Ailing Characters, Paper bag masks and The Good Thunder

12 June 2011

The second of the three hour sessions.  We are keeping energies up by:

1) a variety of sessions within the three hour period.
2) different people facilitating workshops or experiments.
3) using both physical and creative elements to keep peoples bodies and minds active.


Well done everyone for keeping up with it.



Today's sessions were:
Role development

This fisherman found a fairy with arthritic wings.
She recalled with sadness and longing the days when she
could fly.
He was reminded of a mermaid he once knew.

Careful what you find at the end of the garden!
 And beware the perils of  'helping'.

- improvisation using roles that people play in the stories, acted as if they were much older or had become disabled, or carers.  Everyone in pairs, working out characters/relationships, then meeting up "in the park" (we used the garden), and improvising as a group.  Different elements came out in the pair work to the group improvisation, and in the pair work especially, I found myself thinking this would be a very interesting thing to do with a dramatherapy group - perhaps with families or other systemic groups, even team building exercise for professionals.

Finding a gesture to describe an element of the character.
this  physical play is an essential part of the  role development

The exercise gave the group members a chance to look at the character through different eyes, through the imaginary eyes of the characters future self.  This gave a different insight as the imaginary future self had some interesting observations to make of themselves in their younger form, just as we do in real life!

A 1st Experiment with Masks


One of the group has been reading Lecoq and Callery, and worked with us on a group experiment using a paper bag as a neutral mask.  The mask gave a feeling of anonymity and freedom, but often this followed an initial inhibiting factor as people realised that they could only communicate with their body.  People enjoyed using the mask, sometimes not wanting to take it off.  Next week we will do another mask experiment, looking more at the dynamics of 

People enjoyed wearing the paper bag mask,
it afforded anonymity and freedom.

Being an audience member, or a witness,
 is a big part of the training, and sharing of what we are learning.

movement - Callery speaks of our own potential for movement and expression and exploring this.  There isn't a set technical way of moving in this work, rather it is for the actor to explore and develop their own range of expressions.  The role of the audience in this experiment was to inform themselves, and the mask wearer, how they experienced the masked action.  






We sometimes found it was very hard to give a clear image of the theme we were trying to convey.  
A sign that a good group cohesion is being formed is that people are becoming quite honest with each other.  

The Good Thunder


Because it was into our 3rd hour now, I led a vigorous physical warm up.  Each person started with a fairly small gesture, which the group reflected.  In stages then we made the gestures larger and larger until the whole group was jumping in the air, swinging their limbs, and rolling around on the floor.  At the end we finished with a very tiny set of gestures, also based on the first, accompanied by a sound.  I was amazed by how energetic the group was in doing this, and will certainly use this again - maybe even forming it into a sort of dance.


Anyway - onto the Good Thunder

After an initial 'blocking' session,an actor stands in for the narrator,
whilst she rehearses in another room.

I do believe that we have finally started to actually choreograph this piece as it will finally be seen.  This includes the part of the narrator.  The group divided into two, with half of the group working with the narrator on the movements and expressions that she will use in the performance, and the other working with Rai Den and Rai Taro.  Right at the end, we bought the two together  and the separate performances became one dynamic piece, with one performance taking place around the other, and the two performances describing each other.  This worked very well to my mind, and I think we will work like this more often.