Term Three: Experimental

LESSON ONE

Chair exercise:

NOTE: THIS ENTIRE EXERCISE SHOULD BE PERFORMED IN SILENCE.

In pairs you must place two chairs next to one another, and then sit down on the chairs in a seated neutral position.

LEVEL 1: Each of the partners have 4 moves each (8 all together) to manipulate the other persons body. In must go in a pattern of you manipulating your partner, and then your partner in turn manipulating you. This should be in a rhythm of 8 which syncs in to whatever background music you use for the exercise. Once you and your partner have experimented enough and found a set pattern of 8 specific movements the whole class should perform each small piece.

LEVEL 2: The next stage is to use the exact same set pattern of 8 specific movements that you and your partner have just rehearsed and performed, however you must now perform them by playing the objective 'To love' during the first 4 movements (2 each) and the objective 'To hate' or 'To hurt' during the last 4 movements of your piece. you should experiment a little, and make sure that these objectives can be read by an audience.

LEVEL 3: The next stage is for you and your partner to join up with another pair, and place your 4 chairs next to each other. All 4 of you should then perform the exact same set pattern of 8 specific movements that you and your partner have just rehearsed and performed, however you must now edit and refine your piece taking into consideration the proxemics of your new partners.

LEVEL 4: The next stage is you should keep your 4 chairs next to each other in a row, and then all 4 of you should individually find 3 different ways of 'being' on a chair. you should do this in turn to the rhythm of the music using a set beat of 4. Individually you should start of in neutral position on the chair, then on the first beat you should move into your first position of 'being' on a chair. On the second beat you should move into your second position and on the third beat you should move into your third position of 'being' on a chair. On the forth and final beat you should find yourself back on the chairs in a seated neutral position, ready to repeat the sequence over and over.

LEVEL 5: The final stage of the exercise is to repeat the individual 3 different ways of 'being' on a chair, but to incorporate each of your 3 partners. You should blend each of your positions together so that it looks as if the energy that you are using to move into one of your positions is transferred into your partner making them need to move into their next position. You should feel a palpable energy being passed through one another and your movements should be performed with a strong sense of flow and fluidity.

EVALUATION OF EXERCISE:

Personally I believe that this exercise can be highly beneficial to training actors who need improvement in the areas of: spontaneity, interaction, interpretation and response. I found that through the course of this exercise I built integral and physical relationships with my partners, and this allowed me to interpret their physical movements efficiently and to respond in an appropriate way. Furthermore, in my opinion this exercise is very good, because it reads very well to an audience and a relationship between you and your partner can be conveyed to the audience very easily using this technique. 

However, I also believe that this exercise can be very restricting and confine an actor. This entire exercise consisted of NO organic movement whatsoever and instinctively I felt it was very choreographed. I found that the chairs were very restrictive and employed many limitations to the movements of me and my partners. Overall I thought that although the exercise was beneficial because it reads very well to an audience, it was not very emotionally engaging to watch, more artistic and experimental.

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Cuddles Exercise:

In partners you should both lay down flat on the floor next to one another. In this exercise one of you is the 'dominant' partner and the other is the 'submissive' partner. You make take it in turns to reverse these roles. You are essentially 'putting your partner to bed' by manipulating their body. The dominant partner of the 'manipulator' must use their body to find various different ways of manipulating their partners body, who can move but is so weak they cannot control their own physical movements. When you are the 'manipulator' you should play the objective 'To care for' and when you are the one being manipulated you should allow yourself to be maliable and moldable into whatever position that your partner chooses.

EVALUATION OF EXERCISE:

Personally I found this exercise very relaxing and calming. I believe when the benefits of this exercise are compared with the benefits of the 'Chair exercise' this exercise essentially fills in the gaps that were present in the 'Chair exercise.'

This exercise demonstrated a physical relationship between the two partners that was readable by an audience just as easily as the 'Chair exercise' had done, however in my opinion the 'Cuddles exercise' was much more emotionally engaging for both the audience and the training actors participating in the exercise. Also the movement was more organic in the 'Cuddles exercise' and a smaller more intimate gesture could be read very easily by an audience member miles away. Therefore, if i had to hypothetically theorise which of the two exercises were more beneficial to training actors i would have to choose the 'Cuddles exercise.'

Term Two: Contact Improvisation and Complicite

What is contact improvisation?

Contact
improvisation uses your own body and the bodies of those around you in a group.
During contact improvisation you must be very vigilant and focused because the
entire exercise is entirely improvised and you must be cautious and aware of
others around you for health and safety reasons. Contact improvisation is
essentially observing the physicality and movements of another person,
interpreting their physical movements, and then responding in an appropriate
way. Contact Improvisation is in a way a dance
form or even an artistic sport, in which the point of contact with another
person provides the starting point or stimuli for an exploration of movement on
your part. It is based on the communication between two alive
bodies that are in physical contact and the relationship between the two
physical bodies and how they interact. During this exercise you should
be able to feel a palpable and tangible energy that passes through your own
body and into the body of your partner.




Contact
improvisation stems from the idea that each body is unique. Dance is
spontaneously created by the impulsive interaction of two different bodies,
regardless of preconditioned reflexes and accepted notions of size, weight and
strength. Dance partners sustain physical contact and rely upon mutual trust
and support. It is process, not product, which counts in contact improvisation
dance; aesthetically-pleasing results are shunned in favour of an
inward-looking spiritual integration of mind and body. As such, it is no
surprise that its appeal has spread beyond professional dancers and
choreographers.




 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/body-language-contact-improvisation-dance-uses-touch-to-achieve-perfect-harmony-between-mind-and-body-roberta-mock-found-it-a-liberating-experience-1425425.html




Who
invented it and why?




Steve Paxton invented contact
improvisation in the 1970’s with the intention that it could become a form of
expressing postmodernism into the world of dance.




Contact improvisation is an evolving system of
movement initiated in 1972 by American choreographer Steve Paxton. The
first performance work recognized as Contact
Improvisation is Steve Paxton's Magnesium (1972) which was performed by Paxton
and dance students at Oberlin College at Warner Main in Warner Centre. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_improvisation



What qualities do you need to be successful
at contact improvisation?

To
be successful at contact improvisation you must be very energetic, committed
and focused. You must be trusting in not only your partner but in yourself and
your own body. You have to be honest and truthful during this exercise and
allow your gut instinct to lead your body. You must disconnect from your mind
and only communicate feeling and emotion through your physical movements. Because
contact improvisation invites an individual to create spontaneous movement
without rehearsing it may be used to enhance one’s overall self exploration of
their physicality.  It stretches our
ability to think quickly and it also builds confidence and the capability of
students to take risks.  It builds
respect in that we must accept and work with each other’s ideas and it promotes
and encourages students to assume a leadership role in the exploration and
creation of movement. Overall, many different qualities are needed in training
actors to be successful at contact improvisation, however during the exercise
itself various attributes such as 
resilience, versatility and creative problem-solving skills are built
upon.




Describe the process of conducting the ball
of energy exercise.




You
should initially pair up. You must imagine that there is a small ping pong ball
spinning around inside your body, and that this tiny little ball contains lots
of energy. You should allow your body to instinctually feel where the ball is
travelling to next and whether or not it makes you move your arms or your leg
or your head. Then when you feel that the moment is right you should pass the
ball of energy from your own body and place it into your partners’ body. Much
like contact improvisation the ball of energy exercise is essentially all about
observing the physicality and movements of another person, interpreting their
physical movements, and then responding in an appropriate way. You should be
able to feel the palpable energy and you must give your partner an ‘offer’ so
that they can respond to your movements with the same level of maturity and enthusiasm
that you responded to their movements.

During
this exploration of your own body and the body of your partner you should
disengage from your mind, and not think through what your next movement will be
– you should feel it from your gut, and allow this feeling to control the
movements of your body. You must disconnect from your mind and only communicate
feeling and emotion through your physical movements. During this exercise you
want to avoid taking an even slightly unenthusiastic approach because for this
to work you must be 100 percent committed and on task for the duration of the
exercise, or you will not benefit from it at all.




Once
you have mastered the technique for this exercise there are various different
levels in which you can increase the challenge for your mind and body whilst
still exploring with different movements. First of all you should try isolation
of different body parts. Essentially this means experimenting with different
given circumstances such as ‘only being allowed to use your arms’ ‘not being
allowed to use your left leg’ ‘you can only use your head’ ‘you entire body
must be on the floor’ ‘you must always have one hand on the wall’ ‘you may only
use your left hand, right leg, and torso’ and you can experiment with as many different
stimulus like this as you can think of. The aim of this is to open up a realm
of different physical possibilities to you, and to make you confident in the
exploration of your own body. Another interesting stimulus you may add is music
or a repetitive four beat background rhythm whilst you explore with the ball of
energy exercise. 




Another
way of expanding on the ball of energy exercise is to manipulate the amount of
people participating, and their relationship to one another. An example of this
is to have two people passing a ball of energy from one to the other; however
they must hold hands for the duration of the exercise. This Is one of the
expansions that I participated in during this exercise, and I found that it
made me more aware of my partner and our interactions were magnified greatly. I
also found that by working in a closer proximity to one another more accidental
collisions were made and the restrictions of what is socially appropriate to do
became completely extinct. Some of my own ideas of expansion on this exercise
are to manipulate the amount of people participating, and their relationship to
one another by having people work in a trio so that there is another person in
the group that you must be aware of, or even solo work where you focus more on
your own self development in contact improvisation. All of these various
different ways of experimentation of the ‘ball of energy’ exercise have merit
to them, and are valid form of physical exploration, however you should in no
way be discouraged from being creative and coming up with your own spin on it.




Evaluate the benefits of the ball of energy
exercise. What is your opinion?




There
is a wide variety of benefits that are available from not only the ball of
energy exercise, but also from contact improvisation all together. There are
many physical benefits such as the strengthening and toning of muscles, but
also there are a lot of intellectual benefits for the mind in this work. For
example, in my experience of the ball of energy exercise I found that before
participating I allowed various social barriers to prevent me from being fully
engaged with my own physicality, however by the time I had completed the ball
of energy exercise I discovered that these metaphorical boundaries had all been
demolished in the course of the exercise. Also, a lot of this exercise is to do
with the torso and the stomach muscles, which are strengthened greatly during participation.




I
did however find some physical discomfort in the exploration when we were given
the stimuli of only being allowed to work from the floor, simply because my
injured knee was placed under a lot more pressure and this limited the variety
of things I could do. However I still continued the exploration
enthusiastically and whole heartedly, and therefore benefitted greatly from it.





Why is it important for you to be able to
listen and to be honest during contact improvisation work?




It
is highly important and essential for you to be able to listen during contact
improvisation work because the basis of the work is observing the movements of
another person, interpreting their movements, and then responding in an
appropriate way; therefore listening is a key skill required for contact
improvisation work.




Listening is important not just because of the quality of the
piece but also for safety as well. Keeping an ear out for your partner is
essential when performing contact improvisation because when an actor is in
full flow of a piece they may not notice if their partner is in pain or in
danger. These risks can be minimised by girls tying hair back, all actors
wearing appropriate clothing and so on but in this sort of work there are
always potential hazards. 

Honesty is a key factor of contact improvisation. Although it can
take time to gain a comfortable amount of trust and honesty, particularly with
a new partner, it is vital when creating improvised physical work. Genuine
natural response between actor’s opens doors to a far wider range of physical
possibilities, as mentally manipulating a piece can ruin its fluidity and its
truth. The organic honesty required for even basic contact improvisation makes
the ergonomic movement far easier to achieve and also helps with developing
meaning in a piece. 




What sensibilities do you need to be successful
in a contact jam?

Sensibilities

sen·si·bil·i·ty

  [sen-suh-bil-i-tee]  

noun, plural sen·si·bil·i·ties.

1. Capacity for sensation or feeling; responsiveness orsusceptibility to sensory stimuli.

2. Mental susceptibility or responsiveness; quickness and acuteness of apprehension
or feeling.

3. Keen consciousness or appreciation.

4. Sensibilities, emotional capacities.

5. Sometimes, sensibilities. Liability to feel hurt or offended;sensitive feelings.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sensibilities?__utma=1.332983985.1353361905.1354055717.1355335994.3&__utmb=1.2.10.1355335994&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1355335994.3.3.utmcsr=google|utmccn=(organic)|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=(not%20provided)&__utmv=-&__utmk=221437464 



To
be successful in a physical theatre contact jam you need to be able to
demonstrate many different sensibilities confidently. You need to be able to be intimate
with another person and therefore you should also be capable of
comfortable self exploration. A contact improvisation jam has potential to
be an extremely dangerous exercise, meaning there are many sensibilities that
are extremely important to develop before practicing the technique.




The
ability to make physical offers to your partner is one of the extremely
important sensibilities in a contact jam, as is the ability to accept other
people’s offers and then to respond appropriately to these offers in a mature
way. With so many individuals working closely together, it is vital to offer
physical movements to others that allow your partner to create an originally
organic physical response and as one movement flows in to the next, there should
be a palpable energy in the room during the contact jam. 




Maturity
is also a very important sensibility that all of the training actors must
employ during a contact jam, because the entire exercise involves vigorous
spontaneity and intimate physical contact with other training actors, therefore
it is extremely simple to ruin the entire improvisation if any individuals within
the group are uncommitted to the work. The focus of the entire group will be
instantly diffused and the palpable energy in the room is lost. Mutual respect
is also required for the focus of the group as well as yourself in order to
understand your own personal physical boundaries. 




Another one
of the sensibilities needed to be successful in a contact jam is spatial
awareness. Although contact improvisation requires a very flexible body (something
that personally I found quiet difficult and an area of my personal being that I
must work on to improve) a contact improvisation jam can often include a very
very large amount of people in a small confined space and therefore lots of
collisions and even injuries are likely to occur. It is absolutely integral
that you are aware of any collisions that occur and react accordingly, but you
should try to avoid them and being especially aware of the nature of those
around you.




Describe the process and application of
combining text with contact.




The very
first step in combining test with contact improvisation is to introduce the
group of training actor’s to conversation during contact improvisation. All of
the participants in this exercise must ensure that the conversation is
disengaged (it just flows from their mouths, and it rides on the action). The speech
does not essentially have to take place straight away; it is up to the individual
training actor and their own gut feeling in their body when they feel the words
should come out and are appropriate to the current situation. This entire
exercise is about using the combination of organic movement and speech to
create a completely spontaneous conversation that has a clear narrative, but is
also full of potential and palpable energy. In my class exploration of this
exercise, we used an specific extract from MISS
JULIE to help us develop our skills concerning physical theatre, contact
improvisation and text. In our class exploration the extract that we used works
best when students are in mixed gender pairings because the two characters I
the extract were JULIE and JOHN and it was also very useful for me that the
lines were very short and simple and therefore easier to remember. 




Discuss the value of actors studying
improvisation and justify all your comments. 




In my
personal opinion contact improvisation is extremely valuable for learning how
to explore how your own body moves physically and to help training actors come
to the realisation that your body is full of physical
potential. Learning how to be at one with your own body and leaving your mind
behind takes some time and some definite getting used to, but with consistent
practice it becomes much easier to disconnect yourself from the intellectual
part of your brain, and to allow your primal physical instincts to take control
over your own body.

In my
opinion learning how to let the spoken lines ‘ride’ on the physical action provided
can be difficult if you are not fully concentrating and focused on the exercise.
Even the slightest distraction can diffuse the tangible energy in the room and
ruin the entire exercise for everybody else participating – therefore it is
essential that you are 100% on task and focused for the entire duration of the
exercise.  Also if any individual within
the group feels the need to be inappropriate this can also ruin the exercise
and defocused the rest of the group.




In
performance contact improvisation provides a very convenient way to produce organic
physical movements that have potential to be the stimulus for your partner/s to
use for an appropriate physical response. Using your own natural instincts
during contact improvisation instead of the intellectual aspect of your mind can
also help to unlock new movement potential within each individual actor. With any
added stimulus, contact improvisation has the potential to become anything, something
artistically and visually beautiful that people could interpret in a variety of
different ways.




Research the theatre company complicite 

The British theatre company Complicite was founded in 1983 by Simon
McBurney, Annabel Arden, and Marcello Magni. Its original name was Théâtre de Complicité.
"The Company's inimitable style of visual and devised theatre [has] an
emphasis on strong, corporeal, poetic and surrealist image supporting
text" (Stephen Knapper, 2010, Contemporary European Theatre Directors).
Its work has been influenced by Jacques
Lecoq. The company produced their first work in 1983. In 1985 they won the
Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The company is based in London and use
extreme movement to represent their work. Their productions often involve
dazzling use of technology, such as projection and cameras, as well as lyrical and
philosophical contemplation of serious themes.

The company's lineup changes
frequently, though McBurney continues to be the artistic director. Complicite
is currently more active as an international touring company than within the
UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complicite





 
 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 
 
 

 


Complicite is an internationally
acclaimed theatre company, based in London. Led by Artistic Director Simon
McBurney, the Company has won over 50 major awards worldwide.

The Company’s 2008/09 production of
Shun-kin, based on the writings of Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, will be on tour later
this year and will be seen in London, Paris, Tokyo and Taipei. A Dog’s Heart –
a new opera by Alexander Raskatov, based on the novella by Mikhail Bulgakov and
directed by Simon McBurney – can be seen at ENO in November. Other recent work
included Endgame (London West End), Measure for Measure (National Theatre and
world tour) and The Elephant Vanishes (Barbican, Setagaya Public Theatre and
world tour).

Alongside its productions Complicite
runs an extensive education programme which informs and reflects its artistic
output.

http://microsites.nationaltheatre.org.uk/61124/productions/complicite.html

FINAL PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

Today we performed our physical theatre pieces in front of the whole strand. I worked in a group with Molly and Nora to create our piece of contact improvisation based physical theatre.

Our piece began with me being 'asleep' on the floor specifically in the fetal position, then awakening and observing and then responding to the environment around me. We did this as a representation of the growth shown throughout our piece and to indicate the clear narrative or birth, life and death which overshadowed our work. I found this particular opening very easy in rehersals for me, because I did not feel any tendencies to fake emotion, I honestly did feel the emotion in my gut as I was looking around and interpreting Molly's and Norah's movements and the physical pictures that they created. Also in my opinion our opening physical images created on stage were so ellaborte and interesting that I am certain all the members of the audience had a variety of different interpretations of it. 

We then continued to move through the choreographed movements of our rehearsed piece. During devising time on our piece and rehersal time we decided as a group that we would like to restructure our piece for the audiences individual interpretation. So we reorganised quiet a few of our physical pictures, and re-ordered them in order to create a loop hole from which we could repeat a small section of our piece continuously. 

We did this because our stimulus was a photograph containing lots of fire and destruction, which as a group we interpreted to mean apocalypse. We then agreed that we wanted our piece to have a sense or disorientation and disorder whilst also having a clear distinct narrative, therefore we used the idea of 'equilibrium, dis-equilibrium, equilibrium restored.' 

In my opinion this went hand in hand with our given stimulus and allowed us to be imaginative in our creation of organic movement that consistently maintained fulidity. 

There was also a section of our piece which was completely improvised, and different each individual time in execution. We decided to do this because of the nature of this terms work: Contact improvisation and Complicite. 

Personally I believe this section of our pieced worked a lot better in rehersals because although we were all aware that all of our physical movements were improvised and 'un scripted' we were not being watched by any type of audience. In our final performance today I personally felt very conscious and aware of the fact that I was entirely improvising my physical movements whilst being assessed on said movements and being watched by the entire theatre strand. Although this unnerved me a little today I still think that the contact improvisation section of our piece worked very well, whilst also complementing the nature of our work. 

After the performance, my physical theatre teacher will made a specific comemnt to me individually to work on my flexibility for future performances, which I fully took on board, and now intent to do more yoga in order to improve this. 

Overall, in my opinion our piece went extremely well, and I am truly proud of what we achieved today. 

Term One: Naturalism

Physical Theatre Exercises

Over the past few lessons in physical theatre we have learnt, practiced and perfected various different physical theatre exercises.

Routes to the floor

One of the exercises was about finding a variety of different ways of getting your body to the floor. Now, although this may seem very simple, in actual fact it isn’t, because in this exercise you must find different ways of getting your body to the floor - without doing so in the conventional way. The aim of this exercise is to make the training actors gain confidence in their own physical being, and among their peers and also to become more in touch with their own bodies.

Another way of getting to the floor is to do a ‘forwards roly poly.’ This is also an exercise where you move along the floor. To complete this exercise you must kneel on the ground on your knees and stretch out one of your arms whilst bending over to place the side of your head on the ground as if you are listening to the floor. From there you should use your bent knees to push your weight forward and to roll over so that the muscles along your shoulder and your neck are supporting your body.  Then it is simply a matter of following through with the roll, so that you do one complete roll, and end up in the same position you started in. Personally I found this exercise slightly painful. However this is because when I was kneeling on the ground there was strenuous amounts of pressure placed onto my recently operated on knee.  Other than this pain in my knee at the discomfort of being in such a position as kneeling, I found the rest of the exercise relatively easy, and unproblematic.

Another way of getting to the floor is to do a ‘twist.’ This is very simple. All you must do is simply go from standing in neutral position to crossing one of your legs over the other one, and then following through by twist your entire body and lowering yourself down until you are in the sitting crossed legged position. For this exercise you need to have very strong core muscles and good posture. In my experience of this exercise I did find it slightly painful to my left knee, and I also found that once sitting in the cross legged position my left knee was in serious discomfort.

Push me / Pull you

The first way of getting to the floor is the ‘fall back.’ It may also be known as the ‘push me/pull you’ exercise. Firstly standing in neutral position, extend one of your legs backwards whilst keeping the other leg still and slightly bent. From this position you should bend both of your knees downwards and lower yourself down onto the ground, using the small of your back to make contact with the ground first. Once you are lying on your back with your legs in the air you should roll yourself backwards slightly so that your legs go up further over your head and so that your body is supported by your shoulders and the top of your back. You should practice this repeatedly, until you have a nice fluid movement that holds no hesitation and is a continuous roll. The extension of this exercise is to pair up into twos and then do a repeated continuous roll simultaneously with your partner. To do this you must both hold each other’s forearms in a monkey like grip for support, and then as one person steps back to begin their roll their partner should take one step forward and bend down slightly whilst holding their partners forearm to support them in their roll, and so that as the first person rolling is pulled up by the second as they themselves step back and begin their own roll backwards. Once you have practised this for a length of time you should try speeding up, and to be successful in this exercise you should have a strong sense of confidence in yourself, your partner, and the floor beneath you.   I found this exercise quiet fun indeed, and when I personally compared the point of confidence that I was at before this exercise, to the point I was at when I had completed the exercise, it was evident that my confidence had grown substantially, in leaps and bounds.

Place, Press, Push

Another exercise we have done in physical theatre classes is place, press, push. In this exercise you must pair up and then in your pairs one person should lay down in soupine position on the floor and then slowly raise there arms up so that they are lying out on the floor above their head. The second person should choose a variety of different places on their partners’ body to place their hands. At first all you should be doing is placing your hands on your partners’ body and letting them rest there. Once you are ready to progress onto the next stage of the exercise you then should place your hands on your partners’ body and then press down slightly so that some pressure is felt in your partner. In the next and final stage of this exercise, you should use your full weight to push into them. However you should build it up in stages: slowly place your hand, the press down lightly, and then push your weight into them.  When removing your hands from your partners’ body you should do the exact reverse of place press push: you should slowly reduce the amount of weight you are pressing into their body until you take your hands off of them.  You should then switch over so that your partner can place press and then push their hands onto your body. This exercise is all about interacting with your partner, and responding in the appropriate way. Also before the exercise begins you should be completely clear that if at any time anyone in the group feels uncomfortable and wishes to discontinue the exercise he or she should simply say “stop” at any given time. When I this completed exercise personally I found that when I was the one laying down on the floor it was a very enlightening yet slightly discomforting experience. However when It was my turn to place press and push my own hands onto my partners body I found it was quiet fun actually, and had some merit to the exploration of one another’s physical beings.

Surfing Banana Rolls

Bow to boat: This exercise is a warm up of sorts to the following exercise, banana rolls. However it is essential to begin at the basic levels and work your way through each stage of the exercise. You must move from lying on the floor in soupine position to lying on the floor with only your back supporting your weight. To do this you must stretch out your arms and head above the ground and lift both of your legs pivoting at your hips so that only your back is supporting all of weight. This is the ‘boat’ position. From there you should use your abdominal muscles and the muscles in your back to roll over onto your front so that only your torso is supporting your weight. Whilst rolling onto your side you should stretch your hands and feet out as far away from one another as you can to lengthen your body. This exercise strengthens your abdominal muscles, your quads and the muscles in your lower back. In my experience of this exercise I did find it slightly hard, as my core muscles are not as strong as they could be.

Banana rolls: The next stage to this exercise is to extend the bow to boat exercise by rolling continuously from bow to boat and crossing from one side of the room to the other while doing so. You should practice rolling up and down the room without putting your head, neck, arms or legs on the floor, and your roll should be initiated from your torso and abdominal muscles. Although it is slightly harder to do so when moving slowly because you have to demonstrate more control over your own body in my opinion to increase the challenge for yourself you should experiment with the pace of your roll. In my experience of this exercise I did find it very fun and enjoyable; however I realised very early on that you have to fully commit to the banana rolls to make them work properly. An improvement to this exercise could be made if you were to try rolling to the other side of the room very slowly and holding each position for 5 seconds, and then try rolling at double that speed back down the room. You could then also try going from a very quick pace of moving your body across the floor, to slowing down suddenly. And also trying different routes around the room would be interesting: you could do 2 banana rolls to the left, then do three to the right, and even attempt to roll diagonally across a room.  I think that you should be creative and experiment with what feels natural to you in this exercise.

Surfing banana rolls: This is quite a leap from the simplicity of ‘bow to boat’ and ‘banana rolls,’ however with practice the ‘surfing banana rolls’ is not a hard exercise. You should pair up and then in your pair one of you should lie down in the previously mentioned boat position whilst your partner lies down vertically across you laying their hands and arms across your stomach. They should be laying face down, so that when you (the partner on the bottom) start rolling continuously from bow to boat and crossing from one side of the room to the other while they surf across your body as you do so. In my experience of this exercise I did find it slightly painful when my partners various bones came into contact with my hip bones, and I did find some bruising afterwards, however the exercise itself was very enjoyable.

Performing lifts

Performing lifts: As a training actor, lifts are an essential technique that you need to be able to do with ease and grace. There are many various different types of lifts that can be performed, however it is not the complexity of the lift that you perform that is important; it is the standard of quality in which you perform any lift that counts. To do this requires dedication, commitment, and buckets of confidence in yourself, your body and your peers.

Pencil lift – Partner 1 will jump straight up whilst standing in front of partner 2 and partner 2 should catch partner 1 at the peak of their jump by placing their arms at the back of partner 1’s thighs, to support them. Once the partner 1 is being held there this lift can be used to transition a person from one place to another.

Shoulder lift – This lift is essentially an extension of the pencil lift.  Partner 1 will jump straight up whilst standing in front of partner 2 and partner 2 should catch partner 1 at the peak of their jump by placing their arms at the back of partner 1’s thighs, to support them. Once the partner 1 is being held there, they can then lean over one of partner 2 shoulders using their abdomen and core muscles to keep them there. Partner 1 can then use their arms and legs to do something artistic if this lift were being used in a physical theatre routine.

Cradle lift – Partner 1 wraps one of their arms around partner 2’s shoulders, and then jumps up into their arms, whilst bring their other arm up to meet the first arm at the nape of partner 2’s neck. Partner 2 should support partner 1 by placing their arm underneath their knee joints and holding them as if they are a baby. From here you can move around whilst carrying and supporting your partner. Partner 1 should have both of their arms wrapped around partner 2’s neck for support during this lift.

Koala bear lift – In this lift, partner 1 places both of their hands on partner 2’s shoulders and then jumps up using both legs and quad muscles so that partner 1’s thighs end up being supported on partner 2’s waist, just slightly above their hips. This is a very intimate lift, and if it is being used in a physical theatre routine it can represent the relationship between two people one stage very simply.

Knee lift – In this lift, partner 1 wraps one of their arms around partner 2’s shoulders and then partner 1 will jump up whist lifting one knee, so that partner 2 can catch them at the peak of their jump by holding them under their knee. Partner 1 can place both hands at the nape of partner 2’s neck during this life, but as you practice more and gain confidence you may find you are able to do this using one arm wrapped around your partners neck for support, so that your other arm is free to do something artistic or symbolic in a piece of physical theatre work. From here partner 2 can carry partner 1 around the room and move them from one place to another.

Performing lifts requires commitment and the key to all lifts: TRUST. Whilst performing lifts you should be completely focused, whist knowing and being aware of your own bodies’ limitations - because if you are physically unable to perform a lift and you and a partner still attempt it knowingly, then you will most definitely injure yourself and most probably your partner too. So it is essential that you are focused, and that whilst performing these lifts you act professional and display diligence whilst doing so.

Theatre Company: DV8

DV8 is a unique and very entertaining physical theatre company. They were founded in the late 1980’s by a man named Lloyd Newson.
The aim of the DV8 theatre company is essentially to have a different approach to contemporary dance than other theatre companies. Also, the theatre company has been well known for incorporating dancers whom have to live with disabilities into their physical theatre pieces.
In their gloriously colourful past, the theatre company DV8 has produced 17 different dance pieces which have toured all around the entire world, and also they have won many awards for 4 different films they created.
DV8 Physical Theatre Company was formed in 1986 and has been led since its inception by Lloyd Newson.
The company has produced 17 highly acclaimed dance pieces, which have toured internationally, and four award-winning films for television.
DV8 Physical Theatre receives regular funding from Arts Council England and is an Artsadmin associate company. DV8 has also received project support from The British Council. DV8 is a member of the ITC and Dance UK.
http://www.DV8.co.uk/about_DV8
in my opinion, DV8’s work is very
The Sunday Mirror gave DV8 a massive leg-up. "Gay sex orgy on TV" shrieked the headline for their story on the screening of Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men, prompting a flood of complaints to the TV network, angry questions in parliament by Tory MPs – and a huge surge in DV8's viewing figures.
"Content rather than style drives DV8's work, which distinguishes it from a lot of other contemporary dance … Our work delves into how individuals relate to one another … exploring the individual's actions, and looking at how these in turn reflect political and social issues."
Lloyd Newson, interview with Jo Butterworth, 1998

DV8 Physical Theatre's work is about taking risks, aesthetically and physically, about breaking down the barriers between dance and theatre and, above all, communicating ideas and feelings clearly and unpretentiously. It is determined to be radical yet accessible, and to take its work to as wide an audience as possible.
DV8 is motivated by artistic inspiration and creative need: these, rather than financial, organizational and touring demands dictate the creation of new works.
Great emphasis is placed on the process by which new work is created. The company has fought successfully for funding to cover lengthy research and development periods in order to maintain rigorous artistic integrity and quality in each new project. The focus of the creative approach is on reinvesting dance with meaning, particularly where this has been lost through formalised techniques.DV8's work inherently questions the traditional aesthetics and forms which pervade both modern and classical dance, and attempts to push beyond the values they reflect to enable discussion of wider and more complex issues.DV8 (Dance and Video 8)'s strong commitment to film and video continues. This reflects its ongoing interest in how two primarily visual media can enhance one another and reach a crossover audience from within both forms.
The company's reputation relies on pushing its own boundaries and on the constant re-examination of the roles and relationships of men and women in our society. Its policy insists on the importance of challenging our preconceptions of what dance can, and should, address.
http://www.DV8.co.uk/about_DV8/artistic_policy

Physical Theatre Performance Evaluation 

in my physical theatre performance I was put into a group with Molly and Phoebe. Our only given stimulus for the piece was to imagine that your performance takes place in a desolate wasteland. We were instructed to use this stimulus, and one other added stimulus of our choice - such as music, poetry or dialogue, to inspire our piece of physical theatre performance. Essentially we were to utilize these stimuli whilst using the various different rolls, routes to the floor, and lifts we have learnt over the past few weeks, in order to create our piece of work.

Overall I was very pleased with our performance, and although a lift did go wrong at one point early on in our piece, other than that, as an active performer in the piece I cannot fault our performance in any other way. I am sure many observers had a wide varied selection of different opinions and interpretations of our work, and I am certain that some people loved it, and some hated it, however as one of the creators of our piece I was deeply pleased and proud of our final performance.

As we had been advised, my group tried very hard to devise our piece organically, in a way that was not just a series of different lifts and rolls with no narrative or storyline. In rehearsal we had simply explored each other’s bodies using our hands, arms, feet and legs, and we had also had a rule that restricted us from talking during this exercise, so that none of our movement was decided upon, or rehearsed and intellectual in any way. This definitely helped me to loosen up and to become more in tune with my own body, and I became more comfortable with the exploration of other peoples bodies as well.

The overall theme of our physical theatre piece was consumerism, and the natural instinct of competition amongst humans that in a way dehumanizes us, and makes us have animalistic tendencies. We used this to inspire our work, and also to use as a narrative storyline for our piece so that it was not only enticing to our audience, but also engaging. Also, one of our main objectives throughout the piece is ‘To grab’ which I interpreted to be that we were each consumerists trying to find happiness, as if it were a literal, tangible and palpable object that could be reached for and physically held.

In our piece we began with all three members of my group sitting on the floor with our knees pulled up to our chest, our ankles crossed, and our arms wrapped around our legs. We stay in this position, until at a specific moment in the backing music, a series of movements are triggered to begin our piece. The specific movements were a series of animated scratches of the head and foot and also reaching out and grabbing something, however all three of us are doing this at different times, and in different orders to communicate chaos to our audience.

We then grew frantic with our grabbing until me and Phoebe came into a kneeling position in front of each other, and then we proceeded to lift our upstage knee so that they were touching and to create a stable physical place for our other partner, Molly to use for a lift. In rehearsals we had spent some time experimenting with various different lifts, such as the shoulder lift, the pencil lift, and also the knee lift at this section of our piece, to be utilized as an aesthetically pleasing transition into our next sequence of movement. However when it came to our actual performance of our piece, this lift went slightly wrong in execution and unfortunately did not have the desired effect accordingly. I must say though, our one saving grace for this was that we did not let this phase us or distract us from our objectives in anyway, and we all continued on with the performance as if the lift had gone perfectly well, in a professional and totally committed manner. I can only comment on behalf of myself for this part, but I genuinely believe the reason that we were able to carry on with a steady flow and pace to our movements after a lift going wrong so very early on in our piece was because we, as actors, were completely engaged with our stimulus and I think that Phoebe and Molly would both agree that our minds were completely focused and literally immersed in our physical theatre piece. 

From here both I and Phoebe fell backwards and reached for something far behind us.  And then from here we both notice that Molly has been reaching for something very high up above her head whilst we were both thrown down to the floor. Once we have both observed and then interpreted Molly’s movements and physicality, we then simultaneously respond by trying to frantically reach for the same thing that molly is reaching for. Then there is an evident shift or transition in our piece, which is not only signified by a shift in the movement of our bodies and our proximity to each other on stage, but also by a shift in the backing music we used. We created some significant imagery on stage at the point, as we symbolically changed the proxemics of our bodies on stage from being very close together, touching and interacting with one another, to being pulled away from one another by some invisible

cord in various different directions. This was intended to represent that consumerism can hold you back and restrict you from living life the way you should, however I am sure many observers in the audience had different opinions and interpretations of what this movement actually meant.

Once we were in the formation of an upstage pointing open triangle, we then each individually performed a specific sequence of 3 separate movements, repeated 3 times, and gaining speed and franticness with each repetition of the sequence. My specific sequence was to first of all stand very strong and tall, with my feet shoulder width apart and to place both of my hands at the back of my head. I then froze in this position until I continued onto my next significant movement, which was to then reach for something to my far right with both of my hands, imagining that it was very heavy, and then throw it directly to my left after completing a 180 degree turn. My next movement was to hang my torso over the rest of my body and to let my arms and hands go limp, as well as my head. I then repeated these 3 separate movements, starting off slowly and then increasing the pace of my movements as each of us individually grew to be more frenzied and deranged.

From here we then slowly came back towards the centre of the room where I and Molly then performed a pencil lift, after which I aggressively spun her around so that she was facing the audience, where we performed 3 more lifts one after the other, however they were not normal lifts. Each time I lift her off of the ground she would use both of her arms to reach for something violently and use her legs to thrash out in the same way. The thrashing out of her arms and legs did make it very difficult for me to restrain her and to keep my balance, however after much rehearsal on this section of our piece I became much more confident in the lift and comfortable with the physicality of it.

Once we had completed the 3 lifts I then threw Molly to the floor directly to the right hand side of me. Whilst we had been performing these lifts, phoebe had continued to perform her specific sequence of 3 separate movements repeatedly, until the point at which I had thrown Molly to the ground. I then went over towards Phoebe and interrupted her sequence of movements to do a pencil lift, followed by the same 3 frantic and aggressive 3 lifts that Molly and I had just performed, and then also through phoebe to the ground but in the opposite direction. In a way it could have been described as a delayed mirror image – first Molly and I performed these movements, and then I and phoebe mirrored them in cannon moments later. Because there were only 3 members in my group we had no option but to perform these lifts in cannon, however I believe that this added to the overall effectiveness of these movements, and the affect that it had on our audience.

I then also threw myself to the ground in the centre of our stage, as a dividing line between phoebe and Molly, at which point we then all slowly started crawling across the floor, each of us reaching for something at an invisible focal point situated centre, downstage. When doing this we lifted our bodies slightly then fell back to the ground, evidently portraying exhaustion and fatigue. It was a very evident ending to our piece, and tied in quiet nicely with the narrative of our piece. The overall tone to this final section of our piece was desperation, which was conveyed to the audience not only through our physicality and proxemics on stage, but also through our facial expressions, and declining pace of movements.

When crawling across the floor, and literally dragging my body along with just my hands and arms, I found that in rehearsal this strengthens your abdominal muscles, your biceps, and also the muscles in your lower back. In my experience of this exercise I did find it slightly hard, and very tiring after frequent rehearsal of this section of our piece, as my core muscles are not as strong as they could be, and also it requires a lot of effort for this if you are committing 100% to the movements.

Overall I was very happy with our performance, and although a lift did go wrong at one point early on in our piece, I am certain that we did redeem ourselves by being completely committed to our performance and by being engrossed in every other section of our piece, both physically and mentally.

As one of the active performers of our piece I was very proud of our final performance, and felt like I had achieved something amazing once the performance was over.