Path ways + Contact

I felt that these two different classes we had in movement were connected to the same goal, so I decided to put them in the same blog.

The first class, path ways was about finding different ways to move from place to place, not just travelling, but also creating an image at the same time. We started with dividing the class in groups of 4 or 5, with having everyone be lettered A, B, C, D or E. The A would start by creating a shape with their body and then the other would join one by one in order to create an image. Then, A would leave followed by the other, only leaving B on the place to start a new image. We would repeat this multiple times, creating interesting images, but also path ways to get out of the formations.

With our contact class, we explored ways of moving without losing contact with our pair. It was all improvised, but it helped us trust our partner and letting the other one lead and vice versa. We were taught different kind of lifts, but also how we can use counter balance to our advantage with this exercise.

Both of these classes helped us to get more comfortable touching each other and being brave to try different kind of contacts in our play, since Liz Lochheads Dracula is especially sexual. It will also help us focus and not giggle when being close to someone.

Tempo-Rhythm

We've looked at tempo-rhythm somewhat in the past but now Siou made us look at it in more detail. She drew this graph on the stage and we had to try out the different stages with some of the lines we have from the play. This really helped to find the certain tempo-rhythm of a certain line, scene or even character, since some tempos just didn't fit with the lines.
  Another exercise we did was focusing on the stages 5-7. We started by being told that the goal was to look for a bomb, since there might be one in the room. It was important to stay quite urgent with our actions since it might go of any second. Moving to stage 6 we had to decide either to know that there truly is abomb and act accordingly, or act as in we had just seen virgin mary, or other unnatural beautiful even god-full thing. This stage was all about melodrama, trying to make our emotions and objectives as clear as possible. We would repeat this changing up which of the two choices we wanted to do. Last stage of this was believing that the bomb was going to go off.

   With our play the tempo-rhythm should pretty high up the scale between 5-7, to really keep up with the Artaudian approach of trying to lance the abscess. This will especially help with the lunatics we do quite many times in the play and help us keep up the energy.

The Vampire Brides

It was important to us to work on the scene 9 of act 1, since we had decided it to do some lifts in the scen, and Siou's help was essential. We had Andy direct us with the lifts as well, but Siou could give some innovative ideas to make them stand out. Jonathan's lift was quite straight forward, we wanted him to be upright and since we had 4/4 of our guys in our class already on stage, we could have all of them lift me. To have my hands free and my upper body unrestricted, we planned to have the boys to lift me from my legs and thighs. This was pretty simple from the beginning, only thing we really still have to do is run the lifts over and over to make it smoother and steadier for the guys to carry me across the stage.
   The girls had more variation in their lift. They started by lifting Izzy on a King's chair, lift where the other girls create a sort of a chair for Izzy to sit on. This turned out to be too complicated. but also having Izzy hidden between the other girls. Then, Siou suggested that we would have Izzy been lifted as she was laying down. This could free her leg and arms to do what she likes, maybe creating some kind of a sexual scene, as if she was calling Jonathan to bed. I am not entirely sure what didn't work out, since I was working on my lifts, but I guess the lift itself was difficult to carry out and so the girls changed it to a similar lift as mine with the guys. I guess this was for the better, since now me and Izzy can make proper eye contact whilst in the air and I can give the key to her easier.

Siou also helped the girls to make their vampire brides more tempting and lustful, by telling them to be more cat-like. The girls would start from their positions on stage left and they would have to pick three places on the stage to walk into while doing their lines. Then, the fourth point would be around Jonathan where they would start circling him as he says the line "Who- are- you?". "Who"s the brides will be saying should be almost whispered, some of them mocking and sharp and some just gentle blows. Throughout, Siou told us that the walk should be sexual and seductive.