We began the class with a collective and simple devised jumping routine,
'the windmill dance'. Göze began the rhythm and the class joined in
mimicking the movement, where some found the combination of rhythm and
tempo difficult to achieve. Stamina was also needed during this routine as
it was repeated for a long time, again people found it difficult to keep
the energy. This was a helpful exercise to help us begin to concentrate on
our centre, and throughout the class 'the windmill dance' appeared
numerous times and became easier to accomplish.
In pairs we developed further our awareness of our centre where one
partner held the pelvic area (centre) of the other, supporting and moving
freely with them as they explored the space. After becoming comfortable
with the exercise, both partners were given the task to trick one another
without losing trust in their relationship. Tricking involved resisting
your partner's movement or grasp and trying to force them to take a
different path, which included varying tempos and heights. After a
substantial amount of time we began to move individually, attempting to
remember the weight of our partner's hands, which helped us become more
aware of our bodies. To many when working on their own they felt their
movements were more fluent. This exercise was enjoyable for its playful
nature, and most of the class found it helpful in exploring the body and
understanding their centre.
A chosen piece of text was to be learnt for this class, and we began using
the text through various vocal styles; abdominal tone (low), through the
chest, top of the head (high, resonant), nasal voice, and croaky throat
(most of the class found this particularly painful – perhaps we were
doing it wrong!). During the recitation of our texts in the styles
mentioned we also began to work on different effort and stress volumes, in
which Göze moved further away and closer to the class. Overall this was
successful in helping us to position our voice in different parts of the
body as we discovered that the body plays a significant role in supporting
the voice.
Finally in our last exercise we spent time working on pulling and pushing
movements/positions in pairs. The task was to find different areas of the
body to pull/push our partner using strength and agility, which for many
resembled wrestling. The objective was to assess the situation several
times, putting emphasis on where the bodies connect, and on finding a
significant position we were required to hold it for a few seconds. The
pulling and pushing exercises aided our understanding of the different
dynamics to which people lean towards, where some were experimental and
collaborative, and others were more passionate and animalistic. Six
positions (three pull, three push) were established between the pairs and
we began to work on them individually, remembering and exploring our
bodies, incorporating our learnt texts. With the guidance of speech we
also focused on percentage levels of status, 3% being extremely passive
and almost static, and 90% being explosive and filled with energy, which
is important to note that the percentage affected both speech _and_
movement. Many found concentration and coordination of text, memory and
movement hard to grasp, either putting too much emphasis on text but
little on movement. To find a balance between these elements was extremely
challenging, and most will find this exercise easier to achieve once fluent
with their text.
In all this class taught us new and challenging techniques, which enabled
us to explore the body in unfamiliar ways. By doing so we discovered our
belief that in theatre it is fundamental to know one's body and the role
it plays in supporting voice, posture, movement and status. We found these
exercises extremely valuable in understanding the limits of our body.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletethanks Julia and Becca! this is a great start!
ReplyDeleteA few notes:
It is the wind dance. That you remembered it as windmill dance is really nice however, it resonates with the circular relationship with the floor and also suggests being put through a mill with its tiring demanding nature. cool. do you remember what the source of the dance is? how/where/from whom I learned it? what else accompanies it, that we haven't yet gotten to?
you identified the various exercises and their main points accurately and found real nice articulations. I was wondering if you could also break your accounts up into various stages: for instance with the pushing and pulling, how did we go from just 'wrestling' to finding 'three actions' to working with text? do you remember how each task or element was introduced?
these questions are for the whole group, so jump in every one!
goze
we found three actions with our partner which we repeated until we were comfortable that we knew them well-that our body remembered the action and the individual feelings or memories we perhaps associated with them. We were then to work on these actions individually as if our partner was still there trying to be as accurate and true to the actions that we had produced in partners. For example, the positioning of our body in the space, the contortions of our body. The use of differing amounts of effort (3% or 90%) made us think about how the body changes according to the amount of effort- e.g 3%= perhaps a small movement of the hand or the eyes whereas 90%=the whole body full of energy, a faster tempo and larger movements. We then incorporated our text looking at how the body, particularly regarding the different % of effort had an impact on the voice and the way in which we spoke the words, for example 90% effort=perhaps faster more aggressive actions which in turn makes the spoken words faster, louder more 'energetic'.
ReplyDeleteHope my attempt to break it down is helpful!?
Does anyone else have anything to add or they found different?
Long blonde headed Becca