Spiders & Bats

Scene six was one of the scene to touch upon on our movement classes, since it had two major animalistic parts that we needed help with. First, after Nisbett exits the stage all the lunatic and Renfield turn into spiders. We started by thinking about how spiders looked like, with their eight limbs that are bent and straight. They don't have much flexibility to them and their movements are quick and short. So, as we are all on the ground on our fours, it was easy to create a mockery image of a spider by having our elbows bent and head quite low, allowing our back be straight.
   The next thing we looked at were the bats. We had decided that it would be a cool transition to have us slowly turn into bats from the spiders and then scatter around the stage before forming into the doors of castle Dracula. Siou directed us to have the movement come from our backs, rather than just flapping our arms around. We did a brief exercise where in pairs one would lead as a bat, trying to use different paces and levels to create the movement. This really helped us with different kind of sprints and soars with the bats.
In the actual scene, we would all first gather stage middle and after Sophie gives us the mark, we would separate into two groups, scattering to two sides of the stages, then back to the middle and after that to our starting positions for scene 7. This worked at first, but then we realized it was too organized and the bats were too slow, so later we changed the bats slightly, by allowing us to use our insane personalities in the bats more. This really brought the hectic feel to the flight and allowed us to scatter more freely around the stage.

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.

21.1.2014

Today in class we talked about dynamics. We started out by writing all the dynamics we knew and remember from previous classes, and here is a picture of what we came up with:


After this, we started to connect these different kind of dynamics with emotions, and thought about, what dynamics our scenes might have in them. Our scene is quite slow paced and since it does dabble with serious subjects, like death and lost love, my group felt that some of the main dynamics should be slow and bound. Still, there is some lightness at the end with Nell's dance, which could be a nice contrast to the heavier dynamics within the scene.

Describe the dynamics your character has? How can you use it in your movement piece?

I feel that the last scene Nell has very heavy dynamic, since she is sick and her free and joyful spirit is trapped inside of this dying body. So heavy and bound would describe her well, but I would also like to show some of that lightness she used to have when she was younger, since in the scene she has come to say goodbye to the playhouse, and is overwhelmed by nostalgia.

11.2.2014

As a warm up today we did a movement exercise that had us use the different kind leans or trust exercise we have learned about. The idea was, that the teacher would put some music running  and everyone would be walking around the room freely. When the music would stop we would have to get the closest person to us and do a trust exercise or a lean with them. It was also important for us to try and use different levels and relationships while doing this exercise.
   After this we performed our movement pieces to Siou and all of the others. I feel that everyone's pieces are looking great, but what everyone needs to work on, is just committing with our whole body to the movements, to make it look better and more determined.My group especially should work on this still, and we still need to work out our ending for our piece, since now we are not sure how it ends. We were thinking about adding a tableux at the end, but we are not sure about it yet.

04.02.2014

We started our class by talking about different kind of transitions we could possibly use in our movement pieces. One of the most obvious transitions would be walking, but using it in every transition would make our piece bland and uncreative, so it is important to explore different methods of transition. Other types of transitions are:

• Running
• Spinning
• Crawling
• Jumping
• Hopping
• Sliding etc.

We also talked about applying awareness of relationship in movement, to help show different relationships between our characters. The different types of relationships are:

• Mirroring
• Counter balance
• Call and Response
• Question and Answer
• Meet and Part
• Canon
• Unison
• Contact

How you have developed your movement pieces?
   After learning about different kind of relationships and transitions, we really wanted to apply these things to our movement piece. before, we had had the problem of having quite a boring transitions at the beginning of our piece, where we are in the square. Rather than just taking a step to move counter clockwise, to change our positions, we added a simple spin to it, to make it more interesting. After it, when we are supposed to rotate our positions again, rather than doing the spinning bit again, we decided to add using counter balance into our transition. What we will do, is Bella and Jenny go to counter balance first and the me and Max do the same, creating a X formation to our hands. Then, when Bella and Jenny rise up and let go of each other, me and Max use our weight to pull each other to switch places. Then, Bella and Jenny will repeat the counter balance and to the same.

07.01.2014

Today in class, we continued to look into Laban by using the effort graph and adding more to it. We added the effort actions to the graph which are:

• Punch
• Circle
• Float
• Dab
• Flick
• Slash

With these actions and the effort graph in mind, we started our exercises. As inspiration, we used Jackson Pollock's piece Number 23. We started talking about how we saw this piece, and what kinds of movement we could see in it. The first things to pop in my mind were indirect, quick and free, but as you examine the piece more closely, you can see sustained movements, such as long circling sequences.
   So, from this discussion and using the piece as our stimuli, we had to move a round the room, making ourselves pathways. Every time we would pass someone else or turn, we then would do a movement inspired by the effort graph, using different levels as we did them. In the end, we also combined these different movements and pathways we discovered ourselves, with a partner and perform a short movement piece to everyone else, showing the different kind of movements we had thought of.

18.12.2013

We have been looking into different types of movement for a while now, but in this lesson, we focused on Laban movement analysis and different qualities of movement.

Laban movement analysis

Rudolf von Laban was a dance artist from late 1800's to the early 1900's. He created the foundation to the Laban movement analysis which is the method and language describing, visualising, interpreting and documenting all varieties of human movement. Laban movement is used my many, like dancers, actors, athletes and physical therapists, since it combines features from many fields, such as anatomy, kinesiology and psychology. Laban is usually divided into these groups:

"Body (Bartenieff Fundamentals, total-body connectivity)
Effort (Energetic dynamics)
Shape
Space (Choreutics, Space Harmony)"

Laban also looks at the groups in themes of opposites:

"Mobility/Stability
Inner/Outer
Function/Expression
Exertion/Recuperation"

Effort Graph

Effort, sometimes also described as dynamics, is the process of understanding the more subtle ways the movement is done to show its inner intention. Simply put, the Effort is used to decide the best way to move to show a certain emotion or intention. The Effort Graph gives you the list of types of movement you can use can combine to convey the wanted emotions. 

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Whilst in class, we did some exercises where we used the Effort Graph and the different descriptions of movement to our advantage. We were first divided into four groups, each group having their own quality of movement. By listening the the music provided for, we had to start moving in coherent matter. This, as it soon was pointed out to us, was more difficult that we thoughts, since a lot of people, including myself, had some difficulties with letting our inner walls fall down and not be embarrassed by our movements and how we looked like doing them. We were then divided into pairs, where our next task was to mirror each other, changing 'the leader' as we went on. Again we were following a certain quality of movement, like light or indirect. Me and my partner, Yunusa, in my opinion did relatively well, since I felt we were focus and tried different sorts of movement. Still, we could have been a bit crazier with our ideas. When we were grouped up with another pair, I felt that the movements became a lot more creative and since the whole group was focused, we were actually having fun with the exercise. 

La Mer Movement

Here you can see a table of the different movements we used in our groups movement piece for the La Mer-show. A lot of the different types of movement came from different exercises we did during class, for example the tableaux. In the exercise there would be one person who started the line by positioning themselves in the room, starting the tableaux. Then, the rest would attach themselves somehow to the first person, creating a line. Also, whilst going into their position in the line, everyone would have to travel differently to that place, trying to push themselves to travel in imaginative ways.  Then, from this position we had to somehow change the position we were in to fit the personality of our character in the scene we were working on. We transferred this exercise into our movement piece almost exactly the way we had done in class to have a connection to the different scenes and our characters within them. We took "follow the leader" and the end swaying from our exercises used in class. Swaying was part of our falling unit, where the main focus was being able to shift your weight along your body to create a believable swaying motion, like in a rocking boat. We didn't really use falling in our piece, which is sort of a pity, since it could have looked impressive.
    Most of the rehearsing we did for this piece was in a large space, where we were really able to spread out and use a lot of space to do the different movements, but when we started rehearsing in the actual performance space, say before the show, it was obvious, that some changes needed to be done. They weren't huge changes, more of just tweaking the existing positions, from being in a straight line to a semi-circle and having to be more aware of the space around us. We also had to be more careful when running towards the audience, to not run so fast, but rather have the power, we wanted to get trough, come from within and how we held ourselves.

La Mer Movement Rehearsals

We started working on the La Mer Movement- piece with some exercises with spacial awareness. What we had to do was to walk around the space with our hands on the side of our head, and see how far back could we hold our hands until we lost them from our vision. It was important for us to hold the hands as far back as possible, but still seeing them barely in the corner of our eyes. This was to help us with our spacial awareness whilst walking around the room, and learn to use our   peripheral vision. This way, we could move around the stage during our performance, without bumping into people, and as we got better at it, we could move around the room at a faster and faster pace. 

Another thing we did were the trust exercises, to really get comfortable with each other. What we had to do was to go in pairs with someone the similar height and then do the three different kind of trust falls, from the side, from the back and from upfront. This was to ensure we were able to trust each other, but also to trust ourselves and be more comfortable with other people being in charge of our safety.

After learning to trust someone to catch us when we fall, the next things for us to do was to learn to trust ourselves to catch us when we do the falling exercises. This might sound easy, you just don't let yourself fall on your face, but it actually harder than it sounds. Catching yourself from falling was not the hard part, but rather making yourself fall naturally, and let yourself relax while doing it. It was important that the movement from falling to standing in neutral again was smooth. We also practised falling in unison, using complicity to do so. I found it quite hard to do this exercise, since I think I don't have enough trust in myself to do the falls properly. During this class, we also practised a little bit of balance by pretending we were on a boat, swaying with the waves. We had to try and make it as believable as possible by controlling the way and amount we did the swaying movement. 

We also did a exercise about leading from the different parts from our bodies, like stomach, head or knees. We had 8 beats during which we had to get from one place to another with the body part we chose to lead with. We did this five times, leading with different body parts. This was to explore different ways of travel.

After this we started to choreograph our piece. We decided to use  the jumping exercise we have been doing in start of some of our classes before. It is where the group are put into lines(in this case, three different lines) and line at a time, we need to a certain amount of jumps in 8 beats. The jumps would go down like so: 8,8, 6, 4,2, 2, and then one full turn. After jumping each group of jumps, the line would turn around and the line behind them would start the next beats. After finishing all of the counts, one by one we would start travelling to the back of the room to our tableux.

Silent warm up

The start of the class was very confusing, since we had no idea, what exactly was going on. There were no directions given to us vocally, so we had to interpret the gestures given by our tutor of figure out what we had to be doing. This required a lot of focus from everyone, which I felt most had. There was little to no talking during the warm up, since everyone was trying hard to follow what we were supposed to be doing. Almost immediately we were lead to do jumps, turns and clapping. I found this exercise to be a nice change to what we usually have, since in complete silence everyone was able to concentrate and do the exercises in a more focused way.

This can really help us in devising by  letting us focus more on the movements and different gestures we are doing, rather than just talking about them. Being silent also pushes us to communicate more with our bodies and really think about how we use our bodies in different ways.

23.10.2013

Photograph 3 gestures

(Sorry for the lack of photographs, couldn't move the pictures from my cellphone to the computer at school, but I will do it as soon as possible!)

02.10.2013

What exercise have you had difficulty with? How can you improve?
    When working on the Alexander techniques and the different exercises used in it, I have found most of them doable. Still, I find difficulty with  the exercise where we are laying on the ground in the Alexander position and we have to lift our pelvic upwards, so that our back arches in the air. This part is easy, but when we have to come back down to basic position, by rolling our back one vertebra at a time, making it a one smooth movement for the back to hit the floor once again. I find it very difficult to do this, since I am not apparently able to differentiate my vertebra's from each other and so, instead my back hits the floor like a straight plank. It will probably help if I start to focus more on the flexibility of my back, doing exercises like the spinal roll and try yoga in general to further better my flexibility.

25/09/2013

What is the Alexander technique?
   The Alexander technique was created after F.M. Alexander found out that a bad posture can lead to pain, but also have harmful effects on over all health and well-being. So, he created a technique that can restore natural balance, improve mobility, and help release pain and stress.  It is the technique to unlearn bad habits and improve your lifestyle. In the Alexander technique you train on how your move, how you breathe and how we organize awareness and focus.

What part of your body you need to work on?
   I feel like I was lacking all of the exercises that required me to be standing and bend my back towards the ground. My back is not the most flexible area of my body, so I would like to do more of the exercises that train the back and stretch it. Also, when I was laying down, I felt that the position my head was in was very unnatural and uncomfortable. A some kind of support could help, lifting my head up and straightening my back to its natural position.