Alongside her teaching at Helikos, Sarah is Co-Artistic Director of the Nomadic Theatre Co in Portland, Oregon, where she has collaborated in devising and performing of eight original productions, including her solo apocalyptic clown show, "The Last Show You’ll Ever See" which has played in 6 states and various festivals including The New York Clown Theatre Festival and will soon tour to Canada. As a teaching artist through Nomadic, she teaches experiential, movement-based theatre residencies in schools and camps, and runs clown and physical theatre workshops for adults. Sarah also performs independently around Portland as an actor, clown, and stilt walker, and teaches through a variety of theatre organizations, including working as a writing coach and actor in PlayWrite Inc’s playwriting workshops for at-risk youth.
In 2005 Sarah went on her first expedition with Clowns Without Borders-USA, and has since continued to perform and teach clown through CWB in Southern Africa and Haiti. She has served on the Clowns Without Borders-USA Board of Directors since 2007. In 2011, the Portland Juggling Festival honored Sarah with the Ben Linder Award for most inspirational juggler.
Sarah Liane Foster is an actor, teacher and creator. She has been a member of the Helikos Core Pedagogic Team since 2011.
Sarah is a magnum cum laude graduate of Brown University where she recieved a BA in Literature, with honors in Creative Writing. During her undergraduate studies she also began to realize and pursue her interest in actor-created, movement-based theatre, training at The Celebration Barn Theatre in mime with Tony Montanaro and studying clown with Avner Eisenberg and Julie Goell. After Brown, Sarah headed to the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, where she graduated from the Professional Acting Training Program in 2002.
Sarah trained in Red Nose Clown and in Theatre Pedagogy with Giovanni Fusetti. In 2010 she was awarded the Portland Theatre Guild’s Leslie Fulton Fellowship to travel to Italy and continue her pedagogic training at Helikos.
Now on the Helikos faculty, Sarah teaches Movement Analysis and Acrogioco. Acrogioco (A-kro-JO-ko) means acrobatic play (giocare, in Italian, means to play). In Acrogioco Sarah explores with the students how to engage with physical effort and momentum in a theatrical space. Through games, exercise, tumbling, and partner acrobatics, students practice the kind of trust, give-and-take, listening, risk, physical commitment, control, abandon, and availability that they will need on stage. Throughout the Helikos pedagogy, acrogioco classes cover technical skills and dynamics of play specific to the theatrical territories.
While teaching at Helikos Sarah publishes a weekly blog called "Avventure".
For further information about Sarah's work please visit www.nomadictheatre.org.