A little bit of Commedia

First of all a note - I didn't blog last week's session.  Sorry guys.


Here are a couple of pics to remind people of what we did:

Briefly - we worked a bit more with narrative styles, and building up sculpts, using the Tea Kettle, to continue to familiarise ourselves with the story.  

  

Use of voice - e.g., intonation, clarity, emphasis, and changing metre is vastly improving, and I noted that now we need to work with movement.

We haven't done much on dexterity, because most of the movement style we have studied so far has been the slow, measured movements of the 1st story, the Thunder Good.  However, the narrator is intended to be a nimble, childlike figure, a magical makebelieve story teller, and, especially when trying to read from the book, we do need to work on a more flexible, nimble movement style.  There are also times when the characters in the story need more of a flexible, dance or acrobatic movement style, for instance, in the storm (Good Thunder) or the Badger (Tea Kettle).

Gabi gave a half hour session on Commedia De'll Arte.  We decided on this because in Commedia, the stylised, characteristic movements of the stock characters are very important.  They also add to the theme of the characters, which can be seen along the same lines as archetypes and thus can be lent to many other themes or works.

Each person in the group worked on a character, developing movements that show the characters themes.  for instance, Capitane - rather vain and grandiose, Harlequin, nimble, trickster, the Lovers, romantic and sexual.  At the end of the session we improvised a scene around the theme of a cafe, and two characters trying to get served.  It was very crazy with lots of things happening at the same time, and lots of movement.

This immediately led into the next part of the session, in which I instructed each member of the group in methods to further develop their character.  They each worked from 3 positions, that began as a sculpt, 1st position was standing, 2nd position sitting, and 3rd on the floor.  They also each chose a rythm for themselves - 2/4, 3/4, or 4/4.  In this rythm - including breathing, each person developed a movement sequence (motif) for each sculpt.  The rhythms really helped to describe the character, and added much interest to the movements.

It was quite special observing the characters taking shape as each group member worked alone for a while, moving around each other, and changing position, finding motivations, facial expressions became more animated, movements became more nimble and finely tuned.  

We then allowed the characters to interact.  We set up a performing area and an audience area, and in twos, the group improvised an interactive scene, starting with a scenario - e.g., dog walkers on a hill watching the sun set, or teachers in a staff room, and having only one rule for interaction - they must not be in the same position at the same time.

Giving the characters the opportunity to interact showed how each character, although very stylised and with just 3 motifs, could have very different responses in different situations.  these responses were gauged by things like size of movement, speed, energy, and facial expression.  

Finally, each person, in role as their stock character, read some of the Tea Kettle.  Again, they were given tasks.  They had to weave around the audience, sitting directly beside one audience member and engaging them personally, they also had to use all 3 positions.  

Each character gave a completely different style of reading, and each one engaging and energetic.  Which were very funny, and a delight to watch.

Next week we will continue on the same theme.  The group will be asked to familiarise themselves with parts of the story so that they can work without the book in hand, and thus free themselves up for greater movements, as well as not having the problem of losing their place on the page.