Wednesday
Wednesday was our only lesson this week and we started off with a warm-up as we were told that we were doing physical theatre. We warm-up our shoulders, backs and legs before we started walking around the space. As we increased the pace up to a fast sprint, we had to be aware of the empty spaces that were around the space but we had to be constantly assessing where people were so that we didn't bump into them. I found this slightly challenging as I had to both assess where the gaps were but also the others in the space and seeing where they were also going.
The first exercise that we started with was to make ourselves as small as possible on the floor so I went into a fetus position and made my whole body, including my hands and feet, as small as possible and then we had to extend all of our limbs to a point that they couldn't reach any further. This meant that this wide open position juxtaposed with the small tiny position that we had done previously. We were asked to loop the two movements and try and extend it to a standing position. To adapt my movement I decided to be small close to the floor and then when I extended out, I stood up and was in my extended position stood up. Also we had to add an element of movement to the loop and so when we were stretched out I decided to step my foot out and then when i went small again I joined my feet so that I was moving around the stage step by step as I was getting smaller and bigger.
We then experimented with some ensemble pieces with the whole class so we were in a circle and we followed Chipp's movement. We were simply just stepping in and out of the circle whilst staying in time with each other and replicating Chipp's movement. We began to harden the movement so that we made a sound on the floor and began to quicken our breathing so that the stamping and harsh breaths created a tense atmosphere and then we began to soften the movement so that you couldn't hear the footsteps or the breathing so it became silent. If this was choreographed into a performance I think that it would be very effective towards the audience as the atmosphere was contrasting all the time and switching between calm and then tense.
Stage combat was what we moved on to next. We first learnt the basic punches, slaps and blocks. I learnt that when you punch someone (in stage combat) you have to slap your shoulder so that it makes the sound like your punching someone. Also the reaction is what makes it believable so the more you react to the punch or slap the more the audience will believe that you have actually been hit.
We created a piece of movement that showed a choreographed routine of punches, slaps and blocks in different speeds. The faster you went the more out of control it became and made it look more like a frenzy just like the fight between Antigone's brothers was. They fought to the death and as Creon says there was nothing left of either of the brothers and we wanted to bring that across in our movement.
This quick frenzied movement reflected a German choreographer called Pina Bausch, who has created many different lyrical and modern dances that reflected a story and or included the contrasting atmosphere by speeding up the movements and the breathing of the actors involved.
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