Lesson notes

So we started the lesson by discussing the criteria for this terms assessment. We then split off into groups to get on with the lesson. Simon started by conducting a very effective yet not extensive warm up.

After the warm up we did an exercise in which we looked at the work of Steven Berkoff and the French dance school le coq. We went from standing with our arms out reached above our heads to hanging out torsos down low. We then rolled back up the body whilst identifying which parts of the body we lead with. First were our knees, followed by the hips, then the chest and nose. We then spent a small amount of time focusing on each of these body parts, working our way up the body. Leading with your knees is physically quiet straining but very effective in terms of physically portraying character. Through doing the exercise and analysing what came out during the exercise, we found that leading with your hips and chest can commonly lead to portraying a character quiet in touch with their own sexual desires. We found that using your hips as the focal point of your body easily portrays a male character, whereas using your chest can portray a woman more easily. When we did the part of the exercise where we were leading with our noses, a wider variety of characters came out within the class. The most interesting thing I noted about this was that everyone's different characters started to become more animalistic and strayed further away from usual human behaviour than any of the other body parts had done.

Eating exercise

Everyone in the class was asked to create a repeatable sequence of them eating a specific meal. We were told to be very realistic and specific with our movements and to not fake any of it. I chose a melted ham and cheese sandwich and a cup of tea for my loop. Once we had all established and practiced our individual solo pieces, Simon instructed us that the work we had done so far was naturalism and if we were put on a scale we were currently at 5 the midway point. We then experimented with the extremities of character using the numbers from 1-10 to guide us.

Then we paired up to put two solo pieces together and make duets. I was with Sophie and using the character extremes scale you had to start at opposites then when someone imaginary came in and you changed to the other end of the extremity scale. For example I started at a 2 and Sophie started at a 10 and then when our someone came into the room we shifted to me being at a 9 and Sophie being at a 1. At first I didn't quite understand what was being asked of us and was unsure on how to proceed. After asking Simon to explain in more detail I fully understood, and then enjoyed the exercise. I did get a little bored of the sandwich though.