Workshops
Embodied learning through theatre, circus, and play.
Ruthie is an applied arts activist, using theatre and circus beyond entertainment alone. Since 2024 she has hosted workshops in Embodied Mask, Corporeal Mime, and Character Creation at the Hybrid Movement Lab in Brooklyn. Her workshops have also been hosted by LA NAVE at El Calderón Teatro in Valladolid, TACU, Linden Global, and other international theatre and social justice spaces.
Her summer workshops in Berlin explore how puppetry and storytelling can support social and emotional learning for young people on the spectrum. She currently collaborates with Linden as an applied arts facilitator.
Ruthie has taught workshops and been an artist in residence at the Rhode Island School of Design, Brown University, Antioch College, the Fulbright Fellowship, the House of Yes, the Sable Project, La Main Collectif, and the City University of New York with the Creative Arts Team.
Her applied arts work spans schools, prisons, refugee camps, special-needs centers, and programs for undocumented children. She often works alongside licensed therapists and learning specialists, bringing artistic and mental-health teams together to provide thoughtful, well-supported experiences.
Workshop Menu
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What's So Funny?!
An Exploration into Physical Comedy and Clown
This one or two-part workshop can be modified for participants of all ages and experiences, looking at how we honestly find humor through the body and perform clown. This workshop is a physical approach to creating comedy and is not dedicated to act development.
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Inside – Outside
A one or two-part workshop based in corporel mime techniques, teaching participants of all ages and experiences how to use dynamo rhythms, muscular tension/relaxation, and counterbalance techniques to communicate emotions, events, relationship, and narrative. This workshop is perfect for artists looking to expand how they physically communicate, discovering the body in physical conversation with the same attention to detail they would give to a text.
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Finding Your Funny
Clown Creation and Act Devising
This two-part (or series) of workshops supports participants looking to discover their own clown using the pedagogies of Jacques Lecoq and Étienne Decroux. This program looks at the body for truthful connection with an audience and discovers the joy and absurdity in everyday experiences and identity guiding via the concept of physical contradictions for the creation of narrative and comedy.
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The Poetic Body
A workshop for circus artists, actors, and dancers, that will forever change how physical artists empower themselves approaching body as text using corporeal mime, larval mask and clown.
Reviews
“Ruthie is an incredible movement teacher whose workshop is full of possibility, exploration, and joy. She invites her students to discover new modes of storytelling through the body—with a sense of play, curiosity, and care.
Throughout the class, Ruthie’s expansive knowledge of movement practices was woven seamlessly into each moment. Each learning and discovery felt intuitive, as if we were uncovering these tools ourselves, gently guided by her thoughtful structure and insight. She is such a joy to learn from.
I highly recommend this class to anyone working with their body—whether through theater, clown, dance, or any physical storytelling practice. You’ll walk away fuller, funnier, and more connected to your own poetic body.”
“Ruthie Scarpino’s joy and passion for everything she proposes and invites you to undertake in her workshop is magnetic and contagious. From the first to the last moment there was a fun, playful and creative presence brought to the exercises.
Ruthie Scarpino’s direct experience with the play and work supports you. With Ruthie’s depth and understanding of technique I made bigger commitments to in-the-moment creative choices and found connection with others.
I dont have to think about whether or not to take another class with Ruthie Scarpino its just a matter of how soon one is offered!
If your reading this then you’ve wasted this much time not signed up for a class with Ruthie Scarpino.
I am literally counting the days until Ruthie is back in NYC teaching her next class.
When the seemingly simplest actionable instruction brought so much creativity and excitement that I tried to do all of them at once, everything suddenly seemingly impossible, stuck, Ruthie’s insightful side-coaching brought clarity and constructive results.”
“Ruthie’s class was really really good, diving into the specifics of body movement to communicate emotion. I highly recommend her as a teacher.”