Performance Strategies: Elin Dowsett

Thursday 8th & Friday 9th November

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:08:00 +0100

One again we thoroughly tired our legs out with a Suzuki session. It’s very hard to describe what Suzuki involves and is trying to achieve so I’m going to post this video instead:

Then we grabbed our Closer scripts again, sorting ourselves into groups to begin working on our performance assessment.

Working with Rozi, Amber and Hannah, we drew inspiration from our scripts and began planning how we could use the 5 main stages of Kirby’s Acting to Not Acting scale to create a performance. These were:

Not Acting- performing without any layers of pretending e.g. moving set
Symbolised Acting- no character embodied but perhaps suggested through costume or props.
Received Acting- background acting that is taken to be pert of the created performance world
Simple Acting- acting with only a few layers of pretence
Complex Acting- fully formed adoption of character.

Coming away from the session with a few ideas involving making sandwiches and being in an art gallery, we were still a little confused as to how we would shape a performance with the criteria we have been given.

I was absent for the lesson on Friday 9th- I’m a terrible human being.

Thursday 1st & Friday 2nd November

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 00:05:39 +0000

I was absent for Thursday’s performance strategies lesson due to illness- spending hours upside down and bending my body into strenuous yoga positions might have actually killed me.

In preparation for Friday’s lesson we all took online Emotional Intelligence tests. I was rather proud when I got the result “Above Average EQ” but upon talking to my fellow classmates soon realised we all had the same result… oh dear. Never trust the internet.

Continuing to focus on emotional intelligence, the morning was spent in a whole class discussion highlighting the importance of awareness of emotion and it’s affect on conflict.

Thursday 18th & Friday 19th October '12

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 17:42:01 +0100

We’re getting used to making total fools of ourselves by now and so when Kevin began our session with the usual breathing exercises and vocal warm ups including saying “AEIOUAEIOUAEIOUAEIOU” over and over and jiggling and wobbling to create a really ridiculous sight for any onlookers we didn’t bat an eyelid.

We then went on to use the text we’ve been working with over the last few weeks (which I managed to forget to bring again, whoops) to work on short performances in groups of 3. We began by saying the text one at a time, switching between speakers at whim and feeding off each other’s way of speaking. We moved our bodies and manipulated our breath to create different sounds when we were speaking.

Once we had found suitably interesting ways of speaking the text as a group we shared our work with the group and got feedback from Kevin to help us develop our pieces further. For example, my group had incorporated a moment where I ran in the space and then was out of breath for the rest of the speech. Kevin suggested that this running should be extended and explored in order to play with the effect it has on the voice and the performance.

We met Nancy in the dusty old gym ready and raring for some yoga. However, we discovered that we’d be ditching the yoga mats and beginning a short course in the basics of Suzuki.

We began by watching a video introduction to Suzuki in which trained Suzuki-ers demonstrated what we would go on to do later in the afternoon. At first we found this rather hilarious; the seriousness of it all and the ridiculousness of the way the performers were moving was somewhat amusing. But after 3 minutes of watching them stomp before dropping tot the floor we realised the skill and energy needed to do this successfully would be large.

Once the video was over we began going through the exercises. I swear, it nearly killed me. Half way through the first set of moves (which included a squat that was torture) my thighs nearly gave way. The people on the video had made it look pretty effortless but every single muscle in our legs and trunk were being used to ensure we kept a core balance. My legs still hurt now.

Despite the pain it was a whole lot of fun, particularly the silly walks. We finished with 3 minutes of stomping (which, again, nearly killed me) and then collapsed to the floor for some well earned rest.

After a short break we grabbed our scenes from Closer, got into our twos and threes and worked on the text for while. We then reconvened as a group and shared our work so far, with Nancy chipping in with suggestions for the performers to incorporate.

We were rudely shunted out of the space by some ferocious cheerleaders at 6 o’Clock sharp and so we shuffled home to put our feet up.

On Friday we studied Transactional Analysis. We began with a basic overview of it so that those who hadn’t researched it beforehand (naughty naughty) knew what was going on. We then roleplayed a situation in which the parent, child and adult states were obvious and talked about the dynamics within the conflict. We then attempted to complete Transactional Analysis tasks/games but due to a lack of inspiration and the fact that young adults cannot build bridges out of sheet of paper without going a little wild we moved back to the theory of TA and were introduced to our tasks to complete within helps week.

Thursday 11th & Friday 12th October '12

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 17:14:20 +0100

I didn’t attend Performance Strategies on Thursday because I managed to do silly things and wind up with concussion and whiplash. I am a fool.

Friday’s session was spent exploring deep into our sense of self using the Johari Window method of self evaluation. After going over the basics of the method we then split into groups with the one instruction that between us we must decide which member of our group was the least valuable as part of the team and therefore had to leave.

After some initial discussion in which we came up with a list of the qualities that are essential within a good team member, each member of my group put forward to the rest their strengths and weaknesses. We discussed each member and offered up suggestions of their key qualities and faults and once everyone had had their say we noted down what we had learnt about ourselves (if applicable).

The interesting thing about the discussion wasn’t necessarily the content of what we said. Different members of the group approached the task differently, some taking it more seriously than others, some offering witty or sarcastic answers or appearing to be falsely big-headed. This told me as much about who would be valuable in the team as the strengths/weaknesses suggested. The attitudes towards the task and the level of contribution were just as important as whether people were reliable/considerate/punctual etc.

Thursday 4th & Friday 5th October

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 14:13:37 +0100

We began our performance starts lesson this week with another vocal workshop with Kevin. This weeks focus was on phrasing and the lesson seemed to fly by. Beginning with breathing exercises, laid out on the floor we steadied our breathing and by counting to 15/20/30 on a single lungful of air we aimed to increase our lung capacity and breath control. We then let our breath out on a single note then on a sliding pitch which made us sound like a room full of mewing cats.

We then applied this to our text, counting to 5 and reciting lines on a single breath. This then developed into saying as much text as we could within the 5 counts before pausing to breathe. The affect of this gave different meanings to the text and we noticed that anticipation was created for an audience as we held their attention in our pauses.

Kevin had to remind us that we are constantly “performing” and that it was important to stand tall and project rather than the usual teen mumble we have slidden into.

The group was split into 2, with a line on each side of the studio and we used the 5 counts to walk towards each other, breathe together and then 5 counts walk back whilst saying the text. We then paired up and did an exercise in which one of the pair spoke the text continuously and the other counted to 10 before squeezing the waist of the speaker, thus prompting them to pause and breathe.

The hour-long session was over in the blink of an eye- time flies when you’re having fun, and so we gallivanted over to the old gym, yoga mats in hand to meet Nancy.

I was excited for yoga this week but as Nancy picked up the pace and we repeated the sequences over and over again It really knackered me out. After a quick recap we did 3 repetitions of Salutation of the Sun A, then B and then standing poses on our right side then left. After about an hour or so of stretching and sweating we happily chilled out to the soothing lull of Nancy’s voice and filled ourselves once again with the golden light.

Everyone came out of the session with a dazed and zen silence about them, so Nancy proposed a break before beginning the next part of the lesson, which I was glad for as I took the 10 minutes or so to wander around outside so the fresh air could wake me out of my yoga stupor.

The rest of the session was spent introducing the group to Stanislavski. Nancy covered the basics of his practice and filled in any gaps in our knowledge before putting us into groups of 2 or three to work on a scene from ‘Closer’. I knew a little bit about Stan the Man before coming here, but I’ve never really studied him too closely nor employed his methods into my work so I’m glad I’ll get a chance to.

Friday’s session began with a group reading of ‘Closer’ sprung out of necessity to cover the text with the whole group and the lack of copies in the library. In order to establish the Super-objectives for the character we need to have read the whole play so we took it in turn to pass the few copies we have around the class and read them out loud as a group. We got about halfway through the play before becoming a little sick of the vulgar language so we then recapped the 6 hats before being introduced to the Johari window.

Sent away with the instruction to perform a johari window self analysis, I’m intrigued about what will be discovered when we join together in group analysis.

Thursday 27th & Friday 28th Sep '12

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 18:12:10 +0100

So after the whirl of freshers week and course induction, this Thursday we became CTP students officially. Yoga mats in hand and hangovers shaken off we headed to the CCA theatre for our first sessions with Kevin Egan and Nancy Reilly.

For the first hour we had a vocal workshop with Kevin, beginning with warm ups that allowed us to pull ridiculous faces and make some very odd noises. Once suitably warmed up (and minus any previous inhibitions) we began to explore the timbre of our voices. Using a piece of poetry we contorted our bodies in order to extend and crush and bend the parts of our body that create our voice, i.e. the lungs, throat, etc. This demonstrated the importance of posture in relation to the sound that we want to make.

Using the same text we then went on to look at volume, particularly the range of volumes we can use when performing. We explored the scale between quiet and loud (and when I say loud, I mean headrush LOUD).

After a short break we began our session with Nancy. She took us through the outline of the unit (using moodle, of course) covering the unit structure and how we’re assessed At this early stage it all seems very far away but I’m sure it’ll creep up on us.

Then we began the dreaded yoga. As someone who has done basically zero physical exercise since the age of 11 I was not looking forward to contorting my body into crazy positions, but I was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable it was. Once you get over the fact you can’t touch your toes and really focus on the pattern of movements and breathing it’s a lot of fun. We learned the “salutation of the sun” A&B and repeated them for what seemed like an infinite time. Once sufficiently knackered out, we lay down in the relaxation pose and released all the tension from our bodies, forgetting the stress of spending a week with strangers and learning how not to burn ready meals, and filled ourselves with a golden light in order to fully relax. Usually I would scoff at such an exercise but it really worked and I felt like I was almost floating when we left the building. Exercise does make you feel good and I’m sure I’ll fully understand the importance of focus, fitness and flexibility as a performer by the end of the unit.

This morning we met Nancy again, away from the safety of the studios we are getting so used to and deep within the darkest depths of the more traditional classrooms at the uni. Due to technical difficulties we couldn’t rely on the ever-faithful Moodle, nor be given a demonstration on what creating our blogs would entail, but instead we were given an introduction into working collaboratively. This was mainly focused on roles within rehearsals and solving conflict in a collaborative theatre environment.

Nancy described Straus’s roles (Agenda Keeper, Note keeper and facilitator) and how they would apply in our own rehearsals so right from the very start we could work in the most effective way to build pieces using a tried and tested method. Also, rehearsal rules were established and noted down- so there can be no excuse!

We then went on to explore Debono’s “6 hats” approach to solving conflict. Each hat forces the metaphorical “wearer” to think a certain way in response to the problem, e.g. wearing the yellow hat would prompt them to think positively about the problem whereas the black had would prompt them to think negatively. We applied the use of this method within scenarios in groups and then shared it with the rest of the class, often with rather amusing consequences (and quite a lot of talk about cat ladies). Eventually a solution was reached in every instance, which sometimes meant further discussion would be needed in the future, but generally everybody was happy and we left the room as a happy, harmonious group (let’s see how long that lasts…)

As I write this I am aching from yoga aftermath and rather mentally exhausted from having to dive back into structured education after a year of generally being a slob, but I am looking forward to not only next week, but also the next year.