WALLA WALLA, Wash.-- Whitman College senior Amanda Walker will spend next
year developing her "soldier spirit" and studying theatrical combat in the United Kingdom,
Germany and Austria, thanks to a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for overseas study.Walker, a 1993 graduate of Walla Walla High School who is majoring in theatre and English at Whitman, has felt a kinship with Joan of Arc, "the girl with the soldier spirit," since performing one of the French martyr's speeches early in her acting career. Several years ago she also acquired an intense interest in theatrical combat, a method of movement which facilitates careful choreography of fight sequences in a way that eliminates danger for the actor and audience.
A stage combat course she took as a first-year student at Whitman fascinated her, she says, and she excelled in the course to the point of receiving a semester grade of 130 percent. This experience led to her current position as unofficial fight choreographer at Whitman's Harper Joy Theatre, where she has accumulated 17 production credits over the past two and a half years. "Nothing compares to the satisfaction I experience when combining my intellectual and physical talents to create stage combat," Walker says.
In her year-long Watson project, Walker will study with several professional fight directors in London and study the weapons and armor of Medieval and Renaissance combat at museums and castles in England, Scotland, Germany and Austria.
In Walker's proposal to the foundation, she noted that theatrical combat is an unusual pursuit in which no long-term professional training programs exist. She has attended two short workshops and trained privately with Gregory Hoffman, a certified instructor and professional choreographer, in broadsword, unarmed, quarterstaff, smallsword, rapier and dagger, and has received certification as an actor/combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors. The Watson grant will allow her to pursue her interest in this field, as she has arranged apprenticeships with three professional fight directors in London, and will seek out others once she arrives in Europe.
"The Watson Fellowship will allow me to travel to new locales, work with people I have never met before and study a tradition which embodies the 'soldier spirit' of my inner being," she says. "I will have the opportunity to perfect my technique and study the history of weapons and armor in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It will enable me to understand the greater historical tradition of combat and therefore understand my place in history and connection to earlier combatants."
Walker also said she looks forward to the personal journey that her year abroad will afford her. Living independently in a foreign place, she believes, will teach her self-reliance, resourcefulness, creativity, strength and confidence. "I will travel and fight, while I inwardly discover and enhance my 'soldier spirit.' This spirit has existed in me from early in life and if developed fully will carry me throughout my experiences."
Lenel Parish, Whitman College News Service, (509) 527-5156
Email: parishlj@whitman.edu