This Saturday saw a few of us back at the excetera theatre in Camden with Natalie for another brilliant 8 hours of movement class, and it was pretty intense. I got quite teary and emotional by the end, which was quite odd, but I sniffled quietly in the corner so hopefully it wasn't too disruptive.
This seems to be a week of illness in Earth company, with many people, myself included, battling chest infections (perhaps a contributing factor to the teary eyes) and other nasty winter lurgies. Poor old Stu put his back out playing tennis, the nutter! Others have had to deal with the pressure of prepping for drama school auditions this week, and that certainly takes its toll. But aside from this, Natalie is a genius, and Saturday was another amazing day of revelations. We all LOVE working with her, and can't wait for 'The Bacchae'.
I then hopped off, sweating and stinking, to see the final night of 'Shalom Baby' at Stratford East, where my very best friend was assistant directing. And this time there were tears for all the right reasons! A fabulously moving piece of theatre, which was simultaneously hilarious and harrowing, with beat poetry mixed in for good measure! A triumph and congratulations to all involved, especially my Royal Court buddy Nathan, who was a FABULOUS 'Slice', and assistant director, Charlotte Beynon. So very proud of you!
Sunday morning, bright and breezy, leaving Charl, and another friend of ours, comatsoed on my sofas after a well deserved night of celebrations, (I was very abstemious and left early) it was back to the rag factory for a day of clown technique with artistic director Steve Green, and movement with the lovely Charlene. We had our first taste of this last week, and it was safe to say we were all so excited to be getting back to it!
We began with Charlene and a concentration game, which frankly we are rubbish at! When I was at university we used to play a version called 'The hardest game in the world' so if you are familiar with that, then you know what I'm talking about. We are determined to get to 12 sequences round the circle. I think Charlene is dubious. We remain optimistic.
Then it was down to actual business. Last week we spend a lot of time working on ourselves, and this week we began partnering. Imitating the way your partner moves, the way they walk, the way the sit, stand, stand up, play with their hair, which way round they cross their legs, trying to be as specific as possible. I had been imitating Natalie for a while and when it was time to swap over I managed to forget how to walk, which can't have been very helpful to poor Nat. But I remembered in the end. Panic over. This was followed by mirroring exercises which ended up with total unity between the two partners, with no leader or follower, which is always quite odd, and very exciting. To round this off we spend a bit of time moving around different partners, trying to keep bodies touching at all times. If you are thinking 'raunchy', don't. Although dear Charlotte found it quite hilarious.
We then prodded and shoved our partners across the space, trying to make them get to the other side. Mai's advice 'go for the hips' seemed to work a treat. But then she is a bit of a genius when it comes to this stuff. Another fab session, and we all love Charlene's approach of 'No bullshit' with buckets and buckets of fun.
Quick break, bye bye and thank you to Charlene, and off downstairs with Steve for clowning. I absolutely love this, it's literally playtime and Steve is a brilliant teacher! Anyone who can give the direction "just kick the sh*t out of that mother-f*cker' is definitely a legend. What more could you want?
Last week we were working on 'tension states'. These are 1) Exhaustion 2) Liad Back 3) One thought to another 4) Neutral 5) Is there a bomb in the room? (my personal fave) 5a) Virgin Mary 6) There is a bomb in the room 7) Bomb's about to go off and 8) Rigamortis. The dots are all beginning to connect now, and everything that we have been doing with Natalie, Charlene, Steve and indeed Bikram are all beginning to come together. Especially the use of the breath, we will keep trying to unify all the elements.
Anyway this week we moved on to Archetypes. These are 1) The Fool, 2) The Lover, 3) The Trixter, 4) The Mother, 5) The Hero, 6) King/Queen, 7) The Devil. We split the group in half so half was doing and half was watching. There was then more space to explore these states, to find out where they sit, what they do to your body, and where they can go once you crank them up to100%, which is obviously hilarious. But beginning to tone them down to somewhere more naturalistic you can see how exciting that would be if someone entered the space like that. It was so interesting to watch people explore these and to see how transformative these states are. People produced really beautiful and surprising things and it was really delightful to watch. We eventually combined the archtypes with the tension states, eg) a Laid-Back-Trixter -- which Sam A created brilliantly, and hilariously in an improvisation in a doctor's surgery. I've said it before and I'll say it again. There are some ridiculously talented people in this company. We then moved on to Clown, beginning with making use of the neutral tension state, trying out a scene where B strangles A but both remain completely neutral. Paired with Maria we decided to 'go for it' which unfortunately ended with us tripping over Sam's legs (he was dead on the floor) and completely stacking it. We were both a bit into it and, according to bystanders, apparently 'fell in neutral' which might explain why I didn't hold out my hands to break my fall and how I ended up with a fairly hideous carpet burn on my elbow. Now that's dedication, surely!
We have begun to try and employ the dropping and clocking techniques we explored last week in improvisations. Personally I think Thea, Emma, Maxine and I DO create a fairly mean atom bomb and japanese washing machine! ;)
We've also started to work on pathetic and tragic clown. The preoccupation exercise we did right at the end of the day, where we threw a pebble up in the air but it didn't return back to earth certainly bothered me all evening. So much so that my housemate Laura, never one to shy away from a theatrical venture, plucked my pebble out of the air and threw it at me. Phew! After such a hectic two days, I believe my pizza, red wine and Sainsbury's finest, caramel shortcake bites were completely justified. Anyway, Bikram Yoga this morning should have sorted it out!
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