So the photo is the second still life from Starbucks. The brown paper bag has “flavors my senses, sweetens my disposition, stirs my imagination, nourishes my dreams” printed on it. Tall order for a cup of coffee!!
This morning’s class was a grab bag. We began in one of the theatres, I assume to enable us to do the first exercise – we warmed up dancing on stage to load music. No Busby Berkeley or Bob Fosse, we danced to Garbage, then Billy Idol – Dancing with Myself, and then we had to tell the story of a Bjork song (something where she goes down to a cliff in the morning before her partner wakes and imagines jumping off a cliff – really not so upbeat).
Some people knew the song, and most of us followed them. Some listened to the words and did what they said, others began an independent narrative (which merged).
The day is about energy – yes anding energetically. Shad’s analogy was that a show needs to be like a good album. Do people still listen to albums?
Purple Rain was his fave: different type of song, many high tempo but not the same, every song works a different muscle.
We did a warm up in a circle where the person in the centre did a character monologue (slowly), and everyone in the circle matched the energy, voice, physicality of the character. The centre person revolved so everyone could see. Then someone tagged them out and began a new monologue.
Then we did 2 person scenes, firstly with matching their energy, and then countering it (with agreement).
Shadvice for the day:
– the audience get lost in plot-driven stuff – they can’t keep up. But they can follow emotions and characters and their responses. That’s significant (even if it’s not necessarily true).
– all we preach in this course is energy-matching and love, so when someone takes over your scene or hogs the stage you can love them.
Looking forward to this afternoon’s class!
