The Joy Of Imitating

Playing with the joy of imitating today. The first exercise was a game of Musical Chairs - we played in teams of two - and if neither of you get a chair (or if you bump one noisily) then you have to imitate a famous actor from your country. I had such trouble thinking of one! I was going to do Danny Mulheron but then I thought of Murray from Flight of the Conchords. I had a bit of fun - "Bret? Present. Jemaine? Present. Murray? Present" - but not really any pleasure and so got out very quickly!

Andre did a great impersonation of Russell Crowe in a big Gladiator speech. Really committed to it! And David was on fire! Technically really specific, but full of joy too. "I can work with this pleasure. There is something special there".

Then we did an exercise in which a classmate goes up on stage and is asked questions about themselves and we had the opportunity to go up onstage and imitate them.

"You can imitate your classmates because you love them, because you want to mock them, or because you think they are a piece of shit". You can push/stretch a bit to mock. If you imitate because you think they are a piece of shit it will be a parody. Nasty. *Made me think about WANNABE. I don't think it was a parody because I still had respect for the boy bands I was mocking.*

First up was Anna who was great for imitating. She swings her body around a lot when she talks - shifting her weight and brushing her hair about. Good rhythm to imitate too.

Then Rob got up, who was far less animated. Very stiff and boring. This kind of put me off going up and giving it a go. I thought I wouldn't have enough to play with - which is silly because it could be fun to mock the fact that he does nothing! I was gutted because after Rob, Gaulier changed the exercise (because only two people got up to imitate Rob) so I didn't get a go. I hesitated and missing out. Fear got to me a bit. I was worried about being bad. Which is stupid! It feels worse to be ashamed for not taking a risk, than taking a risk and it going badly. Next time. Stupid stupid because I think I could be quite good at mocking. Just exaggerating people's mannerisms and having fun with them. It doesn't have to be hugely accurate. But there definitely needs to be pleasure. Brette was quite accurate in imitating Anna but she didn't have much pleasure so it felt a bit nasty - like she hated Anna. Where as Ling Tao was quite inaccurate yet she played a lot - shifting her weight and playing with her feet all the time, and we loved her.

Then we played Grandma's Footsteps in 4 teams in each corner of the room trying to get Philippe. He is so funny how he waves people away. Light and playful. He definitely knows how to be funny specifically to his type, and he uses that all the time.

Once Grandma's footsteps was over we then did an exercise in the same groups (about 6 per group) where there is a chorus leader, and the group had to follow their leader to the music. No group really aced this. "Too boring." "Too physical theatre." "Too fanatic gymnastic."

I had a go at leading and had good pleasure but was a bit careless in terms of leading a group. Too much fast movement. They couldn't follow me. Therefore, I joined Mike in the 'United Nations of Wankers'.

I was a bit puzzled by what would have worked in this last exercise (I was thinking 'collective pleasure'), but at question time Philippe talked about how there need to be fun, lightness and listening to the music. In my group he said I had an idea. I didn't have an idea beforehand. So I didn't understand. But talking to Fiona afterwards, she said I looked similar to how Mike looked. That is, I was kind of driving my own ship. A bit like when Philippe says "you talk too much". I wasn't sharing the game again.

Talked to Andre after class as we were both feeling a bit low and we laughed together about how every day of the week is up or down. Ups and downs all the time. Sometimes we are good. Sometimes we are bad. The sun comes up, the sun goes down. The tide comes in, the tide goes out...