for everyone with
Tina Robinson

A combination of martial arts, acting, mime and fight technique, modern or historical, with or without weapons in hand. It must be able to express the dynamic movement desired by the director in order to tell the story.

Although stunt and staged combat are similar, the main difference is:

Stuntwork: Dangerous and/or spectacular action combination for theater, TV or film. Stunt performers either replace actors or do the stunt scene(s) themselves.

Stage fight: Physical conflict for theater, TV or film, with or without weapons. Usually performed by the actual actor(s) involved in the scene.

For Action Performances: See Lectures or Acting.

Instruction/Workshops

For any form of workshop, we start with a warm up which includes stretching and strengthening exercises as well as exercises and games for body awareness and basic techniques in stage fighting. The participants then learn different fight techniques ending with creating a fight scene and performing these scenes for each other as a “work in progress”. 

The class size can be from two to one hundred or more. It just depends on how many teachers and assistants are needed and the size of the space. The duration of a workshop can be from 1 ½ hours to several weeks or on-going. Normally a weekend workshop is 10 – 12 hours and includes training with one to several weapons. The basic weapons to choose from are:

1. Unarmed, including rolls and falls, basic stunts.
2. Rapier
3. Rapier and dagger
4. Broadsword (medieval, viking, renaissance, etc.)
5. Sword and shield
6. Quarterstaff/ spear
7. Knife/medieval dagger
8. Small sword (baroque up to modern)
9. “Found weapons” is an expression used for anything not normally considered a weapon yet is used aggressively as a weapon in an action/fight scene.

Choreography/fight direction 

Fight choreography is storytelling. I respect and take into consideration the actors’ level of competence, the director’s ideas and the story to be conveyed. A fight director is important not only as a third eye, but also to make sure the action is expressed in a sincere way, true to the style of the play/film and above all: SAFELY. Most often it is the simplest forms of physical conflict, for example a slap in the face, that is the most difficult to execute safely and believably.  

Types of workshops 

Introductory, bachelor/bachelorette party, child-parent, weekend, fencing or unarmed, team building

Schools/institutions: In conjunction with theme projects: Viking/medieval/renaissance market, sports day, anti-racism, violence awareness, theatre/film projects, and so on. 

Motion Capture
Used in conjunction with computers to create character movement for computer games, films and cartoons. I did the movements for most of the female roles plus movements of some of the male characters for the computer games Hitman 2 and 3 and Freedom Fighters for IO Interactive, as well as Age of Conan for Funcom.

– Age of Conan
– Hitman

Horses and Safety

Safety requires knowledge, training and detailed planning, and even more so when horses are involved.

Often times safety experts who are hired are only competent in one specific area. These experts are adept, qualified, serious and know their job. When working with horses, it’s important to have a safety coordinator who is not only a horse trainer but is also experienced in film and working with actors.  

**For more information see under Horses

Action Art | Skråplanet 31, 3500 Værløse | CVR: 17573780
Phone: +45 40 79 26 79 | Mail: tina@actionart.dk