Frantic Assembly
Before we did the Frantic Assembly workshop I did a bit of research about the origins of frantic and their basics.
"Can you be terrified and fearless? That is how we started Frantic Assembly. We began with little more than a fierce work ethic and a desire to do something different and to do it differently. The name Frantic Assembly gives it all away. It conjures an energy created by joining together. It has always been about this energy and learning from each other. From a reckless leap into the unknown Frantic Assembly has developed into one of the most studied and praised theatre companies working today. Our ambition is that we continue to learn and remain committed to making brave and bold theatre. At times it is physically dynamic and brutal. At others it's proudly tender and fragile. Frantic Assembly has always been about more than the work on the stage. It is about the ethos of collaboration, of empowerment, of that constant desire to improve. It is about telling stories in a voice we don't always hear and about finding talent in places we don't always look. Over the years the Frantic Method of devising theatre has helped people understand and make work throughout the world. Founded in 1994 by Scott Graham, we have toured extensively across Great Britain and worked in over 40 different countries internationally collaborating with some of today's most inspiring artists."
To start off with, we did an extensive warm up that engaged our whole body and one of the exercises was called Barbara Windsors. This was where you have your arms across the front of your body and then open them so that they are out at your sides and then you do the same again, so that you do each action 4 times. You then swing your arms up and down. We had to do this multiple times and it really made us work as a team because if one person was out of time we had to start again.
We then did a focus exercise where there was 3 chairs set up in a slalom type of thing and we had to run around the outside and then down the center of them. This made us really concentrate on what we were doing. We were given the advice to overshoot the distance around the chairs and use our legs to propel ourselves forward. We also said that it becomes more interesting to watch when the participates are completely focused on what they are doing and putting their all into getting around these chairs. We began to add more complexity to the slalom and so we said that when the person reaches the first chair, we were to make eye contact with the person at the start of the line and then together you would run to the next chair at the same time. Once you got to the last chair, you didn't stop and you had to run through the middle of the people crossing to the chairs at the side.
Maggie, our instructor, said that if Frantic were to put this on the stage, they would up the speed which would up the intensity and then they would put about 3 or 4 of these on stage at once and have them all intertwining. This would then make the entire piece really interesting as all actors on stage know that they are safe but the audience's brains can't understand how it's actually being performed as it seems quite frantic and misplaced.
We moved on to another focus exercise, which was in pairs and we had to place one hand on top of the other and guide each other round. We began to do this with one person's eyes open and the other person's closed.
Afterwards we had a discussion about which position we found easier and personally I found having my eyes closed easier as all I had to worry about was the connection on my hand not being broken and making sure that I followed wherever this hand took me. When you have your eyes open all you can think about is making sure that everyone around this person isn't going to bump into them and you have to be spatially aware so that if there's a free space in the room then you need to take you partner there.
After we did this trust building exercise between our pairs, we started doing some small lifts that would be the building blocks for us later on. We started off by just leaning into each other and trying to lift the legs that were in the middle up so that we were counter balancing each other giving us the freedom to move our inside legs wherever we want.
After we did this trust building exercise between our pairs, we started doing some small lifts that would be the building blocks for us later on. We started off by just leaning into each other and trying to lift the legs that were in the middle up so that we were counter balancing each other giving us the freedom to move our inside legs wherever we want.
Having learnt the basics for using each other to rely on, we began to put these ideas into small lifts. The first was a very easy lift to the side. You have to wrap your arm around your partner's waist and we found that the easiest thing was if the smaller person lifted the taller person because their hips were lower down and the bigger person could push more weight into their shoulders. All you had to do was lean to the side and the taller person would put all their weight into your hip and you would be able to balance. We then found that if we wanted to move your partner the best way was when they were at the top of the balance, they were the lightest and so that was the time that you would pivot and your partner would be able to walk out of the lift.
https://youtu.be/x47yuYq97to
https://youtu.be/x47yuYq97to
Lift 1: https://youtu.be/GGvl4aiEn7U
We then progressed onto something slightly harder which was changing the grips so that your arm was around the front and this time your partner had to hold onto your shoulders instead of pushing on them because I would be in control of their hips and legs which therefore meant that they had to make sure that they stayed as close to my upper body as possible by pulling themselves in.
We then progressed onto something slightly harder which was changing the grips so that your arm was around the front and this time your partner had to hold onto your shoulders instead of pushing on them because I would be in control of their hips and legs which therefore meant that they had to make sure that they stayed as close to my upper body as possible by pulling themselves in.
Lift 2: https://youtu.be/qT-8MzN7038
After getting some of the basic lifts under our belt, we then proceeded to move onto something a little more challenging which entailed on of the people being lifted over our shoulder. This meant that each person in the pair needed to be completely focused on what was to happen as the person who was being lifted needed to use the other's hips as a lever for them to stay up on so that was a kind of platform that they could use to hold on to. Also as their legs were being raised the more weight needed to be pushed into the lifters hips to counterbalance themselves and also to keep their chest from dragging them forwards.
Lift 3: https://youtu.be/A3F1pe7UJy8
Once we had experimented with all the different lifts, we had a break. Me and one of my partner's decided to make a small sequence with pulls added into the lifts so that all the lifts would be connected. We thought that this could be used in a flash mob for example and could be used as a smaller version of a bigger piece.
After getting some of the basic lifts under our belt, we then proceeded to move onto something a little more challenging which entailed on of the people being lifted over our shoulder. This meant that each person in the pair needed to be completely focused on what was to happen as the person who was being lifted needed to use the other's hips as a lever for them to stay up on so that was a kind of platform that they could use to hold on to. Also as their legs were being raised the more weight needed to be pushed into the lifters hips to counterbalance themselves and also to keep their chest from dragging them forwards.
Lift 3: https://youtu.be/A3F1pe7UJy8
Once we had experimented with all the different lifts, we had a break. Me and one of my partner's decided to make a small sequence with pulls added into the lifts so that all the lifts would be connected. We thought that this could be used in a flash mob for example and could be used as a smaller version of a bigger piece.
Lift sequence: https://youtu.be/0QhQGlNabVs
We then moved onto squeeze duets/trios which consisted of small movements where each person had to touch a part of their partners body and then they did the same. You would make them link together and they became a squeeze sequence. We found that adding in some of the lifts we had previously learnt, added extra intricacy and also playing around with the speed of the movements allowed us to make better eye contact with each other and relationships between us began to form.
https://youtu.be/8_bWWazhSak
After showing all of them to one another, we decided that we would look at two of them and start developing stories for them as this is one of frantic's ideas: you create the movement and then you add the story. We looked one of the pairs and we discussed possible stories that could unfold: broken relationship, a relationship that was good at the start and then took a turn for the worst or a friendship that has been destroyed over time. We originally didn't specifically say which story it was but we decided to add a rule to one of the people which was every move that she makes towards the other person whether that be a touch, reach or grab needs to be an apology. We then saw the story developing as the character that was saying sorry eventually left and we said that she had enough of saying sorry and she'd had enough.
We then looked at our groups piece and we were in a three. We decided to add a rule into ours as well which was giving Hannah a book and she had to read as much as she could whilst still taking part in our sequence. We found that it effected our piece quite a lot as the book became Hannah's focus which meant that when she was meant to be holding eye contact with one of us, she was looking down at the book instead which made us react to the book.
We then started to discuss the stories that could be around this sequence and we said that Hannah was almost lost in this book and the two of us were like people in the story guiding her round the sequence of events in the book. We were quite amazed at the fact that these stories just came from a small movement that we made up in 10 minutes and we were speculating about the amount of depth we could have gone into if we had spent a whole hour making this sequence more and more detailed.
We thought that this would be a good point to start doing some group lifts so that everyone could be involved in one big movement. We started off by doing some basic group lifts like a plank hold lift which required 6 people initially and it meant that everyone had to be connected and concentrating on the lift because we were lifting another person in the air and they were reliant on us as well. When you do the lift two or three times it gets to a point where you can start to take one hand of and this means that you can do the lift with less people. The does add a little more danger to the lift, but you only take a hand off when you know that the lift is safe and the person in the air is safe.
We then moved onto squeeze duets/trios which consisted of small movements where each person had to touch a part of their partners body and then they did the same. You would make them link together and they became a squeeze sequence. We found that adding in some of the lifts we had previously learnt, added extra intricacy and also playing around with the speed of the movements allowed us to make better eye contact with each other and relationships between us began to form.
https://youtu.be/8_bWWazhSak
After showing all of them to one another, we decided that we would look at two of them and start developing stories for them as this is one of frantic's ideas: you create the movement and then you add the story. We looked one of the pairs and we discussed possible stories that could unfold: broken relationship, a relationship that was good at the start and then took a turn for the worst or a friendship that has been destroyed over time. We originally didn't specifically say which story it was but we decided to add a rule to one of the people which was every move that she makes towards the other person whether that be a touch, reach or grab needs to be an apology. We then saw the story developing as the character that was saying sorry eventually left and we said that she had enough of saying sorry and she'd had enough.
We then looked at our groups piece and we were in a three. We decided to add a rule into ours as well which was giving Hannah a book and she had to read as much as she could whilst still taking part in our sequence. We found that it effected our piece quite a lot as the book became Hannah's focus which meant that when she was meant to be holding eye contact with one of us, she was looking down at the book instead which made us react to the book.
We then started to discuss the stories that could be around this sequence and we said that Hannah was almost lost in this book and the two of us were like people in the story guiding her round the sequence of events in the book. We were quite amazed at the fact that these stories just came from a small movement that we made up in 10 minutes and we were speculating about the amount of depth we could have gone into if we had spent a whole hour making this sequence more and more detailed.
We thought that this would be a good point to start doing some group lifts so that everyone could be involved in one big movement. We started off by doing some basic group lifts like a plank hold lift which required 6 people initially and it meant that everyone had to be connected and concentrating on the lift because we were lifting another person in the air and they were reliant on us as well. When you do the lift two or three times it gets to a point where you can start to take one hand of and this means that you can do the lift with less people. The does add a little more danger to the lift, but you only take a hand off when you know that the lift is safe and the person in the air is safe.
We then split into some more groups and those who had participated in the first lift when we were all learning it had to teach other people the roles which I found very enjoyable. We were able to tell people what they needed to do to keep everyone in the lift safe and if something went wrong we could step in and give them advice on what they needed to change.
The next lift that we learnt was called a Calipo lift which was literally where one person stood in the middle and we came around them. The person being lifted used the two bases shoulders to push themselves up and then once they were off the ground the two bases grabbed their feet and all the people around the outside helped push them up so that they were in the air.
The lift was slightly harder than the last because it involved more people and that was more people to engage and make sure were paying attention. Sometimes the problem was there were too many hands on the person which meant that it became slightly confusing as there wasn't enough space for that many people and so sometimes you had to take yourself out of the lift in order for the lift to be more successful.
The next lift was again harder than the last because this time the person who was being lifted was on their back and they couldn't see whether the people underneath had them safely or not, so they had to put complete trust in the people who were lifting them and we had to make sure that we were in complete control over the person. We found that the best way to keep everyone safe was the person that was being lifted completely relaxed and didn't hold any of their weight back because if they did it made them become heavier because they were tensing all of their muscles.
After having a short break, we decided to refocus as a group and so we decided to do a focus activity called Quad which entailed us standing in lines of 4 horizontally and one behind the other. There was a piece of music playing and we had to get the beat in our heads and we progressed onto jumping to the beat. As we progressed and got used to the beat, we began adding in movements on nearly every beat so that it become much harder. I think that it really helped refocus the whole group and as we made it harder, we began to come together as a group and starting to help each other more and more.
Having learnt all of these different lifts, we decided to start making some sequences that included all of the lifts and partner work that we had learnt earlier on. We started off with one person, who was going to be lifted, choosing 5 places in the room to walk to and the rest of the group had to use the lifts to get them to the next place. As we made these sequences, we tried to incorporate everyone in the group and as we were adding more lifts and moves in we made sure that everyone was doing something different and each lift had different people underneath so that everyone was involved.
https://youtu.be/h17s7jtOrQM
After showing them to each other, we discussed the stories that we beginning to show even though this was just a sequence of moves that we put together, there was still a story being formed in the audience's mind and this was kind of amazing. In our piece, it seemed that we were all children in a playground and Sarah wanted to play with me and the beginning but Caitlin didn't want us to play together and so took me off of Sarah. She then proceeded to try and find some other people to play with but she couldn't and then Charlotte shoved her out of the way and that was the kind of the last straw for her and that it where the calipo lift came in and she began to rise above Charlotte and stand up to her bully. We then all followed the action that was happening like we were small children and then when we thought something was about to happen, we walked off so that we wouldn't be apart of it.
After discussing these stories we revisited the sequences and added more elements that would add to the story. For example, me and Caitlin walked off arm in arm after the lift with Sarah and at the end when we would normally turn away when something was going to happen, we turn back to look again as though we were telling them that we were on Sarah's side and then when she walked off that was our cue to leave as though we were supporting her in her decision.
I really enjoyed the workshop as you could completely throw yourself into the activities and once we had gotten used to Maggie and the group as we had never worked in groups this big and a mixture of all the age groups, we could all comfortably work together and do anything. I also show the progression of some people from the beginning when they were scared to do things right up until the end where they were volunteering themselves to do activities that they would never have done before.
No comments:
Post a Comment