Monday
We started Monday's lesson with learning how to push a stick horizontally to one other. If you push sticks to each other instead of throwing them like javelins, if you are all stood in a circle and throwing them there is less chance that they are going to hit each other. Pushing sticks would be useful to use in a chorus action in Antigone because it could symbolize the build up of the fight of the brothers. As you increase the speed at which the sticks are being passed then the tension of the fight builds up.
We then moved on to an exercise where there was a leading stick in the air and we had to follow it with our sticks. We were taken around the room and experimented with what we could do with a group just following one member. This group travelling exercise could also be used in a chorus part as Creon could be the leading stick and the people that are following him are his servants who are trying to please him as he is a very dominant character.
We moved on to a experiment in two groups facing each other as though we were in battle. There was a leader in each group. As one group made an offensive move, the other would make a defensive move with the sticks and it formed a kind of fighting sequence between the two groups. This reflected the two brothers fighting and the opposing sides. The offensive and defensive actions were to reflect the juxtaposing sides as after the fight Creon declared that one of the brothers was right and one was wrong. The offensive group could be the brother that is declared as wrong and so if they were attacking the other group, the defensive group would be seen as doing the right thing.
We moved into pairs and come up with a small sequence of 3 moves that showed the two opposing sides. In my pair, we decided to use levels as one of the elements to our sequence that would show the most chaos and the business of a fight. If she attacked me low and then went down to her level and she would proceed to attack higher up. It allowed our sequence to flow nicely so that we could loop it easily.
Chipp asked us to follow one pairs movement and add sounds like grunts and hisses so that the atmosphere felt like we were in a fight with all the injuries that would be occurring and the atmosphere grew more tense and the louder the sounds got and the faster the movements became. We stood opposite each other and different ends of the room. With every movement that your side did you took a step and made a sound so that it visually looked like a fight. We moved through each other as the groups overlapped and I think that if we were to do the movement again we could increase the difficulty of the movements that we were doing which in turn would increase the tension of the room. Also as we crossed each other we could slow the tempo down. For example, when we were apart the movements would be fast and accurate but we started to cross each other the movements would slow down and become more chaotic and complex.
Wednesday
We started off by experimenting with everyone being in their own box and labeling the corners, floor and ceiling with numbers so that when we were asked to touch a number we could reach a touch the corner with our hands. I think that this box experiment reflected Antigone because she is stuck in a life which is controlled by Creon and she has to live by his every rule. We then had to reach the numbers of our birthday and make it easy to loop. After this, we added a rule that we had to only use our hands and knees to reach the points and be able to loop this as well.
We were put into pairs and had to perform our movements facing each other but not acknowledging one other. There was a rule then added that one person had to move and then the other so our moves were in response to each other and we had to make eye contact as much as possible. One person was given a small stick and the other was given a long stick and we had to make the sequence into a fighting sequence. Still making eye contact we had to then react to one other. So when my partner looked as though she was going to hit me, I reacted by leaning backwards and carried on with the movement.
We then put all of the different paired movements into a small space and see the effect that it would have. We then proceeded to put the movement in context and we started to walk in as though we were warming up for this movement which reflects the idea of metatheatre because we looked like actors getting ready for this performance. Building on this idea, we had to walk into the room as actors with coats and shoes and talk as though we were all relaxed and then we moved into our pairs and began the movement. I think that this juxtaposed the relaxed atmosphere of the entrance and then going straight into the seriousness of the fighting movement.
We were put into smaller groups that all had some connection between them which affect how we responded to certain people and added a little tension in the air between people that have had arguments.
Adding in a accident between the actors was the next step that we chose to develop. The audience had just seen this really quick movement that has been done with precision and then comes an accident in which one of the actors are injured and it puts the audience on edge as they think that we are trained professionals and then one of us ends up injured.
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