It's the first class with our main teacher and school director and everyone seems very relaxed. It is noticeable the different atmosphere that reigns in a class of the second year and one of the first year. Two separate worlds also in the attitute of the pedagogue towards the students. I use this wordy word because I think it is in his very capacity of teacher that the Henry modulates the relationship with the students. There's a couple of comments about the time to rest during summer and some people report some accidents. Henry then asks whether somebody else needed to have an accident to give themselves a rest. Here are the beginning of some very therapeutic comments of which I take note only to keenly.
I think the relationship teacher-student is something I am deeply interested about as that's the very base of the teaching/learning process. However I hope I will be able to separate it, unless necesary, from the personal experience and also have a kind of balanced place in my description of the classes, with regards to the contents.
After the preliminary words Henry talk about the content of this first term, about the image-creating ability of the actor. The idea behind this is that theatre should be a place where images -which can never compete with the acuracy and detail of cinema- can have a different purpose, the purpose of awakening our imagination and taking us to different places. Images created by the actors movement which suggest things beyond that body.
we take ourselves to walk the space, just as we used to in the first year, there's a certain lightness and complicity in the way we're told to do that. We walk and we explore the four elements. First we are told to be walking surrounded by water, by a river that pushes and pulls us in the space. Then we become taht river and Henry indicates the need to free the neck in order to better convey that idea of an uncontrolled and unitary body that moves in the space. From at some point the river calms down somewhere in the space although the movement remains somehow in the body. However that fluid movement starts to get thicker and thicker until we become clay and can barely move in the space. After this we start to experience some sparks in the body at intervals. It's fire coming! And from there we take it to air.
Coming back to the idea of creating images with our body we're asked to create with our body the simplest element: a dot. And also we're asked to make ourselves disappear giving all the importance to the dot. We try on our own and then we pair up showing the other our version of it. Then we show in front of the class and the question that arises is: do we see the dot or do we see the person behind the dot? why do we see the person, what do we see the person doing?
then move to other geographic elements, start to reveal a third dimension. with a circle first: either sun or moon, what type of night, what temperature and as many qualities as we can...
THen with other elements, in pairs, provoking each other to react quickly.
Then in groups we form stairs and we are told to give those stairs also a quality, a whole character with its history and so on.
Sadly I just got some work and need to get back to translation. Conflicting forces at play...
Wednesday 4 November 2009
1a clase con Athena- NYSOM 2009/10
Clase de reencuentro con la pedagogía.
Nuevos compañeros. Nueva profesora. Nuevo espacio.
Ondulation as a point of departure, we repeat the movement we learn some time ago and let it develop into a step in the space letting.
The idea is to get back to the original ondulation and see if it can develop naturally, if it can flow seamless trying to identify where that impulse comes from. From there we let the movement lead us into a first step into the space, and after the first -a second step.
Next Athena asks us to explore the range of that movement and see how it can develop progressively into an increasingly big movement. We are also asked to let sound appear if it comes. What generates is a movement that has the beginning of a state, it provokes a sort of pre-character state: sometimes angry, sometimes afraid, sometimes franctic.
With this in mind we are asked to explore that state that sort of appears shyly and let it find its full expression. Now we see a very raw material in expansion, great amount of energy being deployed.
But after a while, with most of us panting and sweating we are reminded that we might not need to spend so much energy in the recreation of that state. We should be able to 'play' those big range of movements and sounds in a more constracted way. In a way that would allow us to play for a three hours show. One way to construct might be reducing the length of the strides or steps but giving them more importance, constructing them so that they carry the same weight as a big step. Another way to construct all that raw material, that bulk of clay, might be to make contact with the space, as some of us are very lost in that crazy movement and do not take the time to take the space in. The timing, the rythm and the pauses allow for a more constructed movement.
With this in mind we are told to find one movement within this state, with a beginning and an end. With this we parade in twos so that the rest of the class can see our movement and we can see theirs.
After this we pair up and we explore interaction we another creature. The idea is to respond to each other's action so... A acts, B reacts which becomes a source for A new reaction and so on. The only thing to bear in mind is that you can a) move and then make a sound, b) move while making a sound, c) make a sound and them move. After trying we are reminded of the importance of breaking a rythm whenever one is established. I find interesting also how to move the other person by pulling apart, seeing how you can make the other circle around you...
Then we lie on the floor and we are giving a pair of magic underwear which moves our pelvis in a franctic way, we need to accompany these movements with a sound, the sound will be a vowel (a, e, i, o, u) and we need to give it different intonations and intentions that will go with the movement. After this we pair up again and start playing with the 1) original movement, 2) moving and making a sound in their different combinations, 3) action reaction, 4) different intentions with the sound.
Stories start to develop.
Finally Athena plays some music (first tango, then some sort of flamenco) which becomes a mask for our movement interactions with sounds. We must establish with our partner whether we're flirting or fighting and then let the music inform our choices.
We do a couple of improvs in front of the class
Nuevos compañeros. Nueva profesora. Nuevo espacio.
Ondulation as a point of departure, we repeat the movement we learn some time ago and let it develop into a step in the space letting.
The idea is to get back to the original ondulation and see if it can develop naturally, if it can flow seamless trying to identify where that impulse comes from. From there we let the movement lead us into a first step into the space, and after the first -a second step.
Next Athena asks us to explore the range of that movement and see how it can develop progressively into an increasingly big movement. We are also asked to let sound appear if it comes. What generates is a movement that has the beginning of a state, it provokes a sort of pre-character state: sometimes angry, sometimes afraid, sometimes franctic.
With this in mind we are asked to explore that state that sort of appears shyly and let it find its full expression. Now we see a very raw material in expansion, great amount of energy being deployed.
But after a while, with most of us panting and sweating we are reminded that we might not need to spend so much energy in the recreation of that state. We should be able to 'play' those big range of movements and sounds in a more constracted way. In a way that would allow us to play for a three hours show. One way to construct might be reducing the length of the strides or steps but giving them more importance, constructing them so that they carry the same weight as a big step. Another way to construct all that raw material, that bulk of clay, might be to make contact with the space, as some of us are very lost in that crazy movement and do not take the time to take the space in. The timing, the rythm and the pauses allow for a more constructed movement.
With this in mind we are told to find one movement within this state, with a beginning and an end. With this we parade in twos so that the rest of the class can see our movement and we can see theirs.
After this we pair up and we explore interaction we another creature. The idea is to respond to each other's action so... A acts, B reacts which becomes a source for A new reaction and so on. The only thing to bear in mind is that you can a) move and then make a sound, b) move while making a sound, c) make a sound and them move. After trying we are reminded of the importance of breaking a rythm whenever one is established. I find interesting also how to move the other person by pulling apart, seeing how you can make the other circle around you...
Then we lie on the floor and we are giving a pair of magic underwear which moves our pelvis in a franctic way, we need to accompany these movements with a sound, the sound will be a vowel (a, e, i, o, u) and we need to give it different intonations and intentions that will go with the movement. After this we pair up again and start playing with the 1) original movement, 2) moving and making a sound in their different combinations, 3) action reaction, 4) different intentions with the sound.
Stories start to develop.
Finally Athena plays some music (first tango, then some sort of flamenco) which becomes a mask for our movement interactions with sounds. We must establish with our partner whether we're flirting or fighting and then let the music inform our choices.
We do a couple of improvs in front of the class
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