In improvisation with Thomas we did this great 'warm up' exercise (to awesome fast jumpy foreign music - I need to start building a collection of neat foreign music!!) in which there's a whole bunch of stuff - tables, chairs, scarves, sticks, hats, balls, hoola-hoops etc - all over the stage, and then 6 people have to constantly clean the stuff up. When it get's put into a heap nicely somewhere, that becomes the new mess that then needs to be cleaned up! More layers of the game were presented as we went on.
- you have to work together with your team mates
- send kisses to the audience
- can't let things drop on the ground
- have to be soft on the feet
- no noises
Then we played in groups of three people and had to make fun of someone in the class whilst we cleaned up frantically. When I got up, my group forgot about the game when we spoke, and my voice gets too high. I need to keep it at a speaking tone - just with volume and clarity.
Then an exercise in which we imitated the voice and rhythm of a boring sports commentator. I did cricket. "And now we have Richardson stepping up the wicket...last game he stayed on for 35 innings so he's bound to last a wee while..." Thomas said I need to open my eyes more. They disappear without my glasses. And my unlike other people's boring commentators (which were really funny because they so were boring) mine was just boring. I'd say this is because I was feeling a bit of fear and a lack of pleasure. The people that we liked when they were boring had pleasure bubbling in their eyes as they did their commentary. You could tell that they were enjoying themselves and thought it was funny. Whereas mine was too serious. = DON'T TRY SO HARD. DON'T WANT TOO MUCH! The exercise offers an opportunity to play with rhythm though, which I did do a bit. And later in the exercise, when we had to talk about an awesome holiday in Ibiza, but with the same rhythm as the boring sports commentator, I was a bit funnier. I'm good with rhythm. I had no trouble maintaining the commentator rhythm with different text - which others did - but I do have trouble being light and playful and having/showing pleasure. It's a confidence thing I think. And an ego thing. I'm worried I won't be good enough. But if I don't care about being good or bad then what happens? This is the goal...
After we played the game where everybody has a sock/scarf tucked into their back pocket and you have to try and steal everybody's sock but keep yours intact. In a big group, then groups of four, and we had to complement each other in the team and be charming. "Oh Brette. I think you are - the - most - beautiful - Canadian - I - have - ever - seen!" I still struggled to be nice. Even when the text is nice! I'm still forcing it, and it started to get to me today. I started to feel fed up with myself. Frustrated. And I stupidly let some improvised text by another group about how awful I am (I know it's a joke and a game) get to me. Not all of it. Like, the talked about how pasty I am and that's fine. But when they talked about how nasty I am on stage I started feeling like the truth was seeping in. I don't really think it was. Well, it was, but they weren't being serious or nasty. But it just made me feel a bit like the class hates me. Which is ridiculous. But I don't want to be seen as the nasty guy on stage. That's no good! But then I do need to accept that I'm learning and every person's journey is different, and keep looking and feeling for how to be lighter and more charming and have more fun onstage.
I'm over that feeling now. But for a while it got to me. This frustration of continually not being able to do the thing I want to be able to do. A taste of this 'crisis' people at Gaulier talk about - an idea I didn't really buy at first - but I can understand it a bit more now. I didn't buy it because it seemed unnecessary to me to go into crisis because something isn't working. Like, why not just keep trying other ways. Don't let it overcome you. It seems irrational to go into crisis. And you've got to remember that the killings you get that tell you how bad you are are really jokes. They are highly exaggerated truths. And you've got to remember that it is fine to be bad. Yet people still go into crisis. A kind of really low self esteem and inability to find any kind of light. A performer-depression? And then eventually they start to be more sensitive and really look for something else - anything - until they start to find where they need to go. That is the journey of crisis I have been hearing about. "That person's just about to go into crisis. That person is in crisis. And that person's just come out of it." It seemed and still seems a bit crazy to me. But I do kind of understand this feeling of frustration. But I can still see the damn light!
I'm thinking I might try and start writing each blog with a central theme from now on. A bit like how TV episodes work. I feel like I just blabber incoherently about what happened in the day. And maybe I could use these blog posts to develop my skills as a writer. We'll see. I might give it a go. The only problem is I write these late at night when I'm tired and want to go to bed!
Made this this evening for Sha & Sos who are having an engagement party this Saturday back in NZ! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment