Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Developing the technique and revisiting early sculpts
The group is really getting the hang of the technique that we are using now, and I am amazed, because people there either haven't done drama before or haven't done anything like this style of drama. It's important for people to enjoy the moves and the sculpts that they create and feel comfortable with them, because this will affect how the audience respond to them, and yet I am asking the sculptactors to do things that are very different from their normal repertoire of actions. Often, when feeling on show, people perform actions quickly, trying to hide any imperfections. In this piece, every action is of utmost importance, every little move, from the little finger to the firm, centered thighs and abdomen. Facial expression, blinks, eye movement, all give meaning and purpose to the action, and accidental movements can confuse or dilute what is being communicated.
In the technique development part of the session, during a guided visualisation task, each member of the group 'went to the cinema, to watch their favourite film'. One moment from this film, of heightened intensity, was used later to start a group sculpt. Each person started their group sculpt, and without knowing the film or the plot, one by one, other members came and added to the sculpt. each time finding their position with a movement that lasted 10 slow drumbeats. "Really enjoy the movement, and the sculpt at the end", I instructed. "Like doing a deliberate fart", suggested a group member. Yes that was exactly it. With the confidence of someone who knows that they can have a really good fart in front of everyone in the room, make it as loud and last as long as possible, relish every moment of expelling the trapped air, and then bask in the final affect of their bodily act. This is the confidence, the joy in bodily function, and the pride with which I want the spectactors to engage with their movements and sculpt. No apology, no shakiness, no rushed nervous attempt to be invisible.
The closeness that the group is starting to experience is showing in the fact that there is more bodily contact between members. This is very important in a drama, and will be a future theme. I don't want to put people off by insisting that they have physical contact before they are comfortable with each other, but as this is naturally happening, then I think that it is time to develop this aspect of the drama. Actors touching each other is very important on a stage, it suggests closeness, familiarity, love, competition, far more than words or expression can. A simple touch is so powerful.
Before we started to rehearse the story, People walked around the room and experimented with different ways of moving and making sound by imagining the room was different colours. "The room is now yellow, it is completely yellow, and you are full of the colour yellow. How does the yellow feel? How does it move? What sounds does it make?" As one colour faded to be replaced by another, the group had the opportunity to experiment with different forms of expression and experience.
The rehearsal started rather late, and as the group are now much more confident and dramatically fluid, in future rehearsals, I will spend less time on the technique development phase and more on the story. We revisited the early part of the story and realised that we had tried to put in too much detail, laboriously depicting each part of the story. This is not necessary, as the narrator, a magical creature, will be entertaining and express the themes and emotions of the story, the pictures created by the spectactors changing only occasionally, in a way that magnifies the content of the story.
We discussed costume, and maybe masks for some characters. We will need to employ an artist to help us with these, and this will incorporate a fee, if only for materials. Added to the fact that we are probably going to have to pay for a venue soon, this means that we either have to become a constituted body, or affiliate to some other constituted body, in order to be able to apply for funds from charities.
Monday, 21 March 2011
Finally We Finished the Story!
We finally got to the end of the story. It took a while, but we have worked slowly and carefully, and spent time developing our physical and sensory repertoires.
This evening was a lively and funny evening. I decided to be more challenging than usual, and asked more of the group members than I have done previously. They rose to the occasion, and we had lots of fun, as the session was full of humour, which offset any anxiety around completing some quite challenging tasks.
Toungue Twisters
In order to get people to think about pronunciation I made up some tongue twisters. I used similar sounding letters to make them as difficult as possible, but in practice, once people had finished laughing at some of the ridiculous sentences I had some up with, they didn't have too much difficulty saying the sentence. the most silly, and difficult sentence was "Don't Try To Turn Tim's Tractor Too Tightly, Tractors Don't Terribly Tightly Turn", and the others weren't much better.
Once we had each mastered a Tongue Twister, we took it in turns to stand on the stage and take on a role. The group gave each person an age, gender, occupation and mood. I went first and was given 6 years old, a boy, a lumberjack and sad. Again there was a lot of humour. At this point the humour is a good thing, because people feel they are sharing in a game rather than being put to the test.
Finally, we each spoke our sentence again, in role only this time another member of the group had to go onto the stage with the actor and give them a verbal prompt/ motivation to say their line. This would normally be a question, to which the line would be an answer.
Evolution
We then did a physical warm up before going through an excercise that I devised last night, and which would be very good as a therapeutic session, although here we didn't enter the realms of therapy, it was easy to see how it could be used in terms of self exploration, personal role development, story work etc.
At the start everyone was asked to curl up into a ball - that was the egg stage. Then they placed themselves into a random position, one body part at a time, which was to be the fully evolved stage. By degrees they found three other positions that would gradually take them back to the egg stage. In each position I asked them to commit to memory how the position felt, what thoughts were going through their minds, and to label the position with a word.
Finally, each person, simulaneously went into the egg position, and then moved gradually, to the sound of 10 slow soft drum beats, to the second, and then the third, fourth and fifth. Each position was held for some time in silence as the group members focussed on the sensory, emotive and cognitive experiences that the sculp suggested to them.
At the end we chatted about it, and each person had had quite a personal journey through the sculpts. It had also been an enjoyable experience, which of course, was the intention.
I pointed out the connection between this task and the method we are using to perform the Japanese Fairy tale that we are currently using.
The final half hour was spent improvising the rest of the story, and instead of going through it one move at a time, I read the story in segments, tapping the drum, or one of the actors tapping the drum 10 times between each segment, as the cast slowly moved into what felt to be the right sculpt for that part of the narrative.
We did this twice, and then the session had to end because of time.
As we now have a complete cast of regular attenders, we will now focus further on role development, and begin to rehearse the piece as a complete work, rather than one part at a time. Each actor will end up with a sequence of movements and sculpts of their own, rather like a dance. These movements and sculpts will interact and connect with those of the other actors, and reflect the unfolding story. The final piece will be mostly slow and meditative, with a very energetic and noisy section in the middle, when there is a storm. Now we have a definate physical structure to the performance, I have said that I will mark out the story into sections, and we will have the physical movements scripted into the story, so that rehearsals will become more focussed. I envisage that the other two stories that we perform will take less time to rehearse as we now have a definate method/style of performance that has been devised through the previous rehearsals.
This evening was a lively and funny evening. I decided to be more challenging than usual, and asked more of the group members than I have done previously. They rose to the occasion, and we had lots of fun, as the session was full of humour, which offset any anxiety around completing some quite challenging tasks.
Toungue Twisters
In order to get people to think about pronunciation I made up some tongue twisters. I used similar sounding letters to make them as difficult as possible, but in practice, once people had finished laughing at some of the ridiculous sentences I had some up with, they didn't have too much difficulty saying the sentence. the most silly, and difficult sentence was "Don't Try To Turn Tim's Tractor Too Tightly, Tractors Don't Terribly Tightly Turn", and the others weren't much better.
Once we had each mastered a Tongue Twister, we took it in turns to stand on the stage and take on a role. The group gave each person an age, gender, occupation and mood. I went first and was given 6 years old, a boy, a lumberjack and sad. Again there was a lot of humour. At this point the humour is a good thing, because people feel they are sharing in a game rather than being put to the test.
Finally, we each spoke our sentence again, in role only this time another member of the group had to go onto the stage with the actor and give them a verbal prompt/ motivation to say their line. This would normally be a question, to which the line would be an answer.
Evolution
We then did a physical warm up before going through an excercise that I devised last night, and which would be very good as a therapeutic session, although here we didn't enter the realms of therapy, it was easy to see how it could be used in terms of self exploration, personal role development, story work etc.
At the start everyone was asked to curl up into a ball - that was the egg stage. Then they placed themselves into a random position, one body part at a time, which was to be the fully evolved stage. By degrees they found three other positions that would gradually take them back to the egg stage. In each position I asked them to commit to memory how the position felt, what thoughts were going through their minds, and to label the position with a word.
Finally, each person, simulaneously went into the egg position, and then moved gradually, to the sound of 10 slow soft drum beats, to the second, and then the third, fourth and fifth. Each position was held for some time in silence as the group members focussed on the sensory, emotive and cognitive experiences that the sculp suggested to them.
At the end we chatted about it, and each person had had quite a personal journey through the sculpts. It had also been an enjoyable experience, which of course, was the intention.
I pointed out the connection between this task and the method we are using to perform the Japanese Fairy tale that we are currently using.
The final half hour was spent improvising the rest of the story, and instead of going through it one move at a time, I read the story in segments, tapping the drum, or one of the actors tapping the drum 10 times between each segment, as the cast slowly moved into what felt to be the right sculpt for that part of the narrative.
We did this twice, and then the session had to end because of time.
As we now have a complete cast of regular attenders, we will now focus further on role development, and begin to rehearse the piece as a complete work, rather than one part at a time. Each actor will end up with a sequence of movements and sculpts of their own, rather like a dance. These movements and sculpts will interact and connect with those of the other actors, and reflect the unfolding story. The final piece will be mostly slow and meditative, with a very energetic and noisy section in the middle, when there is a storm. Now we have a definate physical structure to the performance, I have said that I will mark out the story into sections, and we will have the physical movements scripted into the story, so that rehearsals will become more focussed. I envisage that the other two stories that we perform will take less time to rehearse as we now have a definate method/style of performance that has been devised through the previous rehearsals.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Photos from 7th March
The peasant farmer takes Rai Taro, the son of Rai Den the Good Thunder, home to his wife.
Members of Konnektiv experimenting with movement and balance.
The group moved around the space, moving their bodies continuously, always being aware of where the centre of balance is located, so that when I said "stop", they could freeze, in the position that they were in, without shaking or stumbling.
Members of Konnektiv experimenting with movement and balance.
The group moved around the space, moving their bodies continuously, always being aware of where the centre of balance is located, so that when I said "stop", they could freeze, in the position that they were in, without shaking or stumbling.
Thursday, 10 March 2011
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