We started the session this week the same as the week before, simple, small movements which grew into bigger gestures which included the whole body, and then completing both the Makko-Ho stretches and the Patterns of Total Body Connectivity in order to warm up and stretch different parts of our body. We also focused more on controlling our breath by sighing several times and shouting out words.
Following this, we looked at the idea of relaxing the body completely whilst lying on the floor, with every breath I took in I could feel myself relaxing further and further into the floor. We slowly began working with our breath to move into different positions, I found it best to move upwards and away from the floor or my body whilst breathing out, and using the breath in to relax into the floor or original position once again.
These movements became bigger and bigger so that we were lifting the majority of our bodies off the floor, sitting up. We then tried allowing our bodies to fall back to the floor slowly so that our whole body was once again in contact with the floor, this was followed in sequence by returning to the original position. I used my breath with focus here in order to aid my body in reaching up or down.
Towards the end of the activity, we were able to go from various standing positions to lying on the floor in one smooth movement and then returning to the particular position in one motion, still remembering how important the use of our breath was for this.
This was a very helpful exercise for me personally, I felt that I had never noticed how my breath was used in a performance with movement before, but it is a great tool for aiding me as a performer at particular points, breathing in to go down into a position, and breathing in when I need to lift a part of my body. The use of breath can create a mood for the character and therefore add to the emotion and physicality of a performance.
During the week, we had been asked to look into the Gallery at an art exhibition called "In The Moment", this consisted of a large collection of photographs which had captured memorable sporting moments, some positive and some negative. We were organised into small groups where we discussed internally our thoughts and ideas from the photographs, we then tried to capture these in still images which were performed to the group. As a group, we decided to focus on the movement before and after the point of the photograph as these are key elements, without these parts the actual point in the photo would not be possible. We noticed that because of the movements involved, it was sometimes possible to determine a facial expression even if this was not visible in the photo. Between our images, we used a neutral position in order to provide a contrast between the grand movements being completed in the photographs.
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